opinion
Radio Active I RE-READ BRIAN WHITE’S ARTICLE ON HIS MEMORIES OF EARLY RADIO IN LAST MONTH’S ETCETERA, AND OF COURSE FOUND MY RECOLLECTIONS TALLYING VERY MUCH WITH HIS (EXCEPT THAT I LIKED BILLY COTTON’S BAND SHOW!). By Mik
T
hen my memory started to put together my own fragments, and I found some strange gems under my feet.
Playtime” drifting on the balmy air. In those days this wasn’t looked upon as a nuisance. I’d get home, Mum would be listening, too, and then we would have lunch.
We didn’t have a huge radio in a cabinetmade wooden box. Most people did, One day in 1952, however, the street was including schools. The BBC used to do strangely silent. I got home, and some schools’ broadcasts, and in many schools mournful (to me) music had replaced certain lessons were geared up to “Workers’ Playtime”. “What’s happened to listening. Who can forget Music and Workers’ Playtime?” I asked. Movement with Mr Appleby, and the memorable day when the Mum and Dad had gone special sing-along word through the war in That moment has never book misprinted the London. They never left me, and I can even see third verse of “Rule forgot the King and the tiny space in which it Britannia” as “…Serves Queen staying in to root thy native out” took place London, too. They instead of “native oak”. respected this hapless family, who had never wanted the job but Strangely, the radio monitor whose job it had shouldered it when the feckless was to carry the radio between classrooms, Edward VIII had abdicated. So my mother seemed not to be chosen for his suitability was close to tears as she told me “King as a furniture remover, and a tiny lad George VI, our gracious King, is dead.” could be seen struggling down the corridor carrying a wooden monster. That, the event itself but more my mother’s response, has stayed with me for However, my father, who was a skilled 70 years. When I teased her about it many engineer, had disembowelled our radio years later, she could not remember saying and hidden the working bits in the those words, but that moment has never cupboard under the stairs, with speakers left me, and I can even see the tiny space leading off to those rooms where one in which it took place. Memories play usually listened. I imagine, with hindsight, strange games. that the whole setup (it was mains powered) was lethal, but the live bits For what seemed ages to a seven-year-old, were too high up for my inquisitive fingers solemn music replaced all the cheering to reach. radio programs that made life interesting. I guess it was only for a week, but it And this brings me to my main memory. I seemed an eternity. Don’t forget, this was used to come home from school for lunch, all happening at a time of severe rationing. and as I walked on a sunny day down the Sweets were on coupon, and a hearty roast road I picked up snatches of “Workers’
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Mike George is our regular contributor on wildlife and the countryside in France. He is a geologist and naturalist, living in the Jurassic area of the Charente
meal was a luxury. Chicken was something the average family saved up for at Christmas! Our parents struggled, sometimes, to make food go round, so that we children would be minimally affected, but we of the just-pre “Baby boomer” generation never really got the sweet habit – probably just as well! There was about a week after the announcement of the King’s death during which his body lay in state, and, over three days, three hundred thousand of his subjects queued in a 4-mile long line to view it. It was during this time that Richard Dimbleby spoke some of the most moving lines ever broadcast. Referring to the coffin, he said: ‘The oak of Sandringham, hidden beneath the rich, golden folds of the Standard. The slow flicker of the candles touches gently the gems of the Imperial Crown, even that ruby that Henry wore at Agincourt. It touches the deep, velvet purple of the cushion, and the cool, white flowers of the only wreath that lies upon the flag. How moving can such simplicity be. How real the tears of those who pass by and see it, and come out again, as they do at this moment in unbroken stream, to the cold, dark night and a little privacy for their thoughts ... Never safer, better guarded, lay a sleeping king than this, with a golden candlelight to warm his resting place, and the muffled footsteps of his devoted subjects to keep him company ... How true
