Radio Moments - Clips

Each week, the fine Radio Academy podcast features interviews and content from the world of radio at http://www.radioacademy.org/podcasts/.

The Academy podcast concludes with a slice of audio memories from the radio week in history, as they invite me to assemble a weekly compendium of my daily #radiomoments tweets @davidlloydradio, with audio and narrative.

Here's just that #radiomoments weekly review on its own, for the week ending 10th January 2014, without the sensible Academy interviews and discussion.

This audio is now also heard at the end of the excellent weekly @radiotoday podcast http://audioboo.fm/channel/radiotoday

It was addictive listening. Rolling news coverage from a land far-off, during the ‘first’ Gulf war of 1991, as military action against Iraq began.

Such was the British interest level, the BBC rose to the challenge of coverage with the creation of a second Radio 4, run by Jenny Abramsky. ‘Radio 4 News FM’ provided a rolling news service, following the four hour midnight news bulletin on the 16th January 1991, until the 2nd March. Meanwhile, the more sedate Radio 4 proper continued next door on Long Wave. Internally, and to some extent externally, the service acquired the name ‘Scud FM’, after Saddam Hussein’s notorious Russian-made weapon, a weapon with which UK listeners became unusually familiar through the station’s compelling broadcasts.

Although praised by many whilst on-air, and at such short notice, the service was not without some, maybe understandable, internal criticism as to the wisdom of the approach. Maybe influenced by the latter, the service closed the moment the conflict ended and the more familiar Radio 4 returned to its FM home. The service was said to have been at the root of the eventual creation of BBC 5 Live.

His was the voice of War. And eventually of Victory. The BBC’s Birmingham operation was his first port of call, as a chief announcer, although like so many even now, he was transferred to London shortly afterwards. By 1937, he was deputy chief announcer.

On 3rd September 1939, Alvar Lidell’s voice was heard delivering the news of the ultimatum to Germany from 10 Downing Street before later introducing Neville Chamberlain telling that we were at war with Germany.

During the war, famously, the decision was taken to identify newsreaders, a practice which has continued since, maybe puzzlingly without question. That's maybe why, even now, a generation knows his name.

What a voice. Every word relished, and yet, in the most dramatic of times, never embellished.

Alvar died in January 1981.

It's happened to us all. When things just do not go quite to plan. Great broadcasters know what they will do in extremis. They have a plan. But it still gets the pulse racing. Witness this, at 1800 on January 4th 2014 as the BBC Radio 4 news fails to arrive! Well done, Arlene Fleming.

The trails are edited down here. The whole episode lasted a painful yet professional nine minutes!

In memory. Just some of those radio figures we loved and lost in 2013

He's at the top of his game. Nick Ferrari combines the communications skill of a gifted radio presenter with the persistence of a press journalist and the wit of a comedian.

A serious journalist with a tabloid instinct who can sharpen any subject to a killer question; and reduce any interviewee to a wreck. If he chose. Yet all that tough meat is seasoned beautifully with a dash of humour as large as he is. A consummate story-teller.

In the midst of the most serious of topics, Nick can still volley a humorous aside with the listener. Like most great talk broadcasters, his performance entertains and the content informs. His style is unique; and his programme makes compulsive and often surprising listening. He is hugely intelligent, yet the programme remains utterly accessible. A journalist of the old sort: persistence and truth. Great broadcasters like Nick identify instinctively the headline, the drama, the story and often the humour in each moment. Then they squeeze out that value.

Nick Ferrari has held the breakfast spot on LBC since 2004. In that time, the programme has played a key part in the re-invigoration of LBC. The programme now makes headlines and helps to set London's agenda. Relationships with the UK's leading decision-makers have been built on mutual respect, so those individuals step forward to talk to him first. Regardless of the fact that he has that knack of being able to ask exactly the right question, in exactly the right way.

This truly gifted broadcaster is great company and a genuinely decent and generous guy, albeit thoroughly intolerant of those who do not do their jobs capably. He expects commitment; and his appreciation to those around him when they score for him is something to which they attach real value. Most people have to try very hard to do what Nick appears to do effortlessly.

I suspect we have yet to see Nick on his largest stage.

It is truly amazing that some things which seemed a bright idea to early radio producers remain to this day. It was New Year's Eve in 1923, when the idea was hatched to broadcast the chimes of Big Ben. BBC engineer, AG Dryland (pictured right), drew the short straw; and up he went onto a roof opposite the Houses of Parliament. Here, he tells his story.

The bells later became a regular feature of output, and have chimed continuously since, save for maintenance and for the funerals of Churchill and Thatcher.

Although a Christmas Message was nothing new by 1932, the broadcasting of it certainly was. Reith was keen on transmission, just as he'd been eager for the proceedings of the House of Commons to be broadcast. He'd written personally to the King in 1923 to ask about "delivering a message to his people on a significant holiday such as Christmas, New Year or Easter".

King George V and the Palace were a touch reluctant, but their worries were eased by a conveniently timed trip to the BBC; and they gave him a wireless set to play with. The PM, Ramsay MacDonald also lent his weight to the case.

On Christmas Day in 1932, the Empire heard the festive address for the first time, as King George V spoke from a box room under the stairs at Sandringham. BT lines, or Post Office as it was back then, linked Sandringham to the Control Room at Broadcasting House. The Message could then be beamed to the UK via the Home Service, and to the Empire from the famous Daventry transmitters. Given far-off lands were being covered by Short Wave, the broadcast was transmitted at 3.05m p.m when propagation could be optimised.

Rudyard Kipling wrote the opening words "I speak now from my home and from my heart to you all.".

On this audio, the BBC's John Snagge tells of that momentous first occasion.

It was said the broadcast attracted an audience of 20m. Whilst Rajar diaries were not around, it;'s probably a safe bet that most folk did indeed make the effort to hear those first crackly words from their King.

After 22 years as Monarch, King George V had begun a tradition which lasts to this day.

Originally a broadcast engineer, Mike Baker was another of the early ILR names whose first taste of UK radio was at the United Biscuits Network, after a spell at Radio Veronica. That slick and familiar UBN sound was to become his own.

Mike is renowned for having been the first voice on the 19th and 'final' commercial radio station, Beacon Radio in Wolverhampton, where he also established the station's distinctive music policy in 1976. He went on to feature in the early days at both Heart and at Saga in the West MIdlands; and elsewhere, from Lantern to Chiltern.

Mike spent much time overseas, most recently in Holland and Belgium helping out with Radio Tien Goud.

Mike died in December 2013. Sadly he hadn't been able to make the closing ceremony for the old Beacon Radio building just weeks before, and sent his apologies with typically good wishes.

Here, here, a slice of Mike's programmes through the early years at Beacon, and a fond valedictory clip he recorded for the closure of UBN.

What a year it's been in radio. As ever, a year of celebrations and of challenges for both the BBC and commercial sectors.

As 2013 nears its end, enjoy a special Bumper Edition, as the Radio Times would say, of #RadioMoments. Uncork some wine. Relax. Crank it up for a quarter hour. Let's remember this pivotal week in radio history; look back at 2013 overall; and wave a fitting farewell to some of the great names in radio whose voices, sadly, will now be rarely heard.

Thank you for listening to RadioMoments through the year. The weekly editions are back in January as part of the regular RadioToday podcasts and the Radio Academy's 'Radio Talk'. If you do have any vintage audio, feel free to upload it directly via my Radiomoments AudioBoo channel (just click grey button top right from this screen. Worry not how raw or unedited it is.)