Yesterday broadcaster Steve Martin tweeted "BBC
colleagues - recreate the NBH experience at home by randomly changing the
thermometer (thermostat) and
releasing some pet mice".
A mouse you say? In the studio? Yes, unexpected rodent sightings
did seem to be commonplace around the BBC and I've dug out audio evidence of a
couple of incidences.
First, the now infamous mouse-related episode up at Media
City in January 2013 during Shelagh Fogarty's 5 live show. As guest Mike
Linnell spots the unwelcome intruder there are girlie screams from Shelagh as she
hops onto her chair in a scene reminiscent of an old Tom and Jerry cartoon. "It's
on the bloody table," she exclaims.
This all happened just a month after another mouse had
popped up during Kate Kinsella's weather forecast, presumably from a London
weather studio, during Iain Lee's BBC Three Counties morning show. This one is "quite
sweet actually" as Kate rejects Iain's suggestion to despatch it with a
book or a block of wood.
Local radio is under the cosh at the moment. Commercial
stations dominated by the Global/Bauer duopoly relentlessly head towards
networked shows and centralised production. In my home town the Viking FM
breakfast show comes from Sheffield, 70 miles away, and just last week the rockin'
church in Preston closed its doors. That
said the number of stations on offer, on DAB and online, continues apace. Last
year hardly a month passed without yet another fresh addition to one of the
existing brands.Localness hasn't been
totally abandoned as this year OFCOM are expected to announce further community
radio licences this month.
Meanwhile the BBC is feeling particularly unloved both by
the Government and the public whose perception of the Corporation barely extends
beyond Question Time and the Today
programme. Calls to 'scrap the licence fee' always overlook the funding model
for radio in general, and BBC local radio in particular. But BBC local stations
continue to demonstrate their worth. Consider the coverage of the flooding in
the last three weeks - and how often is it that adverse weather shows the
strength of a truly local service? - with some commendable reporting on many
stations. And only last week Radio
Cornwall's Donna Birrell wrote of the important personal connections that radio
makes when relating the story of 'Clara from Bude'.
Local radio did enjoy something of a golden age in the 1980s
and 90s when new stations were coming on stream, AM and FM services were
splitting, broadcast hours expanding and budgets increasing. But it wasn't
always like this. The birth of a BBC local radio network was years in
development with co-funded experimental stations run of shoestring budgets and
reliant on Radio 2 and Radio 4 programmes to fill the holes in the schedule.
Independent local radio, when it finally arrived, offered a true livelier
alternative to those lucky enough to have a station in their area but,
hamstrung by regulatory restrictions , struggled to make a profit and was not
averse to some BBC-style programming like Swops and Trades and Late Chemists
Rotas.
This weekend the documentary The Village Loudspeaker - the nickname Dave Bassett gave Plymouth
Sound when it started - reflects on the evolution of local radio. It's a
bi-media effort with a half-hour television version on the BBC News Channel and
an hour long radio version on Radio Solent on Sunday afternoon.
Here's the TV documentary:
Producer Richard Latto has been digging around in the
archives and sourcing material from private collectionsto uncover video that's not been seen since
its first broadcast. There are also newly-recorded interviews with the likes of
Martin Kelner, Johnnie Walker, Les Ross, Graham Dene, Louise Churchill, Darren Lethem, Tony Gillham, Duncan Warren,
Stephanie Hurst, Chris Burns, John
Foster and Graham Mack.There are over
40 video clips to support this programme on the BBC Radio Solent website here.
Richard says “This isn’t a definitive history of local
radio, it’s a flavour of local radio and a chance to reflect on how it has
changed and evolved over the years. With all the recent changes, especially in
the commercial sector, local radio has generated a lot of discussion from both
industry insiders and listeners, who have heard it evolve at great pace.” This is the radio version of The Village Loudspeaker:
On this blog I've written about the first 19 ILR stations
and many of the early BBC local stations as they hit their 50th anniversaries.
See under the 'Down Your Local' label. See also The People's Radio blog post.
I see that Crackerjack (CRACKERJACK!!!) is back on television with Sam and Mark breathing life into
the 60-odd year old brand. Amongst the
faces popping up on the first show from its earlier incarnation was Don
Maclean (pictured above).
During the 70s Maclean was partnered with Peter Glaze doing
those Crackerjack comedy routines and
song parodies as well as providing the comic relief on The Black and White Minstrel Show. By 1977 he was appearing on
Radio 2, first on the comedy panel show Wit's
End and then with his own sketch show Maclean
Up Britain. Here he teamed up with one of his Crackerjack co-stars Jan Hunt, that man of voices Chris Emmett (Week Ending, The News Huddlines and The
Burkiss Way), Bob Todd (stooge to Benny Hill and Spike Milligan on the Q series) and Gordon Clyde (the
interviewer on The Dick Emery Show and
presenter of The Pleasure's Yours on
the World Service).
Don's show made a return in 1980 for a further three series
but now re-titled Keep It Maclean. The
cast, apart from Todd all returned with scripts provided by Tony Hare who had
also written for Crackerjack and
would go on to be one of the chief writers on The News Huddlines. The other writers were Howard Imber who'd
contributed to Week Ending, TISWAS and Bullseye and later a comedy quiz vehicle for Maclean called The Clever Dick-athlon, as well as Jimmy
Mulville and Rory McGrath just before they went off to write and perform on the
telly.
From the start of the third series on 5 September 1982 comes
this edition of Keep It Maclean. The
comedy does, as those programme warnings on Talking Pictures TV sometimes say
reflect "the prevailing attitudes of the time". Listen out though for
a delightful musical tribute to radio stars of the past sung by Don to the tune
of In Party Mood and with lyrics by
Frankie Desmond.
Don Maclean continued to appear on Radio 2 comedy shows such
as The Press Gang and The Name's the Game before taking over
the Sunday morning religious slot Good
Morning Sunday in 1990 where he was heard each week for the next 16 years.
From the earliest days of British radio the BBC was keen to keep the children of Britain
entertained (and informed and educated too of course). Each of the regional
stations had their version of Children's
Hour presented by one of the radio uncles and aunts, from 'Uncle Rex' Palmer
in London to Kathleen Garscadden as Auntie Cyclone (yes, really) in Glasgow.
For ninepence a year those young listeners could join the Radio Circle and
receive their membership card and enamelled badge.
Children's
Hour was aimed at those of school age and it wasn't until 16 January 1950
that the Light Programme schedules listed, for the first time, Listen with Mother a new programme for
the under-fives. The notion for such a programme was imported from Australian
radio where the BBC's Controller of Talks, and former Director of School
Broadcasting, Mary Somerville had heard Kindergarten
of the Air, which had been running since 1942.
Broadcast on weekdays at 1.45 pm Listen
with Mother was "primarily for the three- to five-year-olds" and
consisted of "stories, songs and nursery rhymes and will be opened and
rounded off with music". The nursery rhymes were set to music by Ann
Driver, presenter of Music and Movement since 1934 and sung by George Dixon and Eileen
Browne, both schools programme producers and broadcasters. It was Eileen who
became one of the main presenters of Listen
with Mother for the next two decades.
The other main voice on the programme was that of the storyteller who
initially would appear on a monthly rotation so that "continuity will grow
through hearing a familiar friendly voice each day." Within the first few
weeks the actresses Julia Lang and Daphne Oxenford both took turns as the
"story lady", joined later by Dorothy Smith. All three stayed with
the programme for years.
Those stories, whether it was Roderick, the Little Red Roller, Lambkin
and the Butterfly or The Little Cat
in the Haystack, were prefaced by
the opening words "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin." Now
synonymous with the programme and having long since entered the British
consciousness they were supposedly ad-libbed by Julia Lang; but given this was
the era when even live programmes were scripted, timed and rehearsed to the
second this seems unlikely.
Listen with
Mother tended to use actors, and occasionally singers, as the presenters and
storytellers. The list includes Maureen Morris, Catherine Edwards, Lorna
Pegram, Sean Barrett, Gladys Whitred (who sang Time To Go Home at the end of Andy
Pandy), Auriol Smith (founder of Orange Tree Theatre), Scottish singer
Alison McMorland, Sam Kelly ('Allo 'Allo,
Porridge etc), Patricia Gallimore
(Pat Archer in The Archers), Jean
Rogers (Emmerdale's Dolly Skillbeck),
Lucie Skeaping (now presenter of Radio 3's The
Early Music Show) and, presenting the programme in its closing weeks Tony
Aitken and Nerys Hughes (The Liver Birds
and The District Nurse).
This recording dates from 16 June 1965 with Eileen Browne presenting, Julia
Lang reading the story of Big Fat
Puss-Cat. The continuity announcer is John Dunn. At the time the programme
opened with an tune played on the celesta.
When Listen with Mother started
the majority of children's programmes on the radio came within the remit of the
BBC's Entertainment Division under the control of R.J.F. Howgill and later
Michael Standing. However, Listen with
Mother was produced by the School Broadcasting division under Richmond Postgate
(who in 1950, on a 9 month attachment, was the first Head of Television Children's Programmes) and then John Scupham. Following the
axing of Children's Hour in 1964 Listen with Mother moved over from the
Light to the Home Service (later Radio 4 ) where it remained for the rest of
its run. In its new berth on the Home it was now followed by schools programmes
in term-time or various musical concerts the rest of the year.
Increasingly competition from television meant that Listen with Mother sadly became an unwanted infant, more likely to
be heard by 55-years olds rather than 5-year olds and eventually, and
inevitably, got shunted around the schedules. In July 1973 it moved on an hour
to 2.45 pm to follow Woman's Hour
which itself had been shifted over from Radio 2.
When Radio 4 moved over to long wave in November 1978 Listen with Mother now went out at 11.45
am, an odd bit of scheduling just before lunchtime. By October 1979 it was back
in the afternoon just after the 3.00 pm news and before Afternoon Theatre. Finally in September 1980 it was back again to
mornings at 10.30 am and on VHF only, whilst the Daily Service was on long wave. Radio 4 controller Monica Sims,
herself a former children's television executive, saw the programme as "a
frightful nuisance" and that it "made the audience, or a lot of the
audience, switch off".
Time was called on Listen with
Mother in September 1982 and led to much "nostalgic wailing" with
letters of protest and a petition handed in at 10 Downing Street, though it's
doubtful that Mrs Thatcher was much of a fan. As a report in this sequence
shows even Roy Hudd and Christopher Timothy were on hand to raise their
objections and Chris Rowe - a song for every occasion - lamented its passing.
These clips come from The World this
Weekend and Today.
The final edition presented by Nerys Hughes and Tony Aitken was broadcast
on Friday 10 September 1982 ending with a round of goodbyes from the recent
presenters.
But Radio 4 didn't totally neglect the under-fives. The following Monday,
13 September 1982 again on VHF only, the five-minute Listening Corner started, offering just enough time for a story. It
was a familiar voice too for that first week, that of Tony Aitken.
Listening
Corner ran for eight years with stories read by some former Listen with Mother storytellers such as
Nerys Hughes and Carole Boyd, some from Play
School like Toni Arthur and Fred Harris and guest readers that included Roy
Kinnear, Willie Rushton, Kenneth Williams and even Alvin Stardust.
The last edition of Listening
Corner aired on Radio 4 on 24 August 1990, though by then it running on repeats.
On Monday 27 August Radio 5 launched and scooped up all the children's and
school's programmes with the toddlers catered for by Andrew Sachs on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
So that's another decade nearly over. Where did it go? I
can't let opportunity slip by without turning back the clock once again and this
time taking you back to the turn of the year exactly four decades ago with this
extra large slice of radio comedy.
Throughout the 1970s BBC Radio 4 had a Christmas Day
tradition of featuring an hour or so of comedy and music linked together by
David Jacobs (1972-77) or Richard Briers (1978-79 & 83). Essentially this was a
festive pick 'n' mix of repeated comedy sketches from record or the BBC's own
sound archives and comedy or Christmas songs. The 1983 edition (mislabelled as 1978) of Christmas Briers can be found on
YouTube.
For a couple of years Richard Briers also compèred a similar
New Year's Day offering, billed as a "Bank Holiday bric-a-brac, a revue of
sketches and songs from recent radio shows more typical than topical." The
first Turn of the Year show was on 1
January 1979 but my recording comes from the following year.
This edition of Turn of the Year features clips from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Week Ending, The News Huddlines, The Kings Singers, Marks in his Diary, Hello
Cheeky, The Grumbleweeds, The Burkiss Way, Aspects of the Fringe, Peter Goodwright, Victor Borge, The Frankie Howerd Variety Show, The
Spinners, Listen to Les, Comedy First, Instant Sunshine, I Like Spike, Quote...Unquote, the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble (music has been
edited), The News Quiz, The Atkinson People, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, Something Appealing, Something Appalling and
Just a Minute.
The linking script is by Barry Pilton and the producer
Jonathan James-Moore.
You have to hand it to Father Christmas, he's really has got
the work-life balance in his favour. One, admittedly knackering, day visiting
all the children in world and the rest of the year to put his feet up. Or so it
would seem.
In this interview with Father Christmas, not heard for over
50 years, we get to hear that when he's not organising the gifts for the
kiddies ("axes, pistols, do-it-yourself murder kits") or doing battle
with traffic wardens when he has to park the reindeer, then he is, in fact, a
BBC commissionaire - "the one that stands outside and doesn't open the
door for you."
Posing the questions to the man himself is BBC reporter
Greville Havenhand in this extract which probably comes from an edition of Radio Newsreel, though I can't date it
with any precision.
If you think that Father Christmas sounds a little like
Spike Milligan then you'll appreciate this contribution to Punch about his family Christmases and his attempt to disguise
himself as Father Christmas that ends in disaster. This article comes the edition
of Punch dated 4 December 1974.
There's more Spike over Christmas on the radio. As well as
the Operation Christmas Duff episode
of The Goon Show, Radio 4 has a
dramatisation of his comic novel Puckoon with Ed Byrne, Barry Cryer, Pauline McLynn and his daughter Jane Milligan.
There are lots of familiar voices in this audio Christmas
card from December 1989. Familiar, that is, to listeners to the BBC World
Service.
This programme is essentially a 40 minute promotion (here
trimmed of the music down to 30minutes)
for some regular World Service programmes at the time. Your genial host pouring
his guests a paper cup of Bush House plonk is Bob Holness, the regular presenter
of the request show Anything Goes.
Popping into the studio are Paddy Feeny (Sportsworld), Andy Kershaw (Andy Kershaw's World of Music), Hugh
Prysor-Jones (Newshour), Barbara
Myers (Outlook), Ken Bruce (The Ken Bruce Show), David Allan (Country Style), Edward Greenfield (Music Review), Gordon Clyde (The Pleasure's Yours), Sarah Ward (Multitrack), Charles Alexander (Jazz Scene UK), newsreaders Alison
Rooper and Brian Empringham, Malcolm Billings (Seven Seas), religious programmes producer Julie Lloyd, John Sugar
and Annie Bristow (Megamix).
