Batteries Not Included

John Humphrys was silenced in his prime Today. Not by some spinning politician who had got the better of him, nor by any seasonal lurgy, but by a dawn power cut here in West Middlesex. There was I about to enjoy the review of the papers and catch up on the world’s events, when suddenly it was silent. No radio, no telly. All the familiar accompaniments to our home life had been snatched away from us and we were powerless to do anything about it, literally. It took 90 minutes for the electricity supply to return here, but at least our home has a gas supply for boiling water (and indeed toasting crumpets!).
I couldn’t possibly start the day without my cuppa. I could hardly start it without the radio, either. However, I was ill prepared in not having a battery or self-powered radio set to hand. There's a metaphor here too, I am sure, for how often this applies to our unreadiness for the crises of life, let alone an energy crisis like that of 31 years ago currently being recalled in the excellent TV adaptation of Jonathan Coe's The Rotter's Club on BBC Two. It brings back instant, largely happy memories of my own adolescence in the mid-Seventies, and of bedtime listening to Robbie Vincent with The Crisis Programme when the TV screens went blank at 10.30 by official diktat to save power. It was a source of some amusement to two teenage brothers in Feltham, and inspired Matthew to create several memorable cartoon characters such as No Telly Nelly, shown in nightgown and carrying candle, and Power Cut Pete- not to mention Blackout Bert.

Power cuts in the noughties then come as something of a shock to the system, but seem to be happening more regularly than they once did. Unlike my brother, who wakes to his bedroom telly every morning, I enjoy my daily dose of Messrs Humprhys, Naughtie, Stourton et al, though I’m rather less keen on their female counterparts such as Sarah Montague. Radio 4 even seems to have taken to having double-headed female presentation on some of the Today shifts, but for me it just does not work. The voices they use are just far too earnest and almost harsh, lacking that subtle mixture of gravitas and warmth that was the great strength of the still-missed Sue McGregor.
A perfect Today for me blends the serious probing of a post-eight political interview with the lightness of touch, information, humour and occasional silliness which we all need when we are bleakly faced with the start of another weekday after the comforts of a night’s slumber. With new traumas to face in my own life at the moment, I find the radio is particularly important right now. The trio of experienced journos named above manage to satisfy my breakfast listening diet pretty well most of the time, though one of my Radio 4 heroes remains that champion of Macclesfield, the late Brian Redhead.


MEN'S SANA IN CORPORA SOUNDA
What is it then about men’s voices? Despite the best efforts of some entertainment stations with the crucial breakfast slot, it’s still the male jocks and hacks that steal the scene and get the ratings. At the other end of the working day too, Johnnie Walker has admirably filled the void left by the retirement of the late, great John Dunn on Radio 2. So much a fan of “Big John” was I, that as an 11 year old I launched a short-lived campaign to keep him on Breakfast Special when that Radio One interloper from the Emerald Isle, Wogan T, was about to usurp him. Of course, my campaign came to no avail, though I have to concede that Wogan’s words and music are ratings toppers now and deservedly so (even though I usually only listen to about a quarter-hour of him myself, around Pause for Thought).

Radio is a warm and very comforting companion in a way that TV, at Breakfast or otherwise, can never be. The interface of a glassy screen always gives it something of the experience of gazing on a goldfish bowl: you’re there, I’m here and ne’er the twain shall meet. Good old steam wireless however thrives on the most important piece of advice given to any aspiring presenter: remember you are speaking to an audience of one. Johnny Walker recognised this in an interview with Lisa Tarbuck, which I caught part of in the car park of Ashford Hospital before going in for my daily visit to my Mum in her hospital bed after I had spent an afternoon on the coast dealing with some of my home matters there. Johnny’s listeners had apparently been making comments about what a friend radio is, and who am I to disagree.

Back in the early seventies when I first seriously got into radio, there was no commercial radio in the UK: no phone-ins, no Classic FM, no all-night BBC Seven and certainly no 24/7 Radios 1, 2 and 3. Instead, if you hadn’t already reached the Land of Nod, you could take a Night Ride until 02.00, when the excellent Theme One by George Martin closed the BBC’s domestic network for another day until re-surfacing on Radio Two a few hours later with Ray Moore, another much-missed denizen of the silver speaker.

I still often sought solace in the still of the night however, and this is when stations such as AFN and the BBC’s European service (long since defunct) came to the fore. AFN was like another world, particularly when the American Football commentaries came on. Even if I could not make a blind bit of sense of the action, somehow there was something very comforting about knowing that while I struggled to sleep, sometimes, on another continent the evening was in full flow.

It wasn’t just the footie on AFN though. I probably would have soon stopped listening to those fadey Medium Wave signals if it were. Just as important were the music programmes, with the hit parade of the moment, the same oft-repeated tunes on different nights, juxtaposed with the nocturnal meanderings of the yankee presenters aiming to bring a touch of home to their boys in West Germany in the bad old days before the wall fell.
However, sometimes the interplay between the tunes chosen and my idiosyncratic mental processes was a fraught one. I well remember that "Band of Gold" by Freda Payne was a regular AFN favourite. I guess it describes a broken relationship, but at a time when my Dad was in hospital for reasons my 12-year old mind did not wholly understand ( I later discovered it was because of stress- or as we would call it today “burn out”) the line “Now that you’ve gone, all that’s left is a Band of Gold…” kept making me think of Dad in hospital, and that he had died suddenly! That is the way this Savage mind tends to work-sometimes anxious, rather imaginative, but always longing in a rather childlike way even now for things to be better.

HOW TO SLEEP BETTER
Thirty-four years on, the music may have changed, the voices certainly have and we are blessed, if that is the word, with a plethora of both digital and analogue audio services at our beck and call every hour of the day. Whether your taste is for shock jocks or baroque, you’re sure to find somewhere on the “dial” where you can find an audio solace at any hour of the day or night. I’m very grateful for that, and certainly leaving the radio on has enabled me to divert my thoughts from worries and concerns on many an occasion to enjoy a comfortable night, as they say.
I’ve always tended to be a light sleeper, which probably makes me just the kind of listener that the commercial stations need really; otherwise, I’ve always wondered how they manage to make any money from the night shift-which probably accounts for so much awful automated programming in the graveyard shift from smaller commercial stations. The whole point about overnight radio is that it should be intimate: in the loneliness of insomnia, or night-time driving fully awake, you know there is someone else out there sharing it with you. Unless it turns nasty, as in Clint Eastwood’s classic film Play Misty for Me, you’ve got a friend on the radio. Indeed, James Taylor’s You’ve Got a Friend was another favourite song of mine as a pre-teen listener, though probably more in the garden shed than the bunk bed.Hours and hours of computer-selected music don’t do it for me: there’s got to be some evidence of human habitation out there, even if it is in an ancient repeat of a Radio 4 comedy-but then that’s often what the World Service brought in the small hours anyway and BBC 7 now pleasingly reprieves.

You can tell then that I am all for having the radio by my bedside until morning is nigh, and having it on even if at low volume. This is a practice which would probably not be endorsed by some of the “experts” featured in an enjoyable one-off documentary feature on BBC ONE on Wednesday night called How to Sleep Better. It was presented by that TV doyen of all things to do with the mind and body, Lord Robert Winston. It seems you need an uncluttered bedroom to sleep soundly, according to one of the pundits: no wonder then that this untidy bachelor is such a light sleeper! I know I need to tidy up my “personal space”, but I will not pay any heed to the suggestion that a bedroom should be kept free of electrical and home entertainment equipment. Me and my radio are as close as boy and teddy and I will not surrender that lightly (the radio, not the teddy that is, who eventually departed when I was seventeenish!)

WHAT A FRIEND WE HAVE IN RADIO
I’m sorry, I don’t wish to sound irreverent. If you’re a regular reader of my blog, then I hope you haven’t suffered any withdrawal symptoms from the absence of more regular postings over the last couple of weeks. For all I know you could have been using my ramblings as an aid to sleep anyway: among the suggestions for getting back off to sleep after a tough night is to read a book or some other not too stimulating material for a while. If this is you, I hope it doesn’t reflect a boring writing style on my part! I’ve written a bit about radio again this time because I know many of my readers are dear friends in the British DX Club. It’s time I pay them and my favourite hobby some homage anew.
BDXC has been the source of my most enduring and rewarding friendships for nearly thirty years now. As in life, people come and people go from our club, but we now have around 500 members around the world. That is part of the wonderful bond which a radio set and a postage stamp fostered long before the World Wide Web was even a glimmer in the mind of Tim Berners-Lee, recently ennobled belatedly for his development of this wonderfully accessible medium of the internet. I know I have friends out there who care about what is happening in my life, my sorrows, triumphs and challenges, just as much as I care about theirs. One friend welcomed a new life into the world this Tuesday for instance, so hi to Jonathan Michael Guy up there in sunny Stockport! Maybe Mum and Dad are having to rely on the radio for company as they stay awake with their new bundle of joy right now.

Just as life has its joys, though, it also has its sorrows which sooner or later we all have to face in one form or another. There is a lot of truth in the saying “a trouble shared is a trouble halved”- or perhaps if a radio agony uncle or aunt is involved, maybe the fraction would be even smaller! I certainly had times in the traumas of teenagerdom when I was tempted to rush to Raeburn (Anna) for my solace.

However, everybody goes through changes. It’s a part of life, but not an easy part at times. Although part of the fun of being in a radio club is knowing what is out there to hear and sharing it, everyone will hear it with a different, unique pair of ears and eyes. Their brain will receive the information signals, be they speech or music, coming out of the radio speaker or headphones and process it in a way which is theirs alone. This is where the world of ideas, creativity, thought and even spiritual inspiration start. It's also where, when having trouble processing the incoming signal, as if through a mush of radio noise, undue anxiety and frustration can start.
It is through a radio friendship that the most important relationship in my life, with Jesus Christ, was re-kindled twenty years ago this month, and it is to that relationship that I am having to look for comfort, solace, guidance, wisdom and freedom from anxiety at the present time when even friends can't provide all the answers or cheer. Again I face the prospect of a loved one with a possibly life-limiting illness (for real this time). If she were still on air, I’m afraid Anna Raeburn alone could not offer an answer for this one. Even Esther Rantzen would have to say That’s Life!. With all it’s joys and sorrows, life is a beautiful but occasionally painful mystery- yet which I firmly believe for those who trust in Our Lord will carry on forever even when that fantastic signal which is our own ID has long faded into the ether. We look to the radio as our audio beach if you like, but we all have to face the turn of the tide at some point in our lives and the cloud which dominates the skyline here in my family home of 44 years reflects the mood of the moment in my heart. I would far rather be visiting the seaside studios of Radio Platja d’Aro in Catalonia, as I did in February 1985 than hospital bedsides or sitting here in Feltham, unemployed and having to face difficult decisions on behalf of my loved ones. Then as now, I know though that God is full of surprises and there is nothing wrong with hoping for a miracle, even praying for it or the next best thing, even when the chances of extended transmissions seem slim.
My visit to the former accommodation address of a pirate (somebody please post me a reminder of which one!) was made after “gatecrashing” the holiday of two BDXC friends,
But the music goes round and round and it comes out here! It may have been written with the phonograph in mind, but it is just as applicable to the radio. Unlike the tides and the torrents all too clearly seen in Winter 2004/5, the unseen radio wave can bring a tsunami of blessings into the home and into the heart. Just recently, I have valued even more such gems as Prayer for the Day, Pause for Thought and especially the Daily Service. Somehow, through the broadcast word and favourite hymns I have been able to see God at work, and thus I have seen hope for the moment and for the future. It’s extraordinary how just hearing the tune of "What a Friend We Have In Jesus" can indeed bring comfort- even when it is in the clever adaptation by Alan Price – heard on Heartbeat over Christmas- of this Victorian hymn which I referred to earlier. Everybody is going through changes all the time- to change is to grow, it is said.
The radio scene has changed immeasurably since I joined BDXC in 1976, and now the club itself is changing this year with Chris Brand moving into the editorial hot seat to succeed Tony Rogers, who has decided to step down from the reins of Communication this Spring after an incredible two decades. It will be interesting to see what changes happen, and what stays the same. What we can take on board from the past, and what we can bring to the club with the best of the present, for the future. Whatever happens, I am sure the club will stay lively, and my prayer is it will become even more friendly.

This is my prayer too for life, my own and that of my friends and loved ones, whose own worries are not unknown to me even as I grappel with my own. Another favourite hymn comes to mind: Amazing Grace: How Sweet the Sound. Where there is life, there is hope- and where there is hope, there is God.

.. UNASHAMED PLUG TIME..For anyone within reach of Reading, Berkshire, a reminder that this weekend sees the re-launch of the long-running Reading International Radio Group meetings at a new venue in the town. More details in the diary section at www.bdxc.org.uk . Hoping to catch up with some of you there, but otherwise I will do my best to post here again soon. Keep visiting regularly to check for updates, but please bear with me if I’m not so verbose for a while or if I appear a little sombre in tone. And if you’re a praying person, God bless you brother or sister- please add the family Savage to your list!