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Last year I wrote about the 100th anniversary of the BBC, and why I was so proud to be associated with it. Today marks the centenary of another British cultural institution, one which for most of its history until being sold off in 2011 was a part of the BBC, and indeed was its official "organ". For it is 100 years ago today since the first issue of the Radio Times listings magazine was published - and to my surprise, but no little pleasure, I have found myself also becoming associated with the magazine for its centenary special issue.

We were always a Radio Times household when I was growing up. I am just about old enough to remember the pre-deregulation days when we would get both the Radio Times and the TV Times to have both sets of listings. But, like many households in the UK, once they were both publishing each other's we got both for precisely one more week before deciding on which side our bread was buttered and continuing with the Radio Times alone.

I can remember it feeling like one of the signs of being an independent grown-up when, after having moved away to go to university, I had to start buying my own copy if I wanted one. I think the magazine is a great cultural time capsule, too. For TV and radio history, obviously, but also for the more wider popular culture of the time, too. Just the other day I was browsing some covers of issues from 1989, and I think you'd find it hard to have a better barometer of just who and what were in the public consciousness in any given era of Britain in the second half of the 20th century than the covers from across those decades.

I've been very proud to have had a couple of my documentaries selected as "Today's Choices" in the radio pages down the years, and even to have once managed to get them to play along with printing a clue within the magazine for Treasure Quest. But I was even more proud earlier this month to rather unexpectedly find myself asked to write a small piece for them - and not for any old issue, either, but for the centenary special.

It's a short feature about Eric Maschwitz, one of the early editors of the Radio Times and a fascinating character - a lyricist who wrote the words to A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square; a screenwriter who co-wrote the screenplay for Goodbye, Mr Chips; a radio executive who created In Town Tonight; and even a spy involved with counter-intelligence operations in neutral New York in the early days of the Second World War.

He also, in one of his latter roles as a BBC television executive, had a part in the chain of events which led to the creation of Doctor Who. Which is why I wrote about him in Pull to Open, and why I in turn ended up being asked to write this short piece.

So, happy birthday Radio Times. And thank you for letting me become a small part of that history!

What Next...?

 

With friends, colleagues and ex-colleagues at the end of the Treasure Quest 'wake' after the final show, at the Coach and Horses pub near the BBC in Norwich

It’s been an emotional week for me, and for several of my colleagues – some of them now, sadly, former colleagues, but still close friends – as last Sunday we said goodbye to Treasure Quest, the BBC Radio Norfolk programme which I have produced for the past 15 years, ever since its regular run started in May 2008.

 
Or rather, which I did produce. It still feels strange to refer to it in the past tense.
 
It ran for 732 quests across 808 episodes – taking in 11 two-parters, five shows where the weather stopped us going out, and 60 ‘Virtual Quests’ during the pandemic – and I was involved in all but about nine of them across that time. I’ve written before on this blog about how much the show has meant to me, and that’s been a big part of the wrench of it ending, of course. I’m very proud of so much that we were able to do after I wrote that piece, too: keeping it going through covid with the Virtual Quests which really seemed to mean so much to people; turning it into an on-air mystery game for a Boxing Day special; having the new team of Sophie and Julie together for a final three years.
 
But what’s also made the final end emotional, and moving, has been seeing how much it means to other people. I knew it was a popular show which had built up a community of listeners around it who really valued it and felt a part of it, but seeing the hundreds of comments come in about what it means to people and how much they’ll miss it has been quite humbling. It’s very sad to think of that ‘community of the air’ now having been dispersed, forever.
 
I wrote last year, for the BBC’s centenary, about what a privilege it has been for me to be a part of the BBC. And a large part of that feeling has come from the opportunity to be a part of the team making a show which really did mean something to people, and became a part of their lives – a very rare and special honour. I think all of us lucky enough to have been in the ‘TQ Family’ felt that way, all through the years. And we were very proud of everything that we did together.
 

 
So it’s been a strange and sad week, and left me feeling a little adrift – especially sitting here typing this at home on a Sunday morning, when for over a third of my life so far I’d have usually been at work producing TQ.
 
But there have been some brighter spots, relating to the continuing positive reaction I’ve had to Pull to Open. Two reviews of the book appeared this week, both of them extremely pleasing. Paul Mount for Starburst says in his review that “Books about the history of British TV in general and Doctor Who in particular don’t get much more essential than this one.” For SFX magazine, meanwhile, Nick Setchfield gives it four-and-a-half stars out of five and says it “succeeds in turning the facts of a TV legend’s birth into a freshly engaging narrative.” Mount also calls it a “formidable work of long-form investigative journalism”, while Setchfield praises my “cultural historian’s eye for context.”
 

So that has all been nicely ego-boosting!

 
As have the continuing images on Twitter of people sharing their pictures of having received the book, and commenting on either their excitement at looking forward to reading it or their positive thoughts after they have done so. I was particularly flattered to see the very kind tweet from Richard Marson, whose own writing on British television history is widely admired. He’s very much an expert in this area, so to see him refer to the book’s “great job of contextualising the birth of Doctor Who and navigating the available sources to form a clear picture of the key events and characters” was very nice.
 

What happens next, I don’t know – on most scores, really. My future at the BBC is still currently to be decided. In writing terms there are a couple of little irons in the fire for pieces coming up related to Pull to Open, about which more before too long hopefully. People have been asking about and suggesting ideas for future non-fiction books, but there isn’t yet any concept which really strikes me as one I’d like to get my teeth into. I do have one idea for a non-Doctor Who non-fiction book, again related to British television history, but I’m not sure whether it would really have enough of a potential audience for anyone to want to publish it.

 
Finally, on a literary note, on Thursday evening I was at the joint book launch in Norwich for the married authors Rachel Hore and DJ Taylor, whose new novels The Hidden Years and Flame Music were both released that day. I was quite pleased with the resulting radio piece, particularly my idea of pitting them against each other in a sort of Mr & Mrs game asking them questions about each other’s new books. This seemed to go down quite well – have a listen to see how they did!