Anna Dillon posted a tweet in tribute and thanks to the BBC on its 100th anniversary.
My thank-you list would be a little different but it too would begin with Listen With Mother. It was my first radio program and was a part of a cherished time. To be accurate, I would have to rename it Listen with Father as that was a time in my early life when my mother went to work and he stayed home and cared for me. I remember what seemed like a never-ending chain of childhood illnesses – whooping cough, mumps, measles, German measles, croup, chicken pox etc. Sickness notwithstanding, I have always considered myself to be very lucky to have had such a time.
We had our routines that began with clearing breakfast and then gardening.
At the age of three and four, I doubt that I was of much practical use in the garden. But I felt that I was. And that made all the difference.
We had dinner – potatoes and veggies from the garden whenever possible – and did the dishes. It was my important job to dry them. (He indulged me and did the knives and forks as I said I didn’t like to do them. I’ve been a little guilty about that selfish indulgence ever since. I could have managed the cutlery; I just didn’t want to.)
A few minutes before 1.45pm we would go to the front room and warm up the Ferguson radio. And then it was Ding-de-dong Time!
This is the BBC Light Programme for mothers and children at home. Are you ready for the music? When it stops, Catherine Edwards will be here to speak to you. Ding-de-dong. Ding-de-dong, Ding, Ding!
I never really liked the music and songs but was always impatient to hear the story. And I wondered whether they could hear me when I said a loud “No” to the question “Are you sitting comfortably?”
The program moved to the Home Service in 1964 but the music and the basic format were the same. The program always ended with the same piece of music – the Berceuse from Gabriel Fauré‘s Dolly Suite, Op. 56. Listen!
Close the Hatch, Mitch
After that shared start, my BBC list differs from Anna’s although it would also include Top of the Pops.
Next up would be Journey into Space. I really only partly heard that serial through a very thin wall (we had moved by then and were living in a repurposed military encampment just outside Swindon). Nevertheless, I heard enough to get thoroughly frightened once a week. The introduction! The sound effects!
Lemmy – the hapless radio operator – trapped in an airlock haunted me.
It began in 1958 and ran for several series. You can hear them all here.
This is Operation Luna, Episode One. It’s October 19th, 1965 and our intrepid crew Jet Morgan, Mitch, Lemmy (he’s “psychologically unsuited, unstable, a misfit”), and Doc are strapped into a rocket ship somewhere in the Australian outback. They are waiting for take-off to the moon.
From there to Children’s Hour, Children’s Favourites, Francis Durbridge Presents Paul Temple, Saturday Night Theatre, Spycatcher, Sherlock Holmes, My Word, the Pips, the News, Book at Bedtime, Wimbledon, the Shipping Forecast, and all the dramas, panel games, concerts, documentaries, presentations, series, serials, and comedies through the years – starting for me with Take It From Here, (“Oooooo Ron“, “Yes Eth?”) Hancock’s Half Hour, the Clitheroe Kid (“Don’t some mothers ‘ave ’em!”) The Navy Lark (“Left hand down a bit”), Beyond Our Ken, Round the Horne and all the rest.
And that’s just the radio.
Shared all the recollections. My childhood too. Must find out how to access all these BBC Radio programmes of old.. and now..sure the voices and content would be quite a contrast. BNC Radiois excellent company whereas TV feels more.intrusive and demanding. Loved thenpic of you with your vegetable crop. I saw that same look in a recent photo of you….so good read yr post.
100 years! Thank you, Josie, for including the audio-clips, which vividly evoke the times. (Those 1950s “BBC” accents!) You were lucky to grow up during BBC Radio’s heyday, and the details in your post really capture the atmosphere. Love you talking back to “are you sitting comfortably”? (And the sweet photograph of you in the garden with the scarlet runner beans.) I wish I had had more of an opportunity to grow up on the rich and varied fare that the BBC served up every single day, including on the World Service. It used to commission original plays, didn’t it, and it was only quite recently that it stopped funding radio dramatizations of novels. That was a big loss.
I came to the BBC belatedly, not until the 1960s, but I have heard and heard of clips from the different radio shows in the early post-War period featuring Indian writers like Attia Hossain, Kamala Markandaya, and Mulk Raj Anand and West Indian writers like V.S. Naipaul and Sam Selvon. The BBC Urdu service is still going, and a friend of mine has written for that. Then there was The Goon Show, inspiring Monty Python and so many others. And yes, Carolyn, Desert Island Discs, still going but started way back, during the War (1942–just looked it up).
My dear Uncle Ted and so many others of his generation couldn’t live without BBC Radio. He listened to it in bed and kept it going much of the day as well, on one programme or another. Very sad to read of the recent government threats to its funding. Although I’ve lived in the U.S. for decades, I still listen regularly to the BBC news on my local public radio station.
Josna´s last blog post ..519. Out of Time?
Ron and Eth, Hancock and Hattie Jacques, I am even guilty of listening to The Archers.
Love them all.
Astonishing to think the Archers is still going strong. Not so much about farming folk these days though. Hattie Jaques was a personal favorite – she always gave Tony Hancock the what for. I just listened to the episode “The Male Suffragettes” – great period piece.
Gosh, that brings back memories of me and my siblings crowding around the radio early on a Sunday morning to hear the Children’s Stories. I’m in NZ and didn’t get the BBC, so didn’t have the much richer array of programmes. In fact, I’m pretty sure the Children’s Stories were for one hour on a Sunday only 🙂
The BBC’s been responsible for so many treasures! I’ve been a huge Who fan since I was tiny (original Who, that is) and my kids have inherited it. Plus my Eldest had a big obsession with Journey Into Space when he was younger!
My childhood was mostly spent in Hong Kong so by the time I returned to the UK I wasn’t far off becoming a petulant teen and uninterested in pre-teen wireless programmes except as a general background. In Hong Kong we mostly had US TV programmes and 50s popular music streamed to us via Rediffusion. Doctor Who was probably the first show I was glued to, despite its wobbly sets and ham acting!
I remember a few of those first Dr Who’s. An odd character called the brigadier who seemed to exemplify the oxymoron ‘military intelligence”. And the music was scary. Not something to hear when you were alone in the house.
Ah yes, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, from the international unit charged with defending the Earth from baddie aliens! Most of the show’s aliens – the Doctor a notable exception – seemed to be malignant, didn’t they?
I liked the programme’s incidental music too, mostly realised and arranged by Delia Derbyshire of the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop. When I started teaching classroom music in the 70s I made great use of an LP which featured some of her work for Doctor Who and various associated sound effects.
I had forgotten the details but now that name comes back to me across more than half a century of not watching Dr. Who. Thanks.
What wonderful memories! It’s fun to have access to so much BBC radio via iPlayer and other channels today, I remember discovering the book shows not so long ago and feeling as though I had stumbled across a treasure trove!
What fun remembering those old shows. I always listened with mother and my brother had Journey into Space though I think it may have been an earlier version (1954-56?) I had forgotten about the pips but knew exactly what they were when I read your post. We left England in 1956 and Dad used to tune in the Beeb on his shortwave transistor, always cursing the Russians for “jamming”. There was a program with 4 well known contestants who were each given a phrase that they had to incorporate as the last line of a story which they read. No idea what it was called but I found it very funny. There was Desert Island Discs. And the shipping forecast! Priceless. The sound of my childhood. We always accepted the BBC News as gospel. Thanks for reminding me!
Great memories Carolyn.
Fun thing is you can listen to lots of archived stuff via the Internet Archive and You Tube. I’ve just been listening to the 8-part Paul Temple thriller. Lots of period details – comments about ration books and the difficulty finding servants. A surfeit of dead bodies, glamorous night clubs, places to park, cigarettes, and Scotland Yard turning to the amateur for help.
I’m sure I could write about more but two programmes that come to mind immediately are Barry Bucknall’s House and Horizon. A curious mixture, I know! Both started in the early 1960s (we didn’t have a television during the 50s).
We too were TV-less until the 1960s also. I think of it as a bit of a blessing.
I love this post, Josie! I was transported into your garden, kitchen, and livingroom, and then to Radio Land!
Hope you are well!
Michelle
Michelle! How wonderful to hear from you! Would love to hear how you’re doing.