In my
previous post I presented some recordings of Ray Moore during his Radio 2 early
show years. But there’s another programme that Ray was associated with for just
over a decade and that’s The Monday Movie
Quiz. Radio 2’s movie quiz provided the opportunity for listeners to answer
about five mostly multi-part questions, usually posed with accompanying film
music, songs or dialogue, and to send off their postcards in the hope of
winning a cash prize, usually about a tenner. This at least kept up the
listening figures across the series as you always had to wait a week for the
answers. How this was dealt with for the last programme in the series I can’t
now remember; I can only assume a continuity announcer read them out the
following Monday night.
The
programme was the idea of producer Martin Fisher, who would also research and
set the questions for the first nine series, after which he was promoted to
Head of Light Entertainment, Radio. Following Ray’s forced retirement from the
microphone in January 1988, Chris Serle took over the role of question master.
By this time David Rider was tasked with writing the questions.
In late 1990
the programme moved to a Saturday night at 5.30 pm coupled with Cinema 2 at 5.00 pm in a timeslot that
had previously been the home for Sports Report until that, and all Radio 2’s sports coverage, had been shifted over
to the new Radio 5. Of course the Monday bit of the title was dropped in the process.
For the 1991 series Chris Stuart became the new host for the remainder of the
run of The Movie Quiz.
The final
two series in 1993 and 1994 moved to Friday nights at 7 pm by which time
contestants were also invited to take part over the phone in addition to just
one write-in round. Upping the budget, any winners now pocketed £20.
Later in
1994 Radio 2 would also drop Cinema 2,
with any movie news now covered by the Arts
Programme. Film aficionados could still test their knowledge against that of
a celebrity panel on Radio 4’s Screenplay,
which had been running since 1987, but that too ended in December 1994.
I’ve posted
these first two editions of The Monday
Movie Quiz before but they’re now on YouTube. First, from series 8 is the
third programme on 28 February 1983. The theme tune, in case you’re wondering
is Showtime by Neal Hefti from the
1965 film Harlow.
At least you
can hear the answers to that last edition as here’s the quiz as heard the
following week on 7 March 1983. Incidentally the opening and closing announcements
are by Len Jackson.
Forward
three years for an edition from the eleventh series and a programme broadcast
on 27 January 1986. The announcer is Robin Boyle.
The final
edition of the 18th series from 23 July 1993 is also on YouTube
posted by Radio Recollections.
The Monday Movie Quiz series details
Series 1 to
12 presented by Ray Moore
Series 13
and 14 presented by Chris Serle
Series 1 to
9 were devised and produced by Martin Fisher. Series 10 to 14 written by David
Rider and the producers were Mark Robson (s10 & s12), Harry Thompson (s11)
and Lissa Evans (s13 & s14).
Series 1: 5
April to 28 June 1976 (13 programmes)
Series 2: 14
March to 30 May 1977 (12)
Series 3: 6
March to 22 May 1978 (12)
Series 4: 22
January to 9 April 1979 (12)
Series 5: 25
February to 12 May 1980 (12)
Series 6: 5
January to 4 May 1981 (18)
Series 7: 25
January to 31 May 1982 (except 3 May) (18)
Series 8: 14
February to 13 June 1983 (18)
Series 9: 23
January to 2 April 1984 (11)
Series 10:
13 May to 24 June 1985 (7)
Series 11:
20 January to 31 March 1986 (11)
Series 12: 1
June to 3 August 1987 (10)
Series 13:
25 April to 27 June 1988 (10)
Series 14:
15 May to 17 July 1989 (10)
The Movie Quiz series details
Series 15 to
17 on Saturday night. Series 18 and 19 on Friday night.
Series 15
presented by Chris Serle and the remainder by Chris Stuart.
Producers:
Paul Schlesinger (15), Philip Clarke (16-17) and Barry Littlechild (18-19)
Series 15:
10 November 1990 to 19 January 1991 (except 29 December) (10)
It’s now more than 30 years ago since Ray Moore’s passing
but he remains fondly remembered by listeners and fellow broadcasters alike.
Comments such as “the best presenter Radio 2 ever had... still much missed”
have been made to my YouTube posting of Ray’s last show from January 1988. “I
don't think Ray ever realised how good he really was. He just loved doing the job!” reads another,
and “Ray made getting up for work a fun experience. Sadly missed”. Radio 3’s
Ian Skelly told me he thought Ray “a genius broadcaster who really knew how to
burnish a phrase to make it stick. I learnt so much from him about how to
properly talk to the one person I know is listening. So few seem to clock
that’s what it’s all about. You’ve got to look them in the eye, as Ray put it”.
One-time BBC Light Entertainment producer Dirk Maggs said that “Ray Moore was
one of the sweetest, poetic and bravest (in the face of terminal illness)
people I’ve had the privilege of working with”. The technical operators working
for Radio 2 at the time loved working with him, Richard Murrell (now a BBC news senior director) recalls that
the TOs would offer to get the teas and
he’d reply “Thank you, I’ll have a cup of brown and filthy thanks” and that
“Joyce the resident tea lady loved him!”
Thankfully recordings of Ray’s shows still surface from time
to time. So I’m grateful to Nancy Sandoval who contacted me to tell me that
she’d taped some of his mid-80s morning shows to take with her when she moved
to the USA, taking a little bit of home with her as it were.
In this post I’m presenting most of this treasure trove of recordings
which have kindly been digitised by Stacey Harris.
Listening back to these shows you can hear how Ray weaves
some real magic despite, let’s be honest, a paucity of material. There are letters
from listeners offering light-hearted abuse or telling of their many ailments. The
music playlist has few highlights, seemingly mainly consisting of recorded
sessions and country music tracks you’ve never heard before.
The earliest recording dates from Wednesday 24 July 1985. At
this point Ray’s show ran from 6 to 8 am, between an early show usually
presented by his mate Colin Berry – though this particular week it was Martin
Kelner – and Ken Bruce at breakfast.
Here’s the first hour. How many DJs would come out of the
news quoting a hymn “When morning gilds the skies, my heart awaking cries” into
The Hollies with Here I Go Again? The
music selection includes such corkers as Perry Como’s Weave Me the Sunshine from a “slightly shop-soiled LP” (it was
actually from 1974) and The Adventures with Feel
the Raindrops that reached the dizzy heights of number 58. Needletime
restrictions were still in force so we get recorded sessions by Iain Sutherland
and his Orchestra and former NDO pianist Tom Steer with his Orchestra.
Show two is two sections from Tuesday 27 August 1985. A
listener has spotted a brief tv appearance from Ray on In at the Deep End, “you didn’t half sound posh”. These programmes
do throw up some rare tracks including yet another record by that prolific
session musician Tony Burrows, this time as part of West End Boys with Summertime. We also hear Maxine by Raf Ravesnscroft whose
best-known contribution to pop music is of course playing sax on Baker Street. In session this week is
Ronnie Aldrich and his Orchestra and Tony Barrett and his Swing Band.
We move onto October 1985 for the first of four recordings
all from the same week. From Monday 21 October Ray is back “full of vigour and
vim... and a little drop of scotch as well” after being unwell the previous Friday.
There’s a reminder that the early Pause
for Thought slot was sometimes just a hymn rather than a spoken
contribution. Especially recorded for the show this week is Johnny Arthey and
his Orchestra who first started broadcasting on the Light Programme in 1963.
The uncredited newsreader is Paul Leighton. If the version of America after the 6.30 bulletin sounds
familiar that because it’s played by an outfit going by the name of The
Sunshine Steel Band which includes our old friend Tom Steer. Their recording of
Coconut Woman was used as the theme
for Radio 4’s Trivia Test Match –
listen out for it on Thursday’s show.
On to Tuesday 22 October where the recording – running at
just over 20 minutes -starts with a Godley and Creme track Golden Boy that totally failed to trouble the chart compilers.
Irish singer Mary O’Hara speaks and sings in Pause for Thought. The comments about ‘licking the other side of
Peter Sellers’ are about the Royal Mail stamps featuring some famous faces from
British cinema history. Sellers was on the 17 pence stamp.
Skipping a day it’s now Thursday 24 October and the
recording starts with the unmistakable sound of the Pink Panther theme, here
played by Johnny Arthey’s lot. Then it’s Pause
for Thought regular, Frank Topping, talking about the Biblical character of
Onesiphorus who “cheered people up”. There’s some banter about operations in
“the knicker area” and the whereabouts of the Donkey Islands (they’re in Greece
but I had to Google that one). Reading
the 6.30 am headlines is David Geary. If you’re wondering what on earth the
“concrete doughnut” is, it’s Ray term for Television Centre where he would do
the odd shift pre-recording those BBC tv trailers – “programmes for Tuesday
evening on BBC1”.
Reaching the end of the week with the show for Friday 25
October.Reading the trailer for Radio
2’s Humoresque is Steve Madden.
There’s also a reminder that Su Pollard enjoyed a brief career as a singer as
Ray plays her first single Come to Me (I
Am Woman), though she gets cut off in her prime on this recording.
And finally a generous chunk of the show from Friday 9 May
1986 in the week after Ray has presented Radio 2’s coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest in Bergen. By
now Ray’s timeslot has changed to a 5.30 am start running through to 7.30 am
when Derek Jameson hosts the breakfast show, having taken over from Ken Bruce
the previous month. The music is
interspersed with news of counts at two by-elections in Ryedale and in West
Derbyshire where it was triggered by the resignation of Matthew Parris when he
joined ITV’s Weekend World (so an era
when MPs weren’t also expected to present current affairs programmes!). With
Ray in the studio is political correspondent Noel Lewis.
Ray would often mention what was going on in the other
studios and there’s a nod to his Radio 3 colleagues who announce This Week’s Composer (who happens to be
Johannes Ockeghem). Listen out for Peter Barker “with the Black and Decker
hairstyle”, “talcum Malcolm with the shiny apple face” (Malcolm Ruthven) and
“old Holmstrom sewn up for the duration in his Fair isle woolly and National
Health glasses” (John Holmstrom). Another Radio 3 announcer from that period,
Donald Macleod – now of course the long-time host of Composer of the Week – remembers Ray would kid listeners thathe was “always kilted and carrying with me a
sgian dubh to pick lumps of Smetana out of the studio carpet”.
Question: What's the name of the first Radio 2 pop quiz
presented by Ken Bruce? If you answered Pop
Master then you could be said to be "one quiz out!" The answer is
Pop Score, the quiz that ran from
1972 to 1992 which Ken chaired for the last five series.
Devised by Light Entertainment producer Richard Willcox is
was initially seen as a Radio 1 versus Radio 2 contest (early series were
carried on both stations) with Tony Blackburn captaining the Radio 1 side and
Terry Wogan representing Radio 2. Popping the questions was Pete Murray.
Willcox continued to produce and write all the questions, and indeed do the
audience warm-up, for the first fifteen series until Mark Robson took over
production. By this time Willcoxhad
already brought in a certain Phil 'The Collector' Swern to help set the
questions. Phil had previously attended some of the show's recordings to 'help'
Tony with some of his answers until he was thrown out of the Paris studio a few
shows later.
Early guest stars were a little eclectic to say the least. You can
hardly say it was on trend, more like a decade behind. Many of the musicians
had been sixties hitmakers with virtually no current chart performers taking
part in the early series with perhaps the exception of Lynsey de Paul, Dana, Neil
Sedaka, Long John Baldry and Mike Batt. But Deryck Guyler and Reg Varney?
In time under Willcox's tenure a smaller pool of
contributors was called upon, often appearing on a other radio panel games. For
instance we have actor Patrick Mower (also on The Law Game), singing impressionist Johnny More and Ray Alan (both
on The Impressionists), Lance
Percival (also on Wit's End and Just a Minute) and Duggie Brown (also on
The Name's the Game and Dealing with Daniels). Some folk such as
Tim Rice (also on Just a Minute and Trivia Test Match) really knew their
stuff but generally it was a chance to muck about and the quiz side was never taken
that seriously.
Later series, produced by Robson, Dirk Maggs and Phil Clarke
took things a little more seriously, but only just, with people from the music
business and DJs. Typically a show might include rounds such as continuing to
sing a song after its faded (think of Clue's
Pick Up Song), correcting song titles, identifying song covers or records played backwards, and a final quick-fire
round. Throughout the quiz the chairman would, depending on how many points
they'd scored in the round, read out so many letters of a song title that team's
could guess at any time for bonus points.
The old Blackburn/Wogan rivalary ended in 1977, though they
returned for the 200th edition in 1987. Coming in as team captain for Terry was
David Hamilton and a couple of series later Ray Moore replaced Tony. Ray in
turn would become chairman when Pete left the BBC and after a series of
different captains - Joe Brown, Duggie Brown and Helen Shapiro, who eventually
became a show regular - new boy Ken Bruce was drafted in.
Following Ray's untimely death Ken took over as quizmaster
(Ken was also hosting the Radio 2 general knowledge show The ABC Quiz) and with David off to commercial radio the team
captains settled down to be Helen Shapiro and Alan Freeman.
It all came to an end in April 1992 by which time panel
games were virtually a thing of the paston Radio 2.
Six years later Ken Bruce and Phil Swern, who had both
worked together on Pop Score,put their heads together (together with Ken's then producer Colin Martin) and came up with the
format for Pop Master. The daily
music quiz which stops the country is celebrated tonight in the Radio 2
programme One Year Out-The PopMasterStory and tomorrow sees the second All Day quiz.
Series Details
Question masters:
Pete Murray series 1 to 10.
Ray Moore series 11 to 13
Ken Bruce series 14 to 18
The theme tune used for the majority of Pop Score's run was Chicken
Feathers by film and TV composer Pat Williams from his 1968 album Think. In the late 80s Weather Report's Birdland was used for a while.
Series 1 Team
captains Tony Blackburn (TB) and Terry Wogan (TW)
24 Oct 1972-6 Feb 1973
Guests: Ken Goodwin, Alan Price, Lynsey de Paul, Kenny
Lynch, Roger Greenaway, Rolf Harris, Peter Noone, Vince Hill, Dana, Roy Castle,
Anita Harris, Georgie Fame, Tim Rice, Lance Percival andTony Brandon
Series 2 TB TW
20 June 1973-20 Mar 1974
Roger Whittaker, Peter Noone, Tony Brandon, Lance Percival,
Wally Whyton, Leslie Crowther, Bob Monkhouse, Mitch Murray, Roy Castle, Dana,
Chris Barber, Joe Brown, Jimmy Tarbuck, Adrienne Posta, David Jacobs, George
Chisholm, Kenneth Williams, Tim Rice, Gerry Marsden, Peter Jones, Deryck
Guyler, June Whitfield, Bernard Cribbins, Johnny Pearson, Matt Monro, Lonnie
Donegan, Rolf Harris, Ron Goodwin, Reg Varney, Eric Idle, Ray Fell, Frankie
Vaughan, Michael Aspel, Diana Dors, Jon Pertwee, Kenny Ball, Neil Sedaka,
Dickie Henderson, Peter Goodwright and Henry Cooper.
Series 3 TB TW
(Paul Burnett covered for TB on two shows and Tim Rice covered for TW on two
shows)
2 Oct 1974-26 Mar 1975 Leslie Crowther, Henry Cooper, Cathy
McGowan, Bob Monkhouse, Joe Brown, Kenny Ball, Ray Alan, Long John Baldry,
Michael Parkinson, Marian Montgomery, Ray Fell, Vince Hill, Clive lea, Tim
Rice, Ronnie Carroll, Matt Monro, Mike Batt, Mitch Murray, Cindy Kent, Roy Castle,
Diana Dors, Norman, Newell, Roger Whittaker, Ray Barrett and Roger Kitter
Series 4 TB TW
30 Oct 1975-22 Jan 1976
Bernard Cribbins, Tim Rice, Diana Dors, Kenny Ball, Roy
Hudd, Ray Alan, George Chisholm, Long John Baldry, Lonnie Donegan, Rolf Harris,
Clive Lea and Johnny Moore
Series 5 TB TW
13 Sept-29 Nov 1976
Leslie Crowther, Diana Dors, Bernard Cribbins, Tim Rice,
Rolf Harris, Charlie Williams, Johnny More, Duggie Brown, Bobby Knutt, Jack
Douglas, Patrick Mower
Series 6 TB TW
1 Sept-17 Nov 1977
Bobby Knutt, Bernard Cribbins, Faith Brown, Derek Griffiths,
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Vince Hill, Duggie Brown, Ray Alan, Johnny More, Patrick
Mower, Dave Evans and Tim Rice (also captain on a couple of shows)
Series 7 TB David
Hamilton (DH)
11 Sept-27 Nov 1978
Lance Percival, Joe Brown, Mike Batt, Clive Lea, Patrick
Mower, Johnny More, Tony Brandon, Bill Oddie, Rolf Harris, Bobby Knutt, Dave
Evans and Tim Rice
Series 8 TB DH
19 May-4 Aug 1980
Dave Dee, Lance Percival, Mike Batt, Vince Hill, Joe Brown,
Tim Rice, Duggie Brown, Bernard Cribbins, Bobby Knutt and Johnny More
An edition of Pop
Score from this series is on Mixcloud here though sadly the last couple of
minutes are missing.
Series 9 DH Ray
Moore (RM)
24 Aug -9 Nov 1981
Faith brown, Johnny More, Duggie Brown, Lance Percival, Rolf
Harris, Tim Rice, Joe Longthorne, Dave Evans, Vince Hill, Acker Bilk and Joe
Brown
Series 10 DH RM
20 June-5 Sep 1983
Helen Shapiro, Acker Bilk, Joe Brown, Vince Hill, Duggie
Brown (also captain on two shows), Patrick Mower, Susan Maughan, Freddie
Garrity and Mike Berry
I've unearthed the 7th programme from this series.
Series 11 DH
(Other captain was either Duggie Brown, Joe Brown or Helen Shapiro)
19 Feb-14 May 1985
Rolf Harris, Mike Berry, Acker Bilk, Helen Shapiro, Clodagh
Rodgers, Susan Maughan, Frank Ifield, and Russ Conway
I've previously posted the 11th programme in this series before
but only recently uploaded it to YouTube
Series 12 DH Ken
Bruce (KB)
15 Mar-24 May 1986
Frank Ifield, Acker Bilk, Duggie Brown, Helen Shapiro,
Lonnie Donegan, Vince Hill, Helen Shapiro, Tim Rice, Des Cluskey, Con Cluskey,
Noddy Holder and Paul Nicholas
Series 13 DH KB
14 Mar-20 June 1987 (includes 200th edition with Pete
Murray, Terry Wogan and Tony Blackburn)
Alvin Stardust, Helen Shapiro, Lynn Sheppard, Denny Laine,
Rick Wakeman, Noddy Holder, Steve Marriott, Acker Bilk, Tim Rice and Frank
Ifield
Series 14 Helen
Shapiro (HS) + either Joe Brown, TB, Adrian Love or Paul Jones (First to be
compiled by Phil Swern)
12 Mar-28 May 1988
Cathy McGowan, Adrian Love, Tony Blackburn, Duggie Brown,
Dave Dee, Gloria Hunniford, Rick Wakeman, Tommy Vance, Noddy Holder, Robbie
Vincent, Tom McGuinness
Series 15 HS +
either Adrian Love or Alan Freeman (AF)
25 Mar-10 June 1989
Duggie Brown, Rick Wakeman, Rolf Harris, Peter Dickson,
Noddy Holder, John Craven, Tim Rice, Alvin Stardust, Paul Jones and Vince Hill
Series 16 HS AF
(Producer Dirk Maggs)
21 Apr-7 July 1990
Janice Long, Adrian Love, Sheila Ferguson, Paul Jones,
Duggie Brown, Stephanie de Sykes, Joe Brown, Rose-Marie, Don Powell, Lyn Paul
and Colin Berry
The first edition of this series is available on Mixcloud
here.
Series 17 HS AF
27 April-15 June 1991
Cheryl Baker, Adrian Love, Wendy Richard, Noddy Holder,
Alvin Stardust, Janice Long, Rose-Marie and Colin Berry
Series 18 HS AF
(Prod Phil Clarke)
28 Feb-17 April 1992
Terry Wogan, Pete Murray, Adrian Love, Lyn Paul, Lynsey de
Paul, Alvin Stardust, Noddy Holder and Rose-Marie
As is typical with virtually all Radio 2 panel shows from
this era they've never been repeated since they ended so if you've got any
recordings of Pop Score please let me
know.
A Happy New Year to all the readers and supporters of the
blog. As a special treat I'm taking you back exactly forty years and the
overnight show on BBC Radio 2, seeing out 1977 and welcoming in 1978.
This was the third year that both Ray Moore and Jean Challis
had hosted an all-night late show at a time when overnight broadcasting on the
station was restricted to New Year's Eve, occasional overseas sports coverage
and US elections. In 1977 Ray was coming to the end of a stint presenting the
weekend late shows before moving into the early show seat vacated by his mate
Colin Berry. Jean Challis was usually to be found linking families around the
world on Family Favourites.
Live from Broadcasting House the programme also included a
visit to the Hilton Hotel to hear Joe Loss and his Orchestra with Ray making
the dash over to the hotel to introduce proceedings. Sadly that bit of the show
is missing. But there's still just over an hour's worth of audio to savour.
Musically speaking we're still in the period when needletime restrictions means that records - from the likes of Roger Whittaker and Peters
and Lee so nothing too raucous for a party night - were interspersed with the
BBC Radio Orchestra, the BBC Big Band and the Don Lusher Quartet.
Such was the rarity of overnights on Radio 2 that Jean
mentions that listeners to BBC Radio Oxford have just joined and there's a
hello to BBC staff working over in the Bush House newsroom.
John Ireland's illustration for the Radio Times. Whilst Ray and Jean were on Radio 2 over on
Radio 1 it was Pop Into 78 with Kid Jensen and Peter Powell
This recording comes from two sources. The bulk of it was
recorded by Martin Ward, running from about 12.50 am to 1.50 am on New Year's
Day 1978, so all the midnight shenanigans aren't here. Jimmy Kingsbury is heard
reading the 1.00 am news bulletin. As Presentation Editor Jimmy often took
these unsocial hours shifts and he would also have read the 12.33 am shipping
forecast on 1500m long wave - not heard on this VHF recording.
Topping and tailing Martin's recording is my own off-air
snippets of the show opening and then winding-up at 6.30 am.
The original All-Night
Late Show ran at just under seven-and-a-half hours kicking off after 11.00
pm news read by Paddy O'Byrne and Sports
Desk with Tony Adamson. Sarah Kennedy was on continuity duty that evening.
So here's a taste of how Radio 2 sounded four decades ago.
Cue Count Basie with Nice 'n' Easy.
As part of the BBC's effort to support and entertain those
on the Home Front it devised a number of series that would visit the factories
and workplaces throughout Britain. These were Factory Canteen, Works
Wonders and, the best-known and longest-running of them all, Workers' Playtime. The latter ran on the
BBC Light Programme until 1964 and is remembered in this the seventh of nine
posts celebrating the launch of the Light seventy years ago this week.
First off the blocks was the professional entertainment for
factory workers that was taken care of by members of ENSA in Break for Music. It first aired on 1
January 1940 and started a regular weekly run on the Home and Forces Programme
from July 1940 (1) until November 1945.
This was followed by the short-lived Factory Canteen starting on the Home Service on 3 August 1940, but
not becoming a regular programme (on both the Home and Forces Programme) until
the following May. (2)
Factory Canteen relied
on the worker's themselves to provide the entertainment as did the much
longer-running Works Wonders that was
broadcast on the BBC's Home Service between October 1940 and August 1949.
Meanwhile professional entertainment for the factory workers
was taken care of by members of ENSA in Break
for Music that first aired on 1 January 1940 and then started a regular
weekly run on the Home and Forces Programme from July 1940 (2) until November
1945.
Workers' Playtime
was produced by the variety department of the BBC under the stewardship of John
Watt but the programme had the "blessing" of Ernest Bevin's Ministry
of Labour. In the 1942 BBC Year Book
he described what happened on each show:
Every Saturday morning, a small band of engineers and
artists, some of them world-famous stars, go by bus to a factory or to some big
munition-works buried in the heart of the country. There the studio is set up
in the factory canteen, a temporary small wooden stage erected at the end of
the room, the microphone slung from the roof, and the entertainment given to as
many workers as can be packed into the available space. Of course in these big
factories all the people cannot get into the canteen at one time, and
accordingly the broadcast is relayed throughout the whole of the works so that
everyone can hear it. Workers in their homes, too. can hear it and know what is
being done to entertain the members of their families who are working so
steadfastly for the national effort.
Here John Watt, the BBC's Head of Variety, tells the story of Worker's Playtime:
Like the other series in this post Workers' Playtime had a try-out (in January 1941) before running
weekly from May 1941 and then thrice-weekly from October that year. During its
wartime run the exact location was kept secret (no doubt for fear of providing
information to the enemy), hence the announcement that the programme was coming
from "a factory somewhere in Britain". Post-war we at least got the
general area; "from a canteen in Coventry" or "from a jam
factory in Bristol".
Not all editions came from industrial settings: apparently
to celebrate the gathering of record crops in 1942 an edition was broadcast
from a harvest field among the Herefordshire hills "when farm-workers,
sitting on the grass at sunset, heard famous music-hall artists on a rustic
stage decked with hops and corn." (3)
From the start involved in the Workers' Playtime unit were producer and presenter Bill Gates (pictured above) and
pianists George Myddleton and Bruce Merryl. Bill remained with the show until
the end of its run some twenty three years later. Other regular hosts included Philip
Robinson, actors Philip Garston-Jones and Randal Herley and staff announcer
Roger Moffat. Regular musical support was provided by pianist James Moody and
the Harry Hayward Trio.
The show featured hundreds of comedians, singers and
musicians who were prepared to trek across the country for the half-hour
performance but (at least from my quick perusal of the BBC Genome website) the
cast invariably seemed to include comic Cardew Robinson, impressionist Peter
Goodwright, singer Sheila Buxton and a star turn from Ken Dodd. The format was
pretty much the same: opening musical act, comedian, singer and finally the
star comic.
With such a high turnover of shows Workers' Playtime provided budding comics and singers with radio
exposure. One such was Roy Hudd who got his radio break in 1960, thanks to the
intervention of Ken Dodd. Doddy had mentioned to one of the show's producer's
James Casey, head of Variety for the BBC in Manchester, that he'd seen an up
and coming young comic in a show at Babbacombe.
Based on that recommendation Casey booked Hudd for Workers' Playtime which came from the Ferodo Brake Lining company
in Chester-Le-Street and featured top-billing for Jimmy Clitheroe. (4)
Roy Hudd recalled that first appearance in his
autobiography:
I had no idea where Chester-Le-Street was, so I travelled
there the night before the broadcast and stayed in a B&B. This cost me all
the cash I had and the next morning I had to walk a long way to the factory in
the rain. My precious stage suit was creased but dry, as were my precious bad
parts. When I arrived among the Fereodo brake linings, soaked to the skin, I
was greeted by Jimmy Casey who explained that everyone in the show stayed in
Manchester and was transported to the venue on the morning of the gig.: the BBC
paid for the hotel and the transportation. Thankfully he did spring me the cost
of the B&B or I'd never have got back home.
That Workers' Playtime
was the first of many I did for Jimmy Casey. I was first spot comic with everyone
from Albert Modley (who didn't use a script, just a page from an exercise book
with six large lettered words on - the cues for his gags), Ken Platt, Cardew
Robinosn, Mrs Shufflewick and yet another hero - Ted Ray. (5)
James Casey himself remembered his time producing the show when
he spoke to the Radio Times in 1982:
"Each factory was an event to the workers in a way it could never be
today- now that they can go home to a vast choice of televised entertainment.
Those workers were incredibly enthusiastic, and there was such camaraderie that
it was too easy for comics to get laughs by slipping in jokes about the
factory, perhaps mentioning the foreman by name. We had to try to stop them,
because there were thousands of listeners out there who might be wondering who
'Charlie' was." (6)
Workers' Playtime
had started as a Home Service show and remained as such until the Autumn of
1957 when from 1 October it switched to the Light Programme. (7) It trundled on
until the final edition aired on 6 October 1964 "from a corrugated case
manufacturer's at Hatfield, Herts", still with Bill Gates presenting and
featuring Anne Shelton Cyril Fletcher, Val Doonican and The Ramblers.
But it wasn't exactly the end. The following week it was
back re-badged as Variety on Tour
with Bill Gates & co. not just visiting factories but also "Service
Establishments and hospitals". You'd have been hard pressed to spot the
difference as the first show came from the North - a factory in Hebden Bridge -
with a bill that featured Ken Dodd, was presented by Roger Moffat and produced
by James Casey.
Variety on Tour
lasted just six months and came off-air in April 1965. But in a nod to its Workers' Playtime heritage
top-of-the-bill were Elsie and Doris Waters. As Gert and Daisy they'd often
appeared on the show and were the main guests on the one-hour fifth birthday
show (along with their brother Jack Warner) and the twenty-first birthday show
in 1962.
This recording of Workers'
Playtime comes from a week-long revival on Radio 2 in October 1982 - to
coincide with the BBC's 60th anniversary. The Monday to Thursday shows were
once again produced in Manchester by James Casey, this time with Peter Wheeler
as compère.
The stars included Ken Dodd (again!), Harry Worth, Roy Castle and Les Dawson
with good old Harry Hayward and his Trio providing the musical accompaniment.
But this is the Friday edition from
"a record factory in Hayes" (EMI, of course) with Arthur
English, Colin Crompton, Sweet Substitute and the Max Harris Trio. The master
of ceremonies is Ray Moore doing sterling work by observing the two rules to
get the audience on your side: knock the surroundings and drop in the name of
the foreman. This edition aired on 8 October 1982.
1 - The first edition
of the series on 22 July 1940 went under the title Between Shifts and included an introductory announcement by Ernest
Bevin. The programme reverted to Break
for Music from 29 July 1940.
2 - The final edition of Factory
Canteen aired on 23 October 1941
3 - As quoted in the BBC
Year Book 1943 p. 32
4 - Broadcast on 17 November 1960 and also featuring Jill
Day and Frank Cook. Needless to say the actual factory name wasn't mentioned on
air or in the Radio Times
billing.
5 - Quoted from A Fart
in a Colander by Roy Hudd (Michael O'Mara Books 2010)
6 - Quoted in Playtime
again by Kenneth Robinson in the edition dated 2 October 1982
7 - And in the event was cut down from two editions a week
to just one a week for the rest of its run.
Imagine being able to fashion a radio time-travelling device
that can receive your favourite show from the past or being able to listen
again to an historic broadcast (and no I’m not talking about 4 Extra!)
OK, so it probably wouldn’t be BBC Radio 2 on 18 February
1985. As far as I know nothing earth-shatteringly significant happened that
day. But, for no real apparent reason, thirty years ago I decided to stick some
tapes in my cassette recorder and capture that days output, well a large chunk
of it.
This is your chance to hear again how the station sounded in
the mid-80s, from Night Ride to Round Midnight, stopping off at the JY
show, John Dunn’s Mystery Voice and
all points in between. Here's a quick rundown of the day in jingle form and the full Radio Times schedule.
These are the technical bits: I’m posting the clips on my
YouTube channel just to ensure a wider audience. I’ve chopped out most of the
commercial music tracks in order to avoid any copyright notices. So far this
seems to have worked, though for some reason listeners in Germany may not be
able to hear all the programmes, sorry Germany.
I’ll be posting the shows online during the day of the 18
February 2015 at the same time as their original start time – although to avoid
staying up all night Peter Dickson and Colin Berry’s show will be available on
Tuesday night. Each time a programme is added I’ll update this blog post, send
a Tweet and update my Facebook page. All times in GMT of course.
Unfortunately I didn’t record every show that day. So you
won’t hear the specialist music shows with Alan Dell and Humph, the
mid-afternoon sequence Music All the Way
or that evening’s Star Sound Special.However, elsewhere on this blog you can read
about and hear Alan Dell, Humphrey Lyttelton and Music All the Way. Also the quality of the audio is variable, this is nothing to do with my FM reception at the time but more the fact I used budget tapes.
Kicking things off at 1 a.m. was Peter Dickson with a
suitably jokey start to Nightride.
Peter took care of the overnight shifts alternating with either Bill Rennells
or Charles Nove. Lack of needletime meant we still had doses of the Radio
Orchestra, the Brian Lemon Trio and so on. Making the first of two appearances
that day is John Fogerty, whose new album Centrefield
had just been released, although Peter seems not to know the former lead singer
of Creedence Clearwater Revival. There’s a also a talk from Barney Lawrence –
anyone know who he is? This kind of (mildly) comical talk was still a feature
of Nightride just as they had been on
You and the Night and the Music.
Following Nightride
was a repeat of the previous day’s Two’s
Best with John Dunn, demonstrating that the current overnight repeat policy
is nothing new. Sadly I didn’t record this programme.
At the time the king of the early shows was Colin Berry
who’d had early starts, on and off, since January 1976. Getting up before dawn
every day must have been taking its toll as Colin reports he’s practically
wrecked the studio and nearly garrotted himself with his headphone lead. Note
also a mention of changes that evening on BBC TV, he’s referring to a new BBC1
globe and the launch of EastEnders.
Listen out too for a news summary from David Bellan.
At 6 a.m. enter the still much missed Ray Moore. Ray’s on
form this morning, witness that lovely intro into the Shakin’ Stevens track
There’s also mention of the announcers over on Radio 3 with Tarmac Rigby and Miss
Hughes who’s apparently “gone into tax exile”. Towards the end of this
recording catch Bill Rennells voicing a trail for Gloria’s show later that day
and her special guest David Cassidy – more on that to follow.
It’s “hello chums” from Ken Bruce on the Radio 2 breakfast
show. Perhaps it should have been the Late,
Late Breakfast Show as Ken didn’t go on-air until 8.05 am. At the time of
this recording he’d been presenting the programme for just six weeks. Punctuating
proceedings are Steve Madden reading the news and Pause for Thought with the Rev Roger Royle. Listeners to Radio 2’s
current morning output will notice how much calmer it all was thirty years ago;
no shouting, no whooping, no laughing acolytes and no-one else to read the
traffic news.
The matters on Jimmy Young’s agenda at 10.30 are the
Falklands, the miners, school dinners and Winter Fuel Allowances. In this
extract he interviews SNP MP Gordon Wilson about his Cold Climate Allowance
Bill and Peter Smith of teachers’ union AMMA about school kids supposedly
having ‘chips with everything’. In contrast to Jeremy Vine’s show no listeners
appeared on the programme to voice their opinions, all the feedback from “the
listener” is read out by Jim himself. “Bye for now!”
“Hello there!” It’s amazing to think that Radio 2 took an
hour out each lunchtime for David Jacobs to play “our kind of music”. Much as I
love the music he played it really did seem like the station was stepping back
to the days of the Light Programme, even including a track by Frank
Chacksfield, a regular on the Light.
As a reminder that Radio 2 used to have women presenters during
the day on weekdays here’s Gloria Hunniford with an edited version of her
90-minute show. Promised guest David Cassidy is a no-show, having backed out at
12 noon due to a “contractual difficulty”, so instead its Bonnie Langford!
Glo’s second guest is author John Byrne Cooke, son of Alistair Cooke.
From 3.30 pm it’s as if Radio 2 had a short interlude and
put up the audio equivalent of the test card whilst Music All the Way was on. This was a 30-minute sequence of music on
record and BBC sessions. I didn’t record the programme for 18 February but you
can hear an edition from February 1986 here. Of Music All the Way former Radio 2 presenter and announcer Charles
Nove commented: “An odd
little duty, that one, which involved heading for one of Broadcasting House's
least popular studios (bit of lashup, no windows, dodgy ventilation etc) and
doing the live top and tail for this, and playing in the music, ‘supervised’ by
the BBC's most panicky producer and a bored engineer. Overmanning? Never!”
In all the recordings so far you’ll have heard very little new music, and certainly nothing that would trouble the charts. That’s why David Hamilton’s show was such a breath of fresh air, and rightly dubbed “the music show”. There’s also plenty of listener interaction and prizes available in The Music Game and Spot the Intro.
The
reigning monarch of drivetime for an eon was John Dunn. The show’s mix of
music, topical interviews and a quiz – in this case the long-running Mystery Voice competition – is still the
template for today’s Radio 2 offering. Providing the programme rundown at the
end of this recording is John Marsh.
There
are no recordings of Alan Dell’s double bill of the Dance Band Days and the Big
Band Era but you can hear other editions here. Nor did I tape Humphrey
Lyttelton with The Best of Jazz but
there’s plenty of Humph here. And again I inexplicably failed to record Star Sound Special in which John Benson
featured the music of Nelson Riddle. But what you can hear again is the third
edition of a new panel game, and the second dose that day of David Hamilton, in
Some of These Days. The premise of
the programme was to answer questions about news, events, TV shows and music
that happened on that day in history. On the panel are Peter Jones, Sheila
Tracy, Fiona Fullerton and Barry Cryer.
Closing
proceedings for the day is Brian Matthew with the daily arts and music show Round Midnight, at this point more than
halfway through its 12 year run.Brian’s
guests are Patrick Marr and James Roose-Evans talking about the revival of
George Axelrod’s play The Seven Year Itch
and author Nickolai Tolstoy plugging his latest book The Quest for Merlin.
The majority of listeners get their radio 'fix' first thing in the morning, radio’s primetime. In this post I'll be looking at the history of early morning radio on the BBC Light Programme and Radio 2: Breakfast Special and The Early Show. The Breakfast Shows of Wogan, Blackburn, Moyles et al I'll feature at a later date.
Home Service 16 Sept 1948
Go back far enough through the Radio Times back issues and you’ll find that there was little choice on offer for the morning listener. On 16 September 1948, for example, the Home Service kicked off with Bright and Early at 6.30 am featuring Jose Norman and his Rumballeros followed by Morning Music at 7.15 am with music from the BBC Midland Light Orchestra. Over on the Light Programme they had a lie-in and didn’t start transmission until 9 am when, after the news, you’d hear Housewives’ Choice.
Home Service 8 Aug 1958
Fast forward ten years to August 1958 and the Home Service still offers up Bright and Early (David Shand and his Orchestra) but now after 7 am we get Today, considerably shorter and less news-driven that it would become and with no listed presenter, though it is likely to be Jack de Manio. Morning Music was now on the Light from 7 to 9 am.
To give a flavour of what these shows sounded like here’s a short montage created from longer recordings courtesy of Brian Reynold’s website Masters of Melody.
This was pretty much the pattern into the 1960s: the Home Service provided the talk with Today and the Light the BBC recorded sessions from orchestras, including its own in-house ones, and various ensembles playing light music, songs from the shows and popular classics before record requests in Housewives’ Choice at 9 am.But by 1964 early morning music radio was slowly beginning to change. The BBC could no longer be immune to the commercial pressures of the pop world and the pirates were on the horizon.
In January 1964 the BBC sought public opinion on its programming and by way of a week-long experiment some programmes featured singers amongst the otherwise instrumental diet. Some shows had announcers whereas previously the music was played in sequence with no interruption or, as with Morning Music, confined to time checks every 10 minutes or so and hourly reminders of the contributing orchestras. (When on the Home Service Morning Music had an announcer providing a straight introduction to each piece).
Easter Sunday 1964 brought the launch of Radio Caroline. Pop music was now available, to at least part of the country, all day long. Add to this the growing trend to enjoy music on the move with your portable ‘tranny’ and improvement in car radio equipment and you can see why the BBC needed to change, which it did, slowly. There had also been a shift in listening habits with less people tuning in during the evening due to competition from the television; the draw of Dixon of Dock Green and Emergency Ward 10 proved too great.Larger weekday radio audiences would eventually be realised at breakfast time.
By the late 50s the BBC was looking to extend its broadcasting hours, there was a fear that unused airtime and frequencies might be hived off to any commercial competition. It took the results of the Pilkington committee and further negotiations with the Musicians’ Union for more needletime to increase the hours – the Light Programme would start earlier and closedown at 2 am and the Third Programme’s frequencies were used to provide the Music Programme service during the day. These changes were phased-in by late ’64.
Light Programme 11 June 1965
From August 1964 the Light Programme started its transmissions at 5.30 am with Bright and Early (the old Home Service show had returned as a daily fixture from September 1963 and would run until December 1964) and Morning Music between 6 and 8 am. From now on weekday editions had a named announcer assigned on a daily rota– Jimmy Kingsbury, Bryan Martin, Tony Raymont, Paul Hollingdale, John Dunn, Rodney Burke, Sean Kelly, Jon Curle, David Geary, Roy Williamson, Peter Latham, John Roberts, Brian Perkins and Bruce Wyndham. Vocal groups, such as The Rita Williams Singers, are gradually brought into the music mix. As with the orchestras and bands-of which 35 are used in any given week-most of the musical contributions are BBC recorded sessions, though we now see the addition of “some stars on records”.
At the same time the Light also introduced a new disc programme, Family Fare, filling the gap between Morning Musicand Housewives’ Choice. It had a different presenter each week also drawn from the ranks of the staff announcers. Popping up on this show were Bryan Martin, David Geary, John Roberts, Martin Muncaster, John Webster, Roger Moffatt, Robin Boyle and Rodney Burke.
The last Morning Music went out on Friday 22 October 1965, introduced by Paul Hollingdale. The following Monday heralded a new start to the day: Breakfast Special.
Breakfast Special ran from 5.30 to 9 am, 6 days a week and, at 3½ hours in length, became the longest regular show on the radio. Presenting duties in that first week were split amongst three staff announcers: John Roberts took Monday and Wednesday, Paul Hollingdale Tuesday and Friday and then Peter Latham Thursday and Saturday.
Featured in that first programme with John Roberts were The Albany Strings directed by Reg Pursglove, The Albert Marland Sextet, Jack Nathan & his Band, The Des Champ Octet, The Richard Holmes Quartet, Harold Smart Trio and the BBC Scottish Variety Orchestra conducted by Jack Leon. Light Programme chief Denis Morris expected the programme to be “friendly and relaxed, but not unduly talkative”.
The use of staff announcers on Breakfast Special continued for the whole of its run to 1972. The rotation of presenters at daily, weekly, then later monthly or quarterly intervals dominated both this programme and The Early Show until 1993 with some notable exceptions who enjoyed a longer tenure – Simon Bates (74-75), Colin Berry (76-77, 84-88) Bruce Wyndham (Saturdays 67-75), Tom Edwards (Saturdays 75-79) and Dave Bussey (weekends 86-91).
A member of that early announcing team, Paul Hollingdale (these days living and working in Vienna) told me that at the time “the Head of Presentation was a man called Andrew Timothy, a veteran announcer and father of the actor Christopher Timothy. One of my first hurdles was to handle the death of Churchill which I announced with all the protocol that went with that on that Sunday morning in January 1965. Timothy told me that I would have to be de-luxembourgised - and I was directed to listen to various announcers like Colin Doran, Frank Phillips and Tim Gudgin.”
The hosting of Breakfast Special, and the many other music shows that gradually appeared in the schedules more often than not fell to the newer guys, the reason, Paul Holligdale says, was that “many of the older brigade of announcers like Frank Phillips, Alvar Lidell, John Snagge, John Webster etc. couldn’t quite believe that changes were in the air and so they didn't want to involve themselvesand weren’t in tune with the trends in pop music at that time. Apart from that they were all coming into the final furlong of their careers at the Beeb.”
Musically Breakfast Special was a mix of the old Morning Music and Family Fare: pop records and popular/light orchestral pieces and small instrumental bands/groups. This was by necessity as the BBC still had its contractual agreements with the Musicians’ Union and with its own in-house orchestras and daily ‘needletime’ was in single figures. By the late 60s increasingly more records were played and the session pieces from each orchestra or band were spread across the week. Paul Hollingdale recalls that that it was “decided to introduce a limited amount of needletime into the shows -one disc every fifteen minutes. And there were inserts of vocals from groups like The Settlers, The Pete King Chorale, Lois Lane etc.”
Here’s a typical Radio Times billing:
Light Programme 24 Sept 1966
From the start Breakfast Special had its own signature tune. Initially this was Jumping Jupiter by the Ron Godwin Orchestra.
But apparently the producers didn’t think much of that and by 6 December it was changed to C’Mon In by Syd Dale, provider of many a theme over the years. Later Syd recalled that when he wanted to branch out on his own he had enough money to finance the recording of four of his own compositions and that C’Mon In was one of them. Its use as a theme by the BBC led to his contract with library music publishers KPM.
Although by the 1970s needletime had increased the use of BBC recorded sessions and re-recordings of pop songs of the day in Breakfast Special and then The Early Show continued into the 1980s. These two extracts should help give a feel for the sound and style of Breakfast Special, by now on Radio 2. From 1969 here’s the familiar warm friendly tones of Ray Moore, who’d joined the programme in 1968.
Writing in his autobiography Tomorrow is Too Late, Ray had this to say about his time on the programme:
The show gave us a refreshing freedom, three and half hours on the air in front of a live microphone and virtually a licence to say anything we liked. Here was the opportunity to put a personal stamp on a show, to develop it any way we chose. It was a glorious ego trip for us all. We might not be part of the BBC delegated ‘to instruct and inform’ but we did carry out the BBC’s other mission, ‘to entertain’, and we worked hard to create a show which worked.
From 1 January 1970 this is Paul Hollingdale with the first Breakfast Special of the new decade and, in fact, his penultimate regular show for the BBC.
During its time on the Light Programme Breakfast Special continued to be presented by three different announcers every week. Included in the rota were the following with, curiously, something of a New Zealand link and its fair share of former actors.
Bruce Wyndham – long-time BBC announcer on the General Overseas Service and then the Light Programme. Left the corporation in 1976 and later worked for Radios 210 and Hallam. Read more about Bruce here.
Peter Latham – former TV actor who left the BBC in the early 70s to become a priest in New Zealand. He died after being run over by a train.
John Roberts – a New Zealander who was a relief BBC tv newsreader in the early 60s (most famously on duty the evening that the news of JFK’s assassination broke), a Home Service and Light Programme announcer 1964-67 and presenter of Cavalcade.
Paul Hollingdale – broadcasting career started with the BFN in Germany. On Radio Luxembourg for 2½ years both from the London end and the Grand Duchy before returning to London in September 1964 and applying for the job of announcer. See also Down Your Local – Radio 210.
Jon Curle – former actor who became an announcer in 1959, later on Radio 3. See also here.
David Symonds – gained broadcasting experience in New Zealand before joining the BBC in 1965. Read more in this post.
Dwight Wylie – the BBC’s first black announcer who joined the BBC in 1965. Returned to Jamaica in the early 70s and headed the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation. Died in 2002. David Dunhill - former journalist and British Forces Network announcer who joined the BBC in 1946. For many years he was the resident announcer on Take It From Here. Worked behind the scenes between 1956 and 1965 before returning to the microphone. Closed down the Home Service in 1967 and opened up Radio 4 the next morning. On retirement he trained many BBC local radio staff. Died in 2005.
Robin Boyle – with the BBC from 1947, best known as the long-running host of Friday Night is Music Night. See also here.
John Dunn – announcer across all the networks from the early 60s who presented a wide variety of programmes. Later best known for his drivetime show on Radio 2.
Sean Kelly – another former actor in films and the occasional tv series between 1957 and 1964 (633 Squadron amongst his credits) on the BBC from 1964 until the early 1969 then at Capital Radio as one of the hosts of Night Flight.
By late 1967, just before Radios 1 and 2 launched, the pattern had changed to a different presenter each week, Monday to Friday, and usually Bruce Wyndham on Saturday morning. Most of the old Light Programme teamcontinued to work on Radio 1 and/or Radio 2 as announcers/newsreaders, presenters of Breakfast Special or of Night Ride - the exception was David Symonds who joined Radio 1’s main daily DJ line-up.
When Radio 1 and Radio 2 replaced the old Light Programme on 30 September 1967 the first show on air that Saturday morning was Breakfast Special with Paul Hollingdale.
Most of the old Light Programme shows transferred across to Radio 2, but as funding was tight the two new networks continued to share programmes across the week, a situation that remained to a greater or lesser degree into the late ‘70s. The BBC paid for a brand new set of jingles for the fledging Radio 1, actually familiar to listeners of the old pirate station Radio London as they included re-sings of many of their PAMS produced packages. No such luxury was afforded to Radio 2 who didn’t use jingles until 1969. But for a while Breakfast Special did use this generic morning jingle “Wake Up Easy, Start the Day Right”.
I’ve never been able to establish who produced this jingle, though I guess it’s also a product of PAMS. Mike Vincent, now of Mountain Group News in the States, told me that he recalled a New York morning personality playing this on their daily show. Others have said they heard it on 560 KMON in Montana and 1270 CHAT in Medicine Hat. (Edit Jan 2019: I'm now aware that the jingle comes from a Production Aid disc issued by SESAC and is credited to a J. Fegins)
Pepper Tanner provided Radio 2’s first bespoke jingles in 1969. Here’s the Breakfast Special one.
On 1 October 1967 Radio 2 started a Sunday version of Breakfast Special, its name Sunday Special. The presenter was Robin Boyle, who stayed with this show for most of its run. The first programme offered listeners music on disc plus Clinton Ford, The Radio Band Show conducted by Paul Fenoulhet, Brett Stevens, Harold Smart and the Strumalongs. Sunday Special ran until March 1970 when Keith Skues took over the slot with Sunday with Skues and from July ’71 to March ’72 Barry Alldis. These Sunday programmes had a strange split existence, each show starting on Radio 2 and then concluding over on Radio 1 only.
By 1968 the number of presenters for the weekday shows was confined to just the three, Paul Hollingdale, Ray Moore and John Dunn, doing a week at a time. By 1970 Paul had left the BBC leavingjust Ray and John.But the all that was to change from April 1972 when the King of Breakfast started his reign.
It was Easter Monday, April the 3rd, 1972 that Terry Wogan moved across, somewhat reluctantly at the time, from his afternoon Radio 1 show to the new Radio 2 breakfast show. Breakfast Special was gone, replaced by Wogan between 7 and 9 am and from 5 to 7 am by The Early Show.
Like its predecessor The Early Show was in the hands of BBC staff announcers. First in the hot seat was Barri Haynes. I’m not sure how long Barri was with Radio 2 but at the time he was a continuity announcer at LWT. Barri was followed in May by Peter Donaldson – later best known as Chief Announcer on Radio 4.
The programme had its own signature tune, Eye Catcher by Otto Keller. This sample isn’t the one used on air which was a little more souped-up.
By the summer of 1972 The Early Show took on a familiar pattern of a rota of presenters, so just when you got used to one voice along came another. Until August 1973 both Tom Edwards and Pete Brady took it in turns but when Pete left the BBC, Barry Alldis was the other half of the team.
It was all change again from 25 March 1974 when a certain Simon Bates became the resident morning DJ. The old theme was dropped, replaced by David Rose’s When You’re With Me, which may be more familiar as the theme to the US TV series Little House on the Prairie.
Simon Bates was briefly an announcer over on Radio 4 before joining the presentation team on Radio 2. He worked on The Early Show until December 1975 with holiday cover provided by a young Jeff Cooper and Tony Brandon, of whom more later.
On 5 January 1976 it was all change again when the man who would be long associated with early morning radio took over: Colin Berry.By now the show’s timeslot had been reduced to just one hour (this had happened the previous January) between 6 and 7 am but, as Colin told me “it being technically on Radio 1 as well and because there was pretty well only LBC, Capital and BRMB there was only minimal competition, consequently the audience was huge”.The audience was bumped up further as most of the show was also carried by many of the BBC local radio stations, who would dip out of the show as and when they started their own programming with a pre-recorded message from Colin.
During Colin’s era there were another couple of music tracks that became closely associated with the show. For the weather bed a piece called Bikini Parade by the Pierre Lavin Pop Band was used, and continued to be used by Ray Moore. In this clip that I’ve edited together note the use of another song as a short jingle, Good Morning by Leapy Lee.
The second track was a delightful 1974 single from an Australian group, The Moir Sisters, with the title Good Morning (How Are You?), a gift of a title for morning radio and used by Colin as a jingle, as in this short sequence. The voiceover is provided by Rod Lucas.
After a couple of years Colin moved aside for his old mate Ray Moore. Ray’s voice first thing in the morning is the one that many listeners, and professionals, recall with great fondness from this period on Radio 2. In fact Ray’s stints on The Early Show were non-contiguous over the next six years until a schedule re-shuffle in 1984. Here’s a clip of Ray from April 1980.
By now the show had no fixed theme tune but Ray used various tracks over the years such as Here, There and Everywhere by The Mike Leander Orchestra (he brought this with him from his Saturday night shows) and For All We Know by Ray Conniff. In the above clip there’s a third theme, also used by Steve Jones in 1980. I’ve eventually identified this music, with a little help, as The Minor Bird by Syd Dale (from his 1970 album The Birds).
Hear more of Ray's early morning shows in this post.
Ray’s time on The Early Show was interspersed by appearances from another of DJs:
Richard Vaughan – had worked at BBC Radio London hosting Home Run, In Town This Afternoon and Rush Hour. Later TV work includes BBC South Today, NBC Super Channel, Eurosport and voiceovers.
Steve Jones – started at Radio 1 then joined Radio Clyde’s start-up team. Back at the Beeb in 1979 on The Early Show and later promoted to weekday lunchtimes. Best know on TV for The Pyramid Game.
David Allan – former pirate DJ on Radio 390 before joining the BBC as radio producer and then presenter specialising in country music on Country Meets Folk, Country Style and Country Club. BBC2 continuity announcer 1969-1994.
Bob Kilbey – ex-Radio 1 specialist music presenter and later on BBC Radio London.
Tony Brandon
Tony Brandon – one-time Radio 1 DJ who’d moved over to Radio 2 in 1971. Tony’s first broadcast was in 1952 in the Carroll Levis Show and he subsequently toured with the show as a comedian and impressionist. On Radio Luxembourg 1966-7 and a short stint on pirate Radio London before joining the new Radio 1 team on Midday Spin and Radio One Club. Gained a daily afternoon show in January 1969 initially called Sounds Like Tony Brandon. Ousted by Dave Cash eight months later he was on at the weekend with a late-night Tony Brandon Meets Saturday People. Back on weekday afternoons from April 1970 before moving over to mid-morning on Radio 2 on 4 October 1971. Tony moved around the day with various weekday shows on the network until 3 January 1975. Between 1975 and 1978 he provided holiday cover for Terry Wogan and on The Early Show for Simon Bates as well as presenting Radio 2 Top Tunes and starring in his own sitcom The Brandon Family.Tony was back on The Early Show in between August to December 1978 and February to December 1979. His was the first show on air on Radio 2 when it switched over to medium wave in November 1978. In this clip you’ll notice that Tony was still using his old sig tune Happy Music by James Last & his Orchestra.
During this period Tony was still working in the theatre and would regularly do panto, hence his “disappearance” from the schedules around the festive period. Tony was back on Radio 2 in 1981-83 (see below) before heading off to County Sound and Saga. Now retired from broadcasting he still does some voiceover work.
Amongst those providing holiday cover in 1979 was former New Faces compere Derek Hobson who at the time was popping up on various shows on Radio 2.
Meanwhile let’s go back to the weekend. From late 1967 the Saturday morning seat at Breakfast Special was occupied by Bruce Wyndham. He continued on Saturdays when The Early Show came along in 1972 before hanging up his headphones in July 1975, after which he went freelance.
Taking over from Bruce on the Saturday shift was Tom Edwards who enjoyed a continuous run of nearly four years. Tom’s show was a regular listen for me. With him came his old pirate radio theme Mitch Murray’s version of Skyliner but by now a more Radio 2-friendly version by German bandleader Bert Kaempfert was in use. Often newsreader James Alexander Gordon, “old haggis features” would pop into the studio and help read the wedding day requests, presumably he’d then hang around to read the classified football results in the afternoon. Here’s a clip of Tom’s show from the early 1980 presented, as he says, with “effervescent panache”.
By the early ‘80s the Saturday show was followed on Radio 2 by David Jacobs and on Radio 1 by Playground and then Tony Blackburn with Junior Choice so often Tony would pop in for a chat with Tom.
As Tom Edwards recalls, “I left the staff of the BBC in 1979 to go freelance so up until the late 80s I was working at Thames TV during weekdays and HTV in Cardiff at the weekends with Tyne Tees, Anglia, Southern and ATV when they needed me. Then I went to Los Angeles for a few years but got homesick and within weeks was back at BBC East doing Look East and BBC Radio Norfolk, coming full circle in a way as I started at BBC East when I had just left Radio Caroline for the last time in 1967”.
From March 1979 Paddy O’Byrne was the Saturday host for nine months before Tom Edwards returned for a further 16 months. He was back again for three weeks in December 1982 and you can hear part of Tom’s Christmas Day show here.
By May of 1981 Tony Brandon had returned to Radio 2 to present not just the Saturday show but also a new Sunday one, taking over from Sam on Sunday when Sam Costa “retired”. This was the start of a long period of chopping and changing on the weekend shows and I’ll leave the detail to the timelines at the end of this post. Throughout 1982 and 1983 hosts included Sheila Tracy (the trucker’s friend), Peter Marshall (who’d also worked on weekend Late Shows), George Ferguson (ex-Manx Radio, BRMB and Beacon Radio) and fresh from Radio 1, Paul Burnett.
This is Tony Brandon waking up the nation on Saturday 16 May 1981.
Notice the continued use of BBC-recorded session music and a preponderance of country music, which inexplicably seemed to feature widely on the Radio 2 overnight and early morning shows at the time.
From January 1984 the weekend Early Show was carved-up: now on between 4 and 6 am initially with George Ferguson and followed by Sheila Tracy with The Saturday Show (6 to 8 am) or The Sunday Show (6 to 7.30 am). This remained the schedule until 1992 by which time Dave Bussey (later a mainstay at BBC Radio Lincolnshire) and David Allan were regulars.
That same 1984 shuffle of the deck meant changes to weekdays too. After an absence of six years Colin Berry was back on The Early Show now on even earlier between 4 and 5.30 am followed by Ray Moore from 5.30 to 7.30 am and then Terry Wogan. Technically Ray was now neither on The Early Show or the Breakfast Show, but what we would now call “Early Breakfast” or Ray would refer to as “The Porridge Programme”. As he remarked on the day of the station’s 20th anniversary, here he was all those years later still working the morning shift – “what a wonderful progress in my career”.Sadly illness meant that Ray had to bow out unannounced on 28January 1988.
Here’s an opportunity to hear again part of Colin Berry’s show as broadcast on Monday 18 February 1985.
Of the 80s shows Colin recalls that it was “a hard show to live with for three or four years, it meant getting up at 3 am and leaving the house by ten past. So it was a case of living your life around the show really, though as a youngish feller I burnt numerous candles at both ends!” So after his last weekday programme on 13 May 1988 Colin got to enjoy a lie-in.
By this time (1988) Chris Stuart had taken over Ray Moore’s old time slot and The Early Show was back with the continuity announcer/newsreading team personnel – Alex Lester (still working through the night some 20+ years later), Charles Nove (still heard on Radio 2 reading the news when not on BBC Oxford), Steve Madden (nowadays walking up listeners in the Home Counties on BBC Berkshire) and "Voice of the Balls" Alan Dedicoat.
January 1993 beckoned in a new era, one regular presenter for The Early Show. That presenter was Sarah Kennedy. Sarah had been at the station before as an announcer and newsreader between April 1977 and February 1979. Then it was off to the telly with Game for a Laugh and Busman’s Holiday on ITV and Sixty Minutes and The Animals Roadshow for the BBC, with just the occasional foray back to the radio, such as holiday cover for Wogan in 1983.
Sarah takes The Early Show record with an unrivalled 17 years, though the show soon gained the subtitle of The Dawn Patrol, with the Radio Times adopting this billing from 17 July 1995. Inevitably all those early rises took their toll and Sarah struggled with a number of short-term absences in latter years, covered at short notice by Richard Allinson, Lynn Parsons or Aled Jones. The show was often dogged by controversy (though this was sometimes newspaper mischief-making) and she tended to polarise Radio 2 listeners. Here’s Sarah on 13 August 2007.
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Her last Dawn Patrol was exactly three years later, she went off sick on the Friday and never returned, meaning she was unable to say a final farewell to her listeners. Effectively the weekday Early Show had fizzled out anyway when the title was dropped. The current early morning show just gets the billing of Vanessa Feltz; programme titles for the most part are little used these days.
Meanwhile back at the weekend, and winding back the clock to 1992, the Sunday Early Show was dropped in favour of a longer running The Sunday Show with new presenter Barbara Sturgeon. The Saturday shifts fell to Alex Lester, Steve Madden and Bill Rennells before Colin Berry made his final return to morning radio at the station in April 1993.
For the rest of the ‘90s the Saturday Early Show was seen as something of a try-out slot with all manner of presenters from local radio, singers, writers, actors and sports people. A number of the shows were also independently produced. Worth mentioning are Mo Dutta who would also cover for Sarah Kennedy and eventually take up residency on Saturday and Sunday mornings on Radio 2 from 1994 to 2009; Lynn Bowles, now known for her travel bulletins and banter with Ken Bruce; Diane-Louise Jordan, the new presenter of Sunday Half-Hour; and Helen Mayhew, who would return to the station on Big Band Special.
Again like the weekday show the Saturday Early Show just kind of disappeared. It had long been dropped as a programme title and when Janey Lee Grace took over from February 2000 it eventually ended up in the Radio Times listings for the Friday night rather than the Saturday morning and from 2003 ran went out from 3 to 6 am.
So there you have it, the history of about 16,000 get-ups, waking up to sound of the wireless or just rolling over for an extra 10 minutes snooze. Raise your early morning cup of tea to Paul, John, Bruce, Simon, Sarah, Tom, Colin, Ray and all the rest.
“Wake up easy start the day right. Wake up easy smile and be bright. We’ll start the day off with music for you, the latest word on the weather and news. Wake up easy smile and be gay. Put on the coffee, start a new day. It’s time for music, so out of that bed and wake up easy don’t be such a sleepy head”.
I am indebted to the following for their assistance in writing this post: Colin Berry, Tom Edwards, Paul Hollingdale, Tony Currie, Brian Reynolds, Malcy B, Andy Howells, Noel Tyrrel and all the readers that commented on the first Early Show post.
Help Required. Do you have any audio clips of Simon Bates or Bruce Wyndham on the Radio 2 Early Show that you’d be willing to share? If so please contact me.
The Breakfast Show/Early Show Brief Timeline
For a more detailed timeline you can download a PDF document here.
1965
1 November 1965 First Breakfast Special with John Roberts (Light Programme)
1967
30 September 1967 First Breakfast Special on Radio 1 & Radio 2 with Paul Hollingdale
1 October 1967 First Sunday Special with Robin Boyle
1970
29 March 1970 Final Sunday Special
1972
31 March 1972 Final Breakfast Special with John Dunn
1 April 1972 First Saturday Early Show with Bruce Wyndham
3 April 1972 First weekday Early Show with Barri Haynes
Presentation eventually shared between Pete Brady and Tom Edwards for a month at a time
1973
6 August 1973 Barry Alldis shares presenting with Tom Edwards when Pete Brady leaves the BBC
1974
25 March 1974 Simon Bates takes over as host
1975
26 July 1975 Tom Edwards takes over from Bruce Wyndham on Saturdays
1976
5 January 1976 Colin Berry takes over as host
1978
2 January 1978 Ray Moore’s first stint. Until 1982 presenting duties are shared with Steve Jones, Tony Brandon, Richard Vaughan, David Allan and Bob Kilbey
1979
31 March 1979 Paddy O’Byrne takes over on Saturdays
1980
19 January 1980 Tom Edwards back on Saturdays
1981
9 May 1981 Tony Brandon regular Saturday presenter
10 May 1981 Tony Brandon on new Sunday Early Show
1982
Weekend hosts alternate between Peter Marshall, Tony Brandon, George Ferguson, Sheila Tracy and Tom Edwards
28 June 1982 Ray Moore on weekdays
1983
Weekend hosts are Sheila Tracy, Paul Burnett, Tony Brandon and George Ferguson
1984
21/22 January 1984 George Ferguson at weekends 4-6am followed by The Saturday Show or The Sunday Show with Sheila Tracy
23 January 1984 Colin Berry on The Early Show 4-5.30am, Ray Moore 5.30-7.30am followed by Terry Wogan
There are numerous weekend hosts throughout 1984-1986
1986
20 December 1986 Dave Bussey now regular weekend presenter
1988
28 January 1988 Ray Moore’s final R2 show
4 April 1988 Chris Stuart takes over Ray’s programme slot
13 May 1988 Colin Berry’s last regular weekday show
The weekday show presenters change at intervals between Steve Madden, Bill Rennells, Charles Nove and Alex Lester from 1988 to 1992
1989
15 January 1989 David Allan now regular Sunday presenter with Dave Bussey on Saturday only
1991
30 March 1991 Saturday show presented by Steve Madden then Charles Nove and Alex Lester
1992
4 January 1992 Sunday programme dropped for an extended TheSunday Show. Saturday hosts are Alex Lester, Bill Rennells and Steve Madden
1993
4 January 1993 Sarah Kennedy now permanent host
17 April 1993 Colin Berry on Saturday mornings
1994
2 April 1994 Saturday morning duties change at regular intervals from now on
2000
12 February 2000 Janey Lee Grace takes over as regular Saturday host through to 2004.
2010
13 August 2010 Sarah Kennedy’s last show
2011
17 January 2011 Vanessa Feltz starts new show 5-6.30am
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