D Day Has Come

John Snagge’s D Day announcements on the BBC are some of the most momentous archive recordings ever. Less well known is the story behind the announcement of Communique Number One and the importance of the pink card that contained the historic news.

This audio is a recording not of the initial announcement but of the midday bulletin read by Snagge on 6 June 1944.

The story of the behind-the-scenes events at Broadcasting House and at the small underground cubicle beneath the Senate House of London University – the wartime HQ of SHAEF, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces – were recalled by John Snagge and Michael Barsley in their book Those Vintage Years of Radio. Snagge takes up the narrative:

 “I had begun broadcasting many years before but in all those years, this was the most dramatic announcement I had ever made. It had an electrifying effect. The tension had been building up and increasing month by month, day by day, and finally hour by hour. As I read the announcement, from a pink card which had been handed to me at 9.15, I sensed the excitement, and knew what it would mean to the people at home, and especially to the resistance movement of the occupied countries in Europe.”

The story behind that pink card is also, in its own small way, dramatic. For the card had been written to be spoken by two announcers, and contained indications for Voice A and Voice B. The words were identical, but the announcement for Voice A had been crossed out in red pencil. Moreover, when Snagge went into his cubicle that morning (the broadcasting room was immediately below the Press Room, where the D Day news was given simultaneously and verbally) he realised that beside him another cubicle was the American military correspondent, Colonel Dupuis. His Voice A announcement, went out only to the troops waiting to go across to France to reinforce the initial landings.

What exactly had gone on, during the night hours, to make the change? Snagge takes up the story:

“We have to go back a bit. The date of the opening of the Second Front must have been one of the most closely guarded secrets of all time, and within the vast and intricate organisation necessary to mount such an assault, the BBC was destined to fulfil a special role – and to fulfil it according to the BBC method, that’s the important point. All the secrets have been out for years now – the last-minute postponement, the fact that the BBC Overseas reported the invasion two hours earlier, by quoting an Occupied Europe broadcast from Holland, and so on. But perhaps the victory of the BBC in insisting on the use of a well-known BBC voice first – which happened to be mine – has never before been properly emphasised. The man who won that victory was William Haley. As Director-General, he declared that the use of an American voice first would cause confusion, and that Voice A must not only be British, but be one of the regular, named announcers.”

The actual card of the announcement, with Voice A eliminated, was taken by Snagge back to Broadcasting House that day, and now hangs framed in his house. At one time, his friend Ed Murrow asked if he could borrow it, and when it was returned, the card was signed “To John Snagge, who first spoke these words on the air: Dwight D. Eisenhower.” Underneath are the confirming signatures: “Winston Churchill” and “Tedder” (Lord Tedder was then Eisenhower’s Deputy).

There were several more vitally important personnel involved in the D Day broadcasting story. As Head of Presentation, Snagge’s first job was to contact the Senior Superintendent Engineer, Leslie Hotine, and the man who put out European Service programmes, Gibson Parker. That was about three weeks before 6th June. The equipment was to be installed at SHAEF, not at BH. All programmes were to be faded, and linked with United Nations Radio. European transmitters would then put out an Alerting Period, with an initial call in English, followed by recordings made by Heads of State in their own language – Queen Wilhelmina, King Haakon, General de Gaulle, and so on. Snagge had to write out all his instructions in longhand, without secretarial help, until Senior Controller, Basil Nicolls, was able to supply his own personal secretary, who was within the magic circle. Frank Phillips recalls that he was in charge of Overseas announcements from Bush House, but said to Snagge “I don’t know what my instructions are.” Nor did Joseph Macleod, who was detailed for the Continuity announcing. The instructions were, of course, in longhand – in the safe.       

So to 5th June, and Snagge continues:

“I had not been allowed to leave Broadcasting House for days. I couldn’t even leave the office – not even to make necessary physical calls – without informing Duty Officer. On the 5th, I went to bed as usual, with no indication that we were on the verge of D Day. But looking back, I remember that the engineer in charge, Leslie Hayes, had a habit of saying, knowingly, ‘You can sleep tight tonight,’ or something similar. He said it on the night of the fourth, but not on the night of the 5th! At about 4 a.m. my bedside phone rang. Jim Forte, the Duty Officer, said: ‘You must report to SHAEF headquarters at once.’ I rang Frank and Joseph, and told them to take up their positions. With Pat Ryan[who led the BBC War Reporting Unit] I walked the ten minutes or so over to Malet Street. I don’t remember what we talked about. At 6.30 a.m. Macleod opened up the Service normally, and according to programmes in the Radio Times. We sat and waited. We know we had dynamite to announce –at last.

“A sergeant brought me a slip of paper at 9.0 a.m., headed Topflight Zero 732 GMT. This meant that 0932 Double British Summer Time was the deadline.  I contacted Joseph, to transfer from BBC to me at SHAEF, To Frank Phillips I said ‘Get the keys of the safe from Gibson Parker,’ and gave him zero hour. I had to scribble my own introduction to the Announcement on the pink card. Colonel Dupuis started his broadcast first, but only to his limited audience. The moment I heard him announce the invasion of Europe I went ahead too. After reading the momentous words, I repeated them, and again many times during the day, to the first War Report.    

“To while away the time of waiting, some of the high-ranking British and US officers around that tiny studio organised a two-shilling sweepstake on the exact hour. I won eight shillings with my estimate of 9.0 a.m., and still have the odd scraps of paper on which we wrote down our estimates. Such is radio history.”

Extracted from Those Vintage Years of Radio by John Snagge and Michael Barsley published in 1972 by Pitman Publishing.  

There’s more about War Report in a blog post following later today.

The Buzzer

What is it for? Nobody knows. Or at least those that do are keeping it secret.

It’s a radio station that emits nothing except a buzzing sound and identifies itself as UVB-76 but is known around the world as The Buzzer.

What we do know is that it’s somewhere in Russia and that very occasionally, once every few months, there’ll be some cryptic voice message.

The Buzzer has been transmitting for about 30 years, no-one is exactly sure of that too. It may be related to the work of a geophysical observatory; conspiracy theorists would have you believe it’s operated by the Russian military.

Recently, for BBC Local Radio’s Evening Show, Radio Humberside's Chris Arundel reported on The Buzzer.

All the Right Notes

The funniest moment in British TV history? The “Mr Preview” sketch from Morecambe and Wise’s 1971 Christmas Show. Fact. Well, it’s my fact at any rate. 

It was thirty years ago today that comedy legend Eric Morecambe was taken from us, felled by heart attack minutes after appearing on stage in Tewkesbury where he’d been reminiscing with his old chum Stan Stennett.

This is how BBC Radio 4 reported the news that day. The newsreader is Bryan Martin, the report comes from John Spicer.

In March 1984 Eric had recorded what was to be his last broadcast. He was the guest in the first show in a new series for Roy Castle - Castle’s Corner – the follow-up to the long-running Castle’s on the Air. Eric was a family friend – Roy had met his wife Fiona though an introduction from Eric – and that friendship is evident in this recording. When Eric goes off-script on more than one occasion Roy can be heard to remark “it doesn’t say any of that here.”  And we also witness Eric playing the trombone, sort of, along with the versatile Roy on trumpet.

Castle’s Corner aired on BBC Radio 2 on Thursday 31 May 1984. It was produced for BBC Manchester by Ron McDonnell.

In July of 1984 Radio 2 broadcast “an appreciation of Eric Morecambe” produced by Mike Craig and titled One of a Kind. There were contributions from Ernie Wise, Joan Morecambe, Eddie Braben, Dickie Davies, John Ammonds, Sid Green, Dick Hills, Dickie Henderson, Robert Morley, Harry Secombe, Stan Stennett and Frankie Vaughan.

One of a Kind was transmitted on Thursday 26 July 1984.

Eric Morecambe 1926-1984 (Coughs. “Arsenal!”)

The Arrival of Abba

So what can we learn from 70s pop? That Lowry painted “matchstalk man”, that Rasputin was “Russia’s greatest love machine” and that at Waterloo “Napoleon did surrender.”

Yes incredibly it was forty years ago that Abba burst onto the music scene at the Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo. Here’s David Vine introducing us to the “the ABBA group”. 

As we now know the members of Abba didn’t just appear fully-formed for Eurovision but had been performing in various Swedish folk and pop groups since the 1960s. By the time they met Radio 1’s Tom Browne in December 1976 the group had notched up four UK number one hits. This was a rare outing on the network for Tom on a programme other than the Sunday chart show. Typical of interviews with the group at the time there’s an explanation of the band name, stumbling over the Swedish pronunciation and flirting with Agnetha.  

Abba was broadcast on Radio 1 medium wave only on Tuesday 28 December 1976. When I recorded the programme I edited out most of the music. I’ve tidied up the edits and added some links and the opening and closing announcements from another source. The programme was produced by Paul Williams.


Move forward to 1978 and this time on Radio 2 and the station presents Abba ‘A Swedish success story’.  It covers much the same territory as the Radio 1 programme but is more of a cut and paste job, there’s nothing to suggest that presenter Richard Vaughan had talked to the group, perhaps it was producer Derek Mills. This programme was broadcast on Friday 24 March.

If you want to wallow in all things Eurovision this weekend then Radio 2 have their pop-up station starting at 12 noon today.  

Radio Lives – Derek Cooper

The first thing you notice is the voice, described by one writer as “rich as the finest burgundy”. That voice belonged to broadcaster and writer Derek Cooper who died on Friday.

Derek first started broadcasting in the 1950s on Radio Malaya, he ended up in the Far East following service in the Royal Navy. By the end of the decade he was controller of programmes for the English  Service (the ‘Blue Network’) but returned to the UK in 1960 when the station was relocated to Kuala Lumpur.

Joining ITN Derek would produce and sometimes narrate the Roving Report films, short travelogues from around the world. On YouTube checkout Roving Report: Project Malaysia narrated by Nigel Ryan and produced by Derek Cooper.    

When, in January 1963, Granada started their World in Action series, again Derek was on narrating duties, along with Wilfrid Thomas. In 1965 he joined the BBC working on Tomorrow’s World. Raymond Baxter was the presenter but it was Derek’s voice you heard on the filmed reports about the latest technological advances.  This clip comes from a 1969 edition:

On the radio Derek was a regular reporter on the Today programme. It’s a report he did for Today that led to interest in all things food and drink. He talked to foreign visitors to the UK about their response to finding menus full of coq au vin and lasagne rather than traditional British fayre. Articles in The Listener and other publications prompted him to write The Bad Food Guide, published in 1967.

When the BBC Light Programme revamped their news coverage in 1967 and introduced the nightly News Time (from 2 January) Derek was the first presenter. He remained with the programme, alongside other presenters such as Corbet Woodall, when it transferred to Radio 2 and was on the final broadcast on 3 April 1970.

The following week over on Radio 4 the first edition of PM went out with the pairing of William Hardcastle and Derek Cooper.  Bill looked after the hard news and Derek the lighter stories, though he was only with the programme for a few months, being replaced by Steve Race.  

On Radio 4 in the 1970s there were an increasing number of consumer-based programmes: You and Yours (which Derek presented), Checkpoint, Money Box, Going Places and Breakaway. But there was little about the food and drink on national radio other Tony De Angeli (“editor of The Grocer”) on the JY Prog and Margaret Korving’s shopping basket items on You and Yours.  Derek had first proposed a TV series about the food industry in the early-70s but by the time the budget for the pilot had been agreed he and producer Richard Wade had moved on. In the interim Derek went on to present The Food Programme for BBC Scotland and A la Carte for Radio 4 before his original idea was eventually picked up by Radio 4 for the ground-breaking The Food Programme first aired on Sunday 30 September 1979.  

This is a typical early edition from 1986 in which Derek looks at the coffee trade.

When The Food Programme hit the ten years milestone there was a special compilation edition broadcast on 11 September 1989.

Derek would make other programmes some such as STV’s Scotland’s Larder (all episodes are on YouTube) combining both his love of food and of Scotland – Derek was born in London but his mother was from the Western Isles, his father from Kent. For Radio 4 there was the 1989 series about the Western Isles, Islanders and in 1994 Cooper’s Particular Pleasures. For the BBC World Service in the late 80s he was one of the presenters of the arts programme Meridian.

He continued to write and broadcast about food but ‘retired’ from the microphone in 2002 – his last Food Programme was in September of that year. His campaigning work in raising standards in food production was recognised with an OBE, a Sony Award and awards that carried his name such as the BBC Food and Farming Derek Cooper Award and the Guild of Food Writers’ Derek Cooper Award for Campaigning and Investigative Food Writing or Broadcasting.
 

Derek Cooper 1925-2014

The Art of Hitch-Hiking

Series two of The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has just started a repeat run on BBC Radio 4 Extra.  When it was first broadcast in January 1980 it bagged itself a Radio Times cover, testament to the overwhelming success of the first series. (Was this the last time a radio comedy made the cover? Readers with better memories than mine please respond).

The programme billings were something special too as they included artwork from renowned graphic designer and illustrator George Hardie – think Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd album covers. They don’t all tie into the events in that particular programme – the five episodes aired every week night -  as, notoriously, Douglas Adams was still sweating over his scripts until the last minute and the final episodes were still being edited as the week began.

Here are Hardie’s illustrations:

Britpop In Session

Britpop is celebrated this week on Radio 6 Music and Radio 2 with the return of Whiley and Lamacq helmed Evening Session and a number of new and repeated documentaries.  

The rise of the guitar-based music scene produced some catchy tunes infused with 60s pop and 70s punk and was a much-needed shot in the arm for the music business. This week’s programmes coincide with the release twenty years ago this month of Blur’s seminal album Parklife; though lest we get too carried away with the impact on the pop charts of the time it’s worth remembering that this week’s number one single was the Dutch one-hit wonder Doop.  

Jo Whiley and Steve Lamacq remain closely associated with the Britpop scene as their Radio 1 Evening Session would be the main forum for new acts and live sessions. “we were the only people to pick on that stuff and dared to put these bands live on the radio”, recalls Jo. “No other station was interested in them for at least a year.”

In fact by stroke of luck they just happened to be in the right place at the right time and it was only the fallout from the Bannister-purge at Radio 1 that secured them the job. The Evening Session was an existing programme that had been presented by Mark Goodier since September 1990. That early evening slot already had a 10-year history of live sessions and breaking new acts with DJs Mike Read, David Jensen and Janice Long.   

Jo’s first Radio 1 appearance was In June 1993 when she covered for Mark on the Evening Session for a couple of weeks followed immediately by two weeks cover from Steve. He was back for a week from 23 August 1993 and the following week saw their first joint appearance. This temporary arrangement continued whilst Goodiebags looked after the Breakfast Show. It became a permanent gig from 25 October 1993 following a reshuffle with Mayo taking over from the departing Bates and Goodier remaining at breakfast.   

By chance I have the first 30 minutes of that 25 October show with playlist comprising dance, house and a new album from INXS.

There’s a opportunity to hear some archive editions from the Evening Session this week overnight on 6 Music and Mark Goodier is back with one of the Radio 2 documentaries with Not Just Britpop: Pop on Wednesday night.

The Face Behind the Voice features from the Radio Times in early 1994: