|
Administrator
|
The radio announcer, Robin Boyle, best known for his work on Radio 2, has died. This was Jack Adrian's obituary in The Independent on October 2nd:
The radio presenter Robin Boyle possessed a public voice and persona that took listeners of a certain age gracefully back to another era, perhaps more leisurely, perhaps with fewer tensions and uncertainties, perhaps where righteousness prevailed more often (though perhaps not); certainly more yearned-for.
He used his trademark light baritone almost as an instrument, and although he could summon up with ease a grave and magisterial tone for state occasions (like a news bulletin covering the Falklands conflict "Victory Parade") or national emergencies (sitting in a dark and chilly studio announcing the power cuts during the notorious three-day week of 1974), he was just as capable, at the snap of the fingers, of jovially announcing Hancock's Half Hour or The Navy Lark (and of taking the odd cameo part in such comedy shows), a play by Pirandello or Ionesco on the Third Programme, or presenting the news on pre-Newsbeat Radio 1.
But he will be remembered chiefly as the voice of Friday Night is Music Night, the principal live music programme of the week on the Light Programme and later Radio 2, broadcasting, via the BBC Concert Orchestra, usually under the baton of Sydney Torch, light music, light opera, film music and popular classics of all kinds.
Robin Boyle was born in 1927 in Folkestone, Kent, into a service family. His father had fought in the Army during the First World War and then, like many venturesome young men of the time, had transferred across to the newly constituted (out of the Royal Flying Corps) Royal Air Force in 1918. As Boyle grew up his education was peripatetic, following wherever his father was posted. His final schooling took place at Skegness Grammar School, by which time the Second World War had broken out.
A tall boy for his age, he added three years on to the 15 that he was and joined the Inns of Court Regiment, training in tanks. Later he was transferred to the armoured reconnaissance corps, taking part in the Normandy landings, and spending most of the rest of the war recceing in "dingoes", the fast light-armoured vehicles that boldly pushed ahead of the main force looking for the enemy. Boyle was one of the first across the Rhine, and in 1945 his corps, instead of chasing towards Berlin, veered off to the north-west and took part in the expunging of the Wehrmacht from Denmark.
At a loose end after Germany surrendered, Boyle joined the British Forces Network (BFN), since he'd done some amateur disc-jockeying (at youth clubs, tennis club dances and the like) before the war. In fact it was the very best of times to show an interest in sound broadcasting. The BFN at this period was full of young ex-servicemen who had an urge to wrestle verbally with a microphone, including many who would later become celebrated practitioners of their craft: Jimmy Kingsbury, Don Moss, Tim Gudgin, as well as tiro broadcasters from other theatres of war, such as David Jacobs and Desmond Carrington.
Boyle was based in Hamburg, the BFN having liberated the old Reichs Rundfunk studios (where, on 30 April 1945, William Joyce, "Lord Haw-Haw", had made his final defiant, and drunken, broadcast). It was here that he met his future wife Nan, who was busy writing material for broadcasting under the young Raymond Baxter, another BBC star in the making. Boyle was employed as a presenter, though both he and Nan handled whatever came up: writing plays, continuity, record programme scripts, sports reports.
They married in Hamburg in 1947, shortly after Boyle was demobbed and joined the BBC, still broadcasting from Hamburg (at one stage he was presenting the German end of Family Favourites opposite Jean Metcalfe in London). Back in Britain, he had to settle down to a more ordered existence as a staff announcer and presenter, mainly on the old Light Programme, although when necessary he did stints on the Home Service and the newly created Third Programme duty rosters too. Presenters then had to handle all moods, deal with all contingencies, however outlandish or disastrous.
And disasters (some minor, some major) did occur. Just before the second series of Hancock's Half-Hour started in early 1955, Tony Hancock himself had a sudden attack of nerves and (rather in the manner of Stephen Fry some 40 years later) fled to the Continent. A well-known comedian was drafted in to cover, and Boyle, on the roster for that particular programme, had the odd experience of having to announce, as though it were an everyday occurrence, "This is the BBC Light Programme. We present Hancock's Half Hour, starring - Harry Secombe . . ."
Presenters were also, during the 1950s, accorded (in that slightly reluctant way the BBC notoriously has) semi-star status. This mainly manifested itself in several series of "fan" photographs along the lines of pre-war cigarette cards, sold for pennies in glassine packets of half a dozen or so each. Robin Boyle gazes urbanely out of his photograph, the very picture of the classic matinée idol, though with a somewhat rakish moustache.
There was a downside to this kind of publicity. When Boyle went on tour with the BBC Concert Orchestra, taking the show round Britain to various theatres, it was sometimes the case that his fans became over- excited at seeing "the man behind the voice" at last. At one venue, a particularly importunate middle-aged lady gushed to Nan Boyle that it must be wonderful living in the same house as Robin, hearing that golden voice, again and again. "Nah!" came the exasperated reply. "It's all front, duck. 'E's dead common back 'ome!"
Although he had a short period on secondment in the Light Entertainment department as producer, Boyle's lasting love was music, and he was at his beat presenting such shows as Night-Ride, Morning Music and Music While You Work, and he was liked and trusted by the professionals, like Cliff Adams of the Adams Singers, or the arranger, composer and conductor Stanley Black.
Friday Night is Music Night came his way in the general run of programmes to be presented, in the 1950s. It was never meant to have just one announcer; indeed, most Light Programme/Radio 2 staff announcers had a stab at it at one time or another: Philip Slessor (the original presenter), Jimmy Kingsbury, the majestic Frank Phillips, Eugene Fraser, John Marsh, James Alexander Gordon (when he wasn't reading the football results). But after a while, sometime in the 1970s, Boyle seemed to fall naturally into the job and carried on through the 1980s until he retired in 1987 at the statutory BBC age of 60. That, however, seemed to make little or no difference and he found that the producers would summon him as usual through the 1990s, although now as a freelance, and for a rather better fee.
On the 50th anniversary of FNIMN, its guest presenter Ken Bruce spoke of the many BBC celebrities who had, over the years, been associated with the show, but particularly
the man most associated with the show . . . Robin Boyle . . . [who] was the most versatile of all-rounders . . . hitting the right tone each time. He was also, as it happens, a bright, engaging, and kindly man.
|
Home
Pages: 1
Robin Boyle (Read 10424 times)
