Sad News

I was at Camphill yesterday (Tuesday) when one of the guys discovered the sad news that Nicholas Parson had died, at the grand old age of 96. I love 'Just A Minute,' which he was chairman of for 52  years and remember clearly it starting in 1967. Radio Four has been a major part of my life. My family always had it on (previously called the Home Service, until they introduced Radio One in 1967, as a replacement to pirate radio which the government outlawed that year.) It's first episode was broadcast on 22nd December 1967. In fact, a mere three months after the station's launch. The basic premise of the show was that contestants have to talk for one minute on a given subject, 'without hesitation, repetition or deviation,' Contestants who appeared on the show included Derek Nimmo, Paul Merton, Kenneth Williams, Sheila Hancock, Graham Norton, Beryl Reid, Gyles Brandreth, Andree Melly, Sue Perkins, Tim Rice, Wendy Richard, Peter Jones who is perhaps best known as the voice of The Book in the Douglas Adams radio series 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,' and many more.

It's such a simple format for a game and radio is the best place for it. There was a television version, but, frankly, because it is so speech-based, the fact that television is visual, there's really no point in it being done on television. The shows theme music is Chopin's piano waltz in D flat major, No 1, nicknamed the "Minute Waltz," although it does actually last a good deal longer than one minute, the nickname refers to "minute" as in 'small,' rather than a unit of time.

Nicholas Parsons was also a compere for the ITV gameshow, 'Sale of The Century,' which was produced at the Anglia Television studios in Norwich. I have to come clean and tell you that I secretly wrote in to Anglia to suggest my mother as a contestant. She got a letter, inviting her to audition. I didn't go with her, but she had to go to Cambridge (if my memory serves.) and went with my Aunt Gemma (although I would have loved to have gone.) She wasn't, unfortunately chosen. It would have been great if she had. I think possibly she was too clever for this particular gameshow.

Radio 4 is a unique station. As I've mentioned above it was called the Home Service up until 1967, when the BBC introduced Radio 1 and the Light Programme transformed into Radio 3 and the Third Programme became, imaginatively, Radio 3. Radio 4 is a speech-based station which schedules news, drama, comedy and documentaries which would never be produced or heard elsewhere. There is no commercial station which compares. You won't hear anything similar anywhere. I would say that the chance of it being replicated as a commercial station is highly unlikely, being funded by the television licence (why no radio licence?) A good reason for protecting this as a funding model and a definite 'brick' in the Public Service remit (ie- The core values of the BBC, going back to it being set up under Lord Reith in 1922,  'to inform, educate and entertain.) I think Radio 4 was instrumental in my having an interest in literature and probably theatre. I listened to many of there adaptations of books and plays which were, and still are, broadcast by the station. In some ways I think I prefer radio to television, particularly with drama, where the words are so important. As someone said, and I don't know who it was, the 'scenery is better,' or words to that effect. Many sitcoms have been produced by Radio 4, and quite a few have then been transferred to television, perhaps the most famous being 'Hancock's Half Hour,' which began life on radio in the 1950's and eventually transferred to television. Radio is a good place for more surreal comedy, because, with the use of sound effects, suggests more in the mind than with visual humour. The most surreal comedy of performers and writers such as Spike Milligan, made use of radio with shows such as the ground-breaking 'Goon Show,' which kick-started the careers of not only Milligan but also Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe. I was introduced to the Goons by a friend who I met when doing an A Level course at what was then Mander College in around 1967-8. His father had been a fan when the show was first aired in the 1950s and apparently recorded these episodes when they were broadcast, on to reel-to-reel tape. My friend, John, used to visit me at home and bought some of these reel-to-reel tapes with him. I had become interested in tape recording (a good many years before the introduction of cassette tapes.) because a teacher when I was at Rushmoor School, had a tape recorder and I became intrigued by the fact that you could record your voice and edit material that you had recorded. Anyway, a lot of those 'Goon' episodes were transferred onto cassette and would have been the first time I had heard them and was hooked, probably because of the wacky, surreal nature of the shows, the amazing sound effects, some created by the then infant BBC Radiophonic Workshop (no, sadly defunct.) which went on to produce many of the sound effects on such BBC shows as 'Doctor Who,' and 'The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.' I was also introduced to 'Hancock's Half-Hour' and I suspect other radio classics such as 'Round The Horn,' 'I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again.' I bought a Grundig reel-to-reel tape recorder from a teacher at the next school I went to when I left Rushmoor, further expanding my experience of recording and then editing. This experience came in useful when I eventually got work in stage management, being able to then make up tapes of sound effects which I used to compile whilst working as, first, a student A.S.M. at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham, and later, as a fully-fledged D.S.M. at Ipswich Theatre in the early 1970's.  Amazing to think that the memories of one thing sparks off different things and how one person, a teacher, could set in train so many different interests which still carry on today.

Remembering Carol- Part 3

I got to meet Carol's two sons, Daniel and Sam. I met Daniel when we first went to London together. He had a job working in a hotel in St Albans, where his dad lived. I'm not so sure about Sam. They both lived with us in the house in Crownhill. Some weekends Daniel went to live with his dad and would come home, bearing in mind he was coming to his education. I think he was doing his A Levels at the time I first met Carol. Because Sam was younger, he must have been doing his G.C.S.E.'s, but, looking back, I don't remember exactly.

When I came to live with Carol, after we were married, I got  job as a home carer for people with a range of disabilities or needs, for company called Guardian Homeware. I have discussed this in an earlier blog post, so I don't want to repeat it in this post.

We went to see several television and radio productions being recording. I was able to go on line and sign up to several websites which provided free ticket for such shows. We went to see a couple of radio shows being recorded, something which really interested me, because if you have an interest as I do in media, how either television or radio shows are made, then going to see a show as a member of the audience. The first was a  BBC Radio Four panel show called 'The Write Stuff,' and was recorded in a venue which I had never heard of near the British Museum. interesting to see how a show such as a panel show is recorded and we saw that what would at first appear to be spontaneous wasn't in the slightest, because some of it was rerecorded when some hitches took place. They record two shows back-to-back, probably because  a half-hour show isn't going to make an evening's entertainment for  live audience as well as being far more cost effective. The second show we went to see was a sitcom called 'Clement Doesn't Live Here Anymore.' That was interesting to see because I had always wanted to know how they managed the sound effects and music. What ruined it for us was when the producer came on and made some rather unnecessary rather rude comments which we didn't think amusing, particularly as there were children in the audience, so we left after the recording of the first episode and didn't return for he second episode. A great pity. I didn't think it was a particularly brilliant show, but never mind. When the tickets are free, who's complaining.

Then we went to Television Centre to see the television version of 'Dead Ringers' being recoded. It has to be one of my favourite radio shows, so it was interesting to see how it worked as a television series. As we waited outside in a queue before we went into the waiting area (a great deal of waiting a some time or other when visiting a television studio either as a participant, for example as a walk-on or supporting artiste or member of an audience, who should walk past but Gary Lineker. Carol shrieked and said 'Oh, it's Gary Lineker!!" He just walked on past, no doubt used to such ruction from  a member of the public. I turned to her and said 'We shouldn't be surprised to see someone well-known when we visit Television Centre."

Another free television audience episode was when I managed to get tickets to the very first of a revival by ITV of the iconic series 'Sunday Night At The Palladium.' We went to the recording on I believe a Sunday, and got into London earlier than necessary and spent some time wandering around London, something we often used to do. We knew exactly where the Palladium was and visited Liberty's store, which is virtually opposite the Palladium and then wandered down to explore the recently-opened Broadcasting House, which had been extended and revamped. We looked through the window of the studio where the BBC 1 early evening 'The One Show' is made (if you watch this show you can clearly see this window and passing people do look in, and you can clearly see people queuing opposite as they go into recording sessions in he main Broadcasting House building.) Then we returned to the Palladium as it was by then approaching time for the recording of the show to begin. There was a quite sizeable queue forms, members of the public, like us, who had tickets for the show. We thought it would be a long time before we got inside to take our seats, but we shouldn't have worried. There were several officials walking along the line checking tickets. When they got to us, one of them looked at ours, and said that we need not queue. We were lead off, past the other queuing people, taken inside the Palladium and right into the stalls of the auditorium and shown to probably some of the best seats in the house! Quite an overwhelming feeling, of being taken out of the queue. It was probably because I had managed to get the tickets early and hence being able to get better seats and probably a better view of the stage than the rest of the people queuing up outside in the street. To top it all, who should be on the bill of the show we were about to see, but Carol's favourite, Bryan Adams, which really made her day! We hadn't known this fact, it was a sheer coincidence that he happened to be in the show!

There is so much more I could say about Carol, but at the moment I don't want to. I've written the last of three blog posts, and at the moment that's enough for now, but I may continue with more in blog posts in the future.