Authors: Mike Read
We also ran a short series called
The Three Fivers
, a spoof, rather obviously, on the Three Tenors. Barry and I wrote the scripts, and while it might not have ‘run and run’ as they say, it was a delight to work with one of Britain’s greatest scriptwriters. Among Barry’s finest TV writing moments were
The Army Game
and
Bootsie and Snudge
, while on radio
Beyond our Ken
and
Round the Horne
were national favourites. He was also responsible for helping to bring together the Monty Python team and, rather later, hosted a regular quiz for us on
Saturday Superstore
.
One day I was dispatched to Jersey to broadcast from the 32-acre Durrell Wildlife Park, which had been set up in 1958 by the late Gerald Durrell. What they lacked in wide and high varieties, they more than compensated for with an abundance of short-toed treecreepers, blue-crowned laughing thrushes, red-cowled cardinals and lesser Antillean iguanas. We were looked after by Gerald’s delightful wife
Lee, who came from the rock & roll town of Memphis, and spent the night having a couple of looseners with the Red Arrows, who were staying at the same hotel. As promised they altered course to come over the zoo the following morning and give us an official flypast.
One of the historical Classic FM outside broadcasts was from Rutland on 1 April 1997, the day it re-gained its independence from Leicestershire, having been absorbed into that county in 1974. Many doubting Thomases welded the date and their knowledge of my despicable character together and came up with … well, whatever they came up with. ‘A transparent joke,’ said those more inclined to humour, dismissively. Others turned on their heel with a knowing air and a demeaning shrug. I faintly remember some ancient don calling to complain that I was trivialising the gravitas of such an august radio station. I broadcast live from Oakham and the Old Uppinghamians partied like it was 1584. Even the school’s founder, the Archdeacon of Leicester, Robert Johnson, might have considered selling his soul at the crossroads on hearing the glad tidings.
The ratings were excellent, as my creative producer, Tim Lihoreau, and I injected classical
joie de vivre
into the breakfast show, but alas and alack, the station was taken over and I was moved to weekends to save money. At least my show was sponsored. The big cheese from Cathedral City was clearly a wise old bird who knew just where to place his chips.
‘How am I involved?’
‘Oh, you don’t have to do anything, we just play out a couple of ads each hour.’
‘Sorry, guv’nor, not in my nature to simply push a button.’
‘Well that’s all we need you to do.’
I say it was more through inventiveness than belligerence, but I decided I could satisfy both the sponsors and my professional pride by drip-feeding clues to a different cathedral every week. It was absolutely right for our demographic, and despite the long faces it carried the day. Assorted incumbents danced with ecclesiastical glee when
their phone rang. ‘Ooh, I wondered when you’d get around to us,’ was a typical response from a long line of deans and bishops, ‘I have some clues prepared in case you need them.’ Manchester Cathedral fooled a lot of people, as one of the clues was that it was on an island, resulting, rather obviously, in callers going for coastal guesses. But, strictly speaking, it
is
on an island, between three rivers, the Irwell, the Irk and the Medlock.
I really enjoyed the station, but it changed when GWR took it over. The quizzes were repeated ad nauseam until every listener knew the questions, the answers and the jokes, such as they were. I remain baffled that no one has yet volunteered them as their specialist subject on
Mastermind
. The new owners of Classic FM also owned the Gold network and made a bold decision to remove all the breakfast show DJs on each station and have me broadcast across them all. The icing on the cake of the deal they offered was a healthy tranche of shares in the company if I doubled the figures. It was essentially a ’60s and ’70s station, and despite being shackled by members of the hierarchy coming out with inane questions like ‘Who is Clifford T. Ward?’ or crass statements such as ‘I’ve never heard of this track “Alone Again Or” by Love’, I managed to more than double the ratings. I knew this from other stations, as we all got the same figures, and our rivals had told us how well we’d done. Still, my employers dithered around pretending they were still trying to work out the figures. Needless to say they reneged on the deal, pleading poverty, as they’d just spent £27 million adding an extra group of stations to the portfolio. Whatever happened to ‘An Englishman’s word is his bond’?
Well, their answer was to get an Australasian in to head things up. ‘He used to work at Radio One,’ we were told when the Gold presenters and staff were introduced to him.
‘When was that?’ I asked him.
‘Oh, in back in the ’80s.’
‘We’re only in the ’90s now. What did you do there?’ It wasn’t so
much that I had an enquiring mind, but I remember everyone that worked at the station. Here’s a tip. If you’re going to give your CV a little embellishment, don’t make the mistake of equating Radio One with the BBC. The station has always been a small family unit.
‘Oh, I was nothing, really, I didn’t have a very significant role.’
‘Really? Doing what?’ He could only have been a presenter, producer, engineer or PA and he denied being any of those. I mentioned his name to Doreen Davies, who’d been at the station since its inception. Her response? ‘Never heard of him.’
My next encounter with him was priceless. Following my show one morning, he sat and dissected it. ‘The first half-hour was too ’70s based.’
‘But there were four ’60s songs in there, that’s fifty-fifty.’
‘I know, but you made it sound ’70s.’
I wondered how I managed that. It’d be a good trick to learn.
‘The second half-hour was a fraction slow.’
‘Compared to what?’
‘The first half-hour.’
‘You mean the one that sounded too ’70s?’
‘And the third half-hour was fractionally too fast.’ The man was either a genius or had escaped from the set of
School for Scoundrels
. My education continued unabated. ‘You played a track by the Who.’
I wasn’t absolutely certain whether it was a question or a statement, so I played a straight bat. ‘It’s not unknown. “Pictures of Lily” fits our remit.’
‘Would you say it was a rock track or a pop song?’
‘That must be in the ear of the listener, surely.’
‘You mean you don’t know?’ Before I could even clutch at a reasonable answer to such a pointless question, he started to get physical. I was poked in the arm by a finger. The finger was illustrating the speaker’s point and jabbed me firmly with each syllable. ‘What you have to learn is the difference between rock music and pop music.’
More jabbing. I did point out, in a gentlemanly manner of course, that if the poking continued I might just poke him on the nose. Not
an unfair trade, I’d say. It goes without saying that I didn’t get my shares, moved on and left him to bank what was presumably a beefy salary for some years.
There followed a spell on Jazz FM, where I was playing artists of whom I had never heard. Now I’m no slouch when it comes to your Basies, Shearings, Barbers, Brubecks and so on, but these cats on my playlist had clearly been operating undercover in heavy camouflage.
I built a beautiful and not inexpensive studio which was often depicted by the media as a ‘shed’ at the bottom of my garden. True, it had once been a series of sheds, but with a super architect, a herd of builders and some serious dosh, I transformed it into a stunning radio studio and record archive. As it faced acres of farmland, I was also on ‘lambwatch’ during the season, as many were born in deep mud and struggled to survive. In between tracks I’d send an SOS to the farmer.
In 2005 I was asked to join the re-launch of the old offshore pirate station Radio London, or Big L. This time it was to be land based, but to keep as much of a mid ’60s feel as possible, the studio was at Frinton-on-Sea, spiritual home of the station from 1964 to its demise in 1967. I helped station boss Ray Anderson recruit a few other radio rascals including two former Radio One jocks, David Hamilton and Adrian John, along with an ex-Capital DJ, Randall Lee Rose. It was a great adventure with a swashbuckling crew. What more could we want? Hoist the Jolly Roger and let’s set sail! I invited Cliff Richard to open the new Big L as one of his songs had opened the original station. His new single ‘What Car’ got us underway and to add to the fun we hired a double-decker bus to bring him to the station. The Cheeky Girls were also guests that day, treading the station’s very own monogrammed carpet and peering through the porthole-styled windows.
We rather lavishly took a Big L Roadshow up the east coast for a week, with the old Radio One vehicle and Smiley Miley. It was like old times. On one occasion Smiley guilelessly allowed himself to be blindfolded and put in a tank with some rather vicious crabs and at Clacton he was almost crushed by boa constrictors. Well, that’s what
the media said and they had the photographs to prove it. There was Smiley with two paramedics struggling to free him from his brace of newly acquired 8-foot scarves that appeared to have him in a grip of which Big Daddy would have been proud. We hadn’t lost our touch.
A new station. Free musical choice. Roadshows. A great team of broadcasters. What could go wrong? Well, gradually, everything, but for now we were having fun and sharing a six-bedroomed house. On any evening there could be anywhere between one and six of us in residence. We all had other lives with wives and girlfriends, but actually we enjoyed each other’s company and laughed a lot. There’d be sing-songs, football, tennis, TV and terrific suppers, and I have to say, I don’t recall a single heated word or a falling-out. No one complained that I didn’t do any cooking or washing-up, but I led the sing-a-longs and in doing so appeared to pay my dues.
Adrian John had to rise earlier than the rest of us for the breakfast show, and therefore climbed the wooden hill to Bedfordshire early, just as many an evening of merriment and mirth was getting underway. There was so much shrieking and noise one particular evening that I felt compelled to promise him that we’d be quieter in future.
‘No, don’t … I love it.’
‘What, the welter of noise? The cacophony of sound? Loud jokes with feeble punchlines?’
‘Oh yes, it’s so comforting.’ I suspected irony. He demurred. ‘It’s
very
comforting. As it was when you were very young and you could hear the murmur of your parents’ voices downstairs. It makes you feel secure.’
I agreed with him about the parent thing.
‘I drift off very happily hearing your laughter and knowing that I’m in a house with a bunch of guys with good hearts. I feel spiritually uplifted.’
Big L was enormous fun … well, if you call nearly drowning at sea in a brave attempt to re-construct the ‘halcyon’ days which the original guys had been desperate to leave behind fun. If you call a
complete lack of marketing strategy, which the original stations had in spades, fun. If you call believing you’re going to be paid and running into a brick wall fun. Actually that’s where the fun stopped. But not until we’d all had a smashing time at the seaside for three years. Sadly the station was full of good intent, good heart and goodwill but the business side failed to hold a candle to the on-air atmosphere and the excellent music. A wasted opportunity.
We knew those times wouldn’t last, though. Nobody will try to re-create that period of the pirate ships again. That’s probably a good thing. Many got out in good time. I tried to see it through and became unstuck financially. After an attempt to put a string of independent radio stations together in the Cotswolds and beyond I realised that we simply didn’t have the right team for the job. Enthusiasm, yes. Work ethic, no. I’m now very happily ensconced doing the Magic Network breakfast show on Saturday and Sunday mornings and the BBC Radio Berkshire afternoon show from Monday to Friday. One is a music-based show where I choose the playlist and the other is an interview- and speech-based show with some music. A great balance. When he heard that I’d moved into Henley, my mate John Baish from Classic FM and Jazz FM asked me if I wanted to do some programmes for BBC Berkshire. I was delighted and it gives me the opportunity to expand my broadcasting into other areas whether it’s putting together and presenting a D-Day Special, a series from Country Houses, covering Hampton Court Flower Show, broadcasting from, and walking, the Thames Path or simply getting out and about broadcasting on the road. My old pal Tony Blackburn is there … mind you he’s everywhere, as are a host of other seriously good national broadcasters.
H
AVING GROWN UP
watching
Top of the Pops
, I was now presenting it. What larks. Skimming through some of the first ones now, with the benefit of hindsight, I appeared a shade too eager to please at times and even a trifle bouncy in places, but I think I was doing what I imagined was expected of me. It took me some while to find myself, if indeed I ever did. Let’s be blunt, there were plenty of very dodgy outfits and implausible hairstyles (I use the term loosely) through the years on
TOTP
.
Blondie appeared on one of my earlier jaunts on the show. Debbie Harry and I had a degree of parity. She was performing on the show and I was hosting it. This clearly gave me the God-given right to talk to her. Of course it did. She was wearing that short green-and-white striped affair, which, let’s be honest, looked damned sexy. She walked across the studio floor. This was my moment. Closer. Now. I opened my mouth and nothing came out. According to onlookers, there may have been a barely audible squeak but little else. Pathetic. I would admit to embarrassing myself, but I don’t think she was even aware of my presence … dear.
The head honchos (executive directors) that spanned my period
presenting the show were the dapper, bow-tied Robin Nash, who reminded me that only cool black dudes could get away with wearing shades indoors, the occasionally irascible Michael Hurll and Paul Ciani. Michael was one of the top BBC producers, also being responsible for shows including
The Two Ronnies
and
Seaside Special
as well as founding the British Comedy Awards. I worked with him for seven years on
TOTP
from 1980 but it wasn’t always easy if you crossed him in any way. Despite my office making Michael aware that I might be a tad late for one particular run-through, he was seriously angry when I arrived. Never one to toady or turn on the obsequious smile, I stood my ground. We’d let him know, after all. He let
me
know by not using me for several months. The show didn’t book the presenters very far in advance, there were no block bookings for the year or anything like that, just a phone call a week or two before.
Michael also penalised me slightly on another occasion. I was in the middle of explaining the timings to one of the newer groups, when Michael barged in and overrode the conversation without so much as a by-your-leave. I wasn’t having that. I attempt to be polite to everyone, and treat them well, unless they do something that warrants me behaving otherwise. So I made my feelings clear, which led to another wee period in the sin bin. Most of the time, though, Michael was fine, as was everybody else.
In the summer of 1979 I was lined up for what would have been a
TOTP
first, presenting the show and performing in one of that week’s chart videos. I’d been hosting the show for less than a year when my pal Jimmy Pursey asked me to be in the video for Sham 69’s new single, ‘Hersham Boys’, playing the fiddle. We shot it in a barn at Weylands Farm, midway between Hersham and Esher. The song had extra meaning for me, as the chorus was an adaptation of an old chant sung by supporters of Hersham Football Club, which later became Walton & Hersham, the main side that my father played for. Jimmy had taken the group’s name from graffiti that was part of the slogan ‘Walton & Hersham ’69’. Unfortunately, there was a strike
the week I was due to be presenting as well as scraping the fiddle in ‘Hersham Boys’, so the historical moment didn’t happen and nor did that week’s
Top of the Pops.
There would always be a call sheet so you knew who’d be playing live, who was on videotape and if there were any post-recordings. We’d usually record the chart rundown between the run-through and the show itself. Here’s a random, but typical call sheet, from a show I presented in 1988 with Andy Crane. Gloria Estefan, Michael Jackson, the Proclaimers, Yello and Jane Wiedlin were all on videotape, while Phil Collins, who was at number one with ‘Groovy Kind of Love’, Marc Almond and Spagna were live in the studio, so a light week in terms of the number of artists actually on site, but the studio crowd weren’t short-changed, because there were live post-recordings from the Four Tops and Rick Astley. The omnipresent floor manager Ian McLean was there as usual to add to the fun, while running the ship at floor level, for the director and producer.
An atypical
Top of the Pops
would be one of the commemorative or seasonal variety. The 25th-anniversary show, for example, was recorded over two days and featured artists that spanned the whole period. On the Wednesday we had Peter Powell, Paul Gambaccini and me presenting, with the Swinging Blue Jeans, Engelbert Humperdinck, the Four Tops and the Tremeloes performing, and we ended with a retrospective piece about
TOTP
’s first home in Manchester. For the following day’s recordings, the three of us were joined by a whole host of DJs from down the years to help with celebration: Kenny Everett, David Hamilton, Pete Murray, Alan Freeman, Jimmy Savile, David Jacobs, Simon Bates and Mark Goodier. Mud, David Essex, the Pet Shop Boys and Status Quo played in the studio, and additional on-screen guests included Robin and Maurice Gibb, Go West, Brian May and Roger Taylor, Living in a Box, Beach Boy Mike Love, the Troggs, Hot Chocolate’s Errol Brown and former Bay City Rollers singer Les McKeown. On top of that many artists were featured on film, including Procol Harum, the Dave Clark Five, the Kinks, the
Animals, the Hollies, the Beatles, Slade, the Police, Adam and the Ants, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Duran Duran, Village People, Free, T. Rex, Abba, the Sex Pistols, ELO … the list of fantastic artists went on and on. No wonder the show got viewing figures of fifteen or sixteen million at times.
The banter in between songs was always left up to the DJs, but there was usually something like ten seconds in which to back-announce the artist you’d just seen (three seconds), introduce the next one (three seconds again) and in the remaining four seconds, indelibly stamp your personality on the great British public. Now there may be some cynics with a cruel and preconceived image of disc jockeys that might ask how we managed to spin that out so long. I’d say that’s harsh and uncalled for. It was a fantastic phenomenon to be a part of.
Before the axe fell on what had been a much-loved British institution, the ratings had been pretty dire. That’s because they hadn’t kept abreast of what was happening. OK it might never have got those fifteen or sixteen million again, but it needn’t have been allowed to deteriorate into the corporation’s sickly child. I called Peter Fincham and asked if I could take it over on a no-ratings, no-fee basis. I knew what I’d do with it. I’d move it to late afternoon/early evening on a Sunday, double the length to an hour, and have a mix of songs from the singles chart, album tracks (which would mean major heritage artists also being featured) and a sprinkling of material from old
TOTP
. I’d give a slot to a really good new act that deserved a break, and feature a YouTube chart each week with variable genres. But no go.
It was great to be part of the programme’s history for so long and to have co-presented the very last show, in 2006. The extraordinary thing is that BBC Four is now screening them all in order and I have a whole new retrospective career, popping up every few weeks. I still query some of the clothes, why I should have been dressed in a sailor suit one week and leather trousers the next. Still, it makes for good banter on Twitter.