Over the summer time we’re repeating this collection recalling BBC radio programmes from the 30s, 40s and 50s, when the company was a much-loved establishment broadcasting materials the listeners wished to listen to. This text was first revealed on March 9, 2019.
THROUGHOUT all through the early years of the BBC the one accent heard was Obtained Pronunciation, which many at this time would characterise as ‘posh’. It was a serious breakthrough, due to this fact, when proud Yorkshireman Wilfred Pickles arrived on the airwaves, making no concessions to the pronunciation police.
Pickles was born in Halifax in 1904. He labored together with his father as a builder however had a eager curiosity within the stage. The household moved over the Pennines to Southport in 1929, and in an novice dramatics manufacturing he performed reverse Mabel Myerscough. They married a yr later at Sacred Coronary heart Roman Catholic Church in Southport, with a guard of honour forming an arch of picks and shovels.
In 1931 Pickles efficiently auditioned as an actor for the BBC’s Northern area and appeared in native programmes. The couple’s son David was born the next yr; he died of polio on November 1, 1939, on the age of seven. There have been to be no extra youngsters.
In 1941 the Ministry of Info got here up with the concept that a regional accent on the information could be more durable for the Germans to mimic (I suppose they will need to have feared an enemy takeover of the BBC – arguably just a few a long time early) and Pickles was introduced in to the Dwelling Service. There was some shock when he signed off his broadcasts with: ‘Goodnight everyone, and to all you Northerners wherever you’re – good neet’.
After the conflict the BBC was looking for new programmes. Have a Go! was the brainchild of Philip Robinson, a programme assistant based mostly in Leeds, in response to a request for concepts for a ‘quiz programme with viewers participation’, and he turned the primary producer. It was supposed from the beginning that Wilfred Pickles could be the host, and he got here up with the title. The format was to ask abnormal folks to inform their heart-warming tales and share their experiences of life. Then they had been invited to reply quiz questions for prizes of a small amount of money and generally native produce. The theme music was written by Jack Jordan and the viewers at every week’s present would sing alongside to those phrases:
Have a go, Joe, come on and have a go
You possibly can’t lose owt, it prices you nowt
To make your self some dough.
So hurry up and be a part of us,
don’t be shy and don’t be sluggish.
Come on Joe, have a go!
Right here is an instance from Ramsbottom, Lancashire in 1953 (notice the distinction in speech between the announcer and Wilfred Pickles, although I’d say that Pickles’s accent was really fairly refined).
The primary broadcast, from Bingley, was in February 1949 on the Northern Dwelling Service solely however after six months the present was so successful that it was moved to a nationwide slot on the Mild Programme with the primary present on 16 September 1946 coming from Bridlington.
Quickly Pickles’s catchphrases ‘How do, how are yer?’ and ‘Are yer courting’? had been acquainted in every single place. Producer Philip Robinson was changed by Barney Colehan, who handed out the prize cash, giving rise to the catchphrase: ‘Give ‘im the cash, Barney’. In 1953 he in flip was changed by Mabel Pickles, who turned ‘Mabel on the desk’. The background was that in 1939 the couple had misplaced their solely little one, seven-year-old David, to polio, and Wilfred was able to insist that he and Mabel, who had misplaced one other child in being pregnant, had been collectively as usually as potential.
From 1947 to 1953 the programme’s pianist was Violet Carson, who had beforehand labored with Wilfred on many editions of Youngsters’s Hour. As everybody is aware of she went on to play Ena Sharples in Coronation Road. Right here is her immortal first look in 1960.
(To me, the grasp stroke is having Ena make herself comfy on the chair on the counter which many outlets used to offer, in order that the hapless Florrie Lindley is aware of she is in for an extended session as a captive viewers.)
Have a Go! turned one of the vital well-liked reveals ever broadcast on both radio or tv. At its peak within the Fifties it was mentioned to draw an viewers of twenty million every week plus a mailbag of round 5,000 letters. Pickles, together with his bluff ‘man of the folks’ fashion, was a star. Here’s a profile by Pathé Information.
The YouTube legend says it was made in 1947, however that sounds a bit early to me – the present had began solely the earlier yr.
Have a Go! went throughout Britain. In 1959 it visited Tintagel in Cornwall. One participant was Mary Symons, who reported that Pickles was an enthralling host and put the contestants relaxed. She mentioned to him earlier than the published, ‘I’m very nervous’ and he replied, ‘Not as a lot as I’m!’ A barely much less flattering comment got here from the pinnacle chef on the Wharncliffe Resort, the place the crew stayed. Tommy Knight mentioned that Pickles was ‘an ungainly buyer who favored his whisky’.
Right here is an extract from a present in Padiham, Lancashire.
I believe that is from Wales because the viewers are singing in Welsh.
And here’s a entire present from Ramsbottom, additionally in Lancashire. (The introduction of this present is featured initially of this text.) On the finish the viewers sings the closing music:
Have a go, Joe, you’ve been and had a go
And you’ll inform your mates as properly
You’ve been on radio
So hear in once more subsequent week
And listen to one other present
Have a go! Have a go!
Then presumably as a result of that they had completed a bit early the pianist segues into She’s a Lassie from Lancashire. (Acknowledgments to www.turnipnet.com )
In 1966 there have been 1,500 excellent invites for Have a Go! to go to. Nonetheless the BBC felt the programme had ‘run out of steam’, and the ultimate version went out of January 10, 1967.
Pickles later took on a lot of appearing roles. He performed Tom Courtenay’s father within the 1963 movie Billy Liar. Here’s a clip. (It’s billed as a trailer however I don’t assume it’s.)
He was Hayley Mills’s uncle in The Household Method (1966). I couldn’t discover a first rate clip so I assumed I would come with the theme music, which in my view is certainly one of Paul McCartney’s higher compositions.
(In passing, as a schoolgirl I had a crush on Hayley Mills’s co-star Hywel Bennett, however sadly he married ‘Queen of the Mods’ Cathy McGowan as a substitute. Observe on this clip how regardless of being mobbed by photographers he manages to get a cigarette lit.)
Pickles starred as widower Walter Bingley with Irene Handl as Ada Cresswell in Thames TV’s For the Love of Ada in 1970 and 1971. Here’s a scene from 1971. A movie sequel was made in 1972. Here’s a trailer. (I can’t say it appears to be like excellent.)
Wilfred and Mabel Pickles had been beneficiant donors to charity. All royalties from their TV and radio work got to the incapacity charity Scope, which nonetheless advantages from them. In 1955, he opened the Wilfred Pickles Faculty in Rutland for youngsters with cerebral palsy. (I think that, just like the only a few different such faculties on the time, it might have catered additionally for youngsters disabled by polio.)
Pickles died aged 73 in 1978 and Mabel adopted in 1989 aged 82. They’re buried with their son David and Mabel’s dad and mom in Southern Cemetery, Manchester. You possibly can see the headstone right here.
