Yes I do.
He was a good friend
Bernie and I first met in BH Foyer on 28 September 1957, we were fresh faced TO’s, he came from the GPO and I from national service. We didn’t speak much then but during the first week of our induction course we were in the Crystal Palace canteen when this miserable looking chap approached me, “Can I join you for coffee?” and that was the start of a friendship which lasted for 53 years.
I remember his early studio in his bedroom in Rochester Way, my then fiancée, Carol, made his curtains from Blue Velvet, he had a Reslo ribbon microphone, Vortexion 4 ch mixer and tape machine and we spent happy hours making our own radio shows.
In our early days we would skive off and monitor the Goon Show from 5 PP Control Room, and often went to live studio sessions, I remember specially Steve Race’s “Music about Town” with producer Johnny Kingdon in Aeolian 2, and Skiffle Club with Jimmy Grant, then as our careers developed we moved away from the control room. He became a very skilled XP Tape operator and editor, while I was an SM, frequently we worked together on Sports Report and Thursday Roundabout with Ken Sykora, there we all shared love of folk and country music, recording Robin Hall and Jimmy McGregor, The Spinners, Dot Y Pete, and so on. He was a big fan of Guitar Club and of course Saturday Club. Later we both became producers, I was in Gramophone Department hand he went to Popular Music based in Aeolian Hall, Bond Street as Saturday Club producer. He took endless trouble with his recording sessions and this earned him the respect of major artists. Particularly Beatles with whom he became friends, he had a flat in Shepherd’s Market where they would often drop in, John Lennon in Andy Peebles interview before he was shot mentions Bernie with affection.
Bernie always inspired great loyalty from his female colleagues, Shirley Jones, Pan Tarrant and Pinky, and his artists, John Peel, Top Gear, Brian Mathew, Anne Nightingale and even Tony Blackburn on Top 40, but he felt resented by some of his colleagues in the Pop music dpt. because he was so fastidious in his work, taking a long time over sessions, often overrunning, and his closeness with the artistes caused resentment. Bernie was never afraid to stick his neck out, there was one year when November 11 fell on a Saturday and consequently the “Saturday Club” Programme had to include the two minute silence in memory of those who had fallen in two world wars. Bernie looked at the audience figures a few weeks later and noticed that, by some statistical freak, it appeared that the figures for the silence were bigger than those for the programme. He wrote a memo to Ken Baines, Head of Popular Music, in it he said,
“I think we’ve hit on a winner here. I am volunteering to produce the omnibus edition of the silence as a complete half an hour as it could get us very good figures! The consequent savings could then be used to increase the meagre £220 a week budget which I currently have for “Saturday Club”. Ken Baines, a man not noted for his sense of humour, was not at all amused and gave Bernie an angry bollocking for his tasteless idea!
Our professional paths separated when I became part of “hated Radio 1 management” which put me in a difficult position, he was not an easy person to manage, very individual and he had an idiosyncratic way of working, sometimes all night not days, in fact he could be very argumentative, an awkward old sod! He once he staggered up to the fourth floor wearing flippers to complain to his boss Mark White about the damp in his office.
He even decorated his office himself to get it the way he wanted it complete with an aquarium, he worked as he wanted and was not a great Radio 1 team player and made his feelings about my chaps in their ice cream jackets very public! When reprimanded about broadcasting the dodgy lyric in the Rolling Stone’s “Star Star” he went to street to canvas pedestrians re their interpretation of the words as understood, he never backed down in an argument and never forgave someone who had crossed him. He could certainly be a stubborn old bugger!
In later years one of his joys was to listen to “Give us a clue” and he would record in duplicate on CD and DAT every edition to listen to again and again, he never lost his love of radio despite being a TV addict.
After we had both left became closer again and shared a love of gardens. He had wonderful red hot pokers which made a super display and he have me a huge black plastic bag of roots, we never thought they’d all grow and we planted them all in Skipton, now our garden is full of the things and they are in full flower and whenever we look at them we will always be reminded of Bernie.
He was always careful with his money and loved to shop for a bargain, his favourite stores being Aldo and Lidl. Iit’s a little known fact that on the stock market shares in Lidl dropped ten points on the news of Bernie’s death. Not sure if they will ever recover! We even found one in Spain.
We shared a love of Spain, where he had tried several times to settle but had always become frustrated with Spanish practices and the manana attitude to getting things done, like telfonica not coming to repair his phone line quickly and he desperately needed a friend to share with but found it impossible to find anyone willing to put up with him, maybe because he was somewhat fussy in his habits. How fussy was he? Well put it this way, he owned a toaster but never used it and always did his toast under the grill because the toaster it didn’t cook both sides exactly the same.
However, he came to stay with me for several years running and at the airport I would push him in a wheel chair as we laughed about looking like Lou and Andy from his favourite TV Show Little Britain, “I want one of those!”Pointing at some silly unobtainable object. In Spain he became popular with my local friends in Estepona where he loved a grilled dorada on the BBQ. He always intended to go back to Spain on a semi permanent basis, but like many of Bernie’s ideas he never quite got round to it, but he said to me in the Spring that he would not spend another winter in the UK, Wasn’t that truer than he knew!
Last few years had been difficult, Jeff and Rita visited more than me but mobility problems were making life increasing difficult for him and it was apparent to us that he needed a helper and he found this concept hard to accept. His stubborn nature made him cling on to his independence to the end, even a few weeks ago when I went to see him I discussed what would happen when he came out of hospital and he was reluctant to accept his need to sell up and go into sheltered accommodation. The prospect of packing up and moving overwhelmed him, he knew he couldn’t manage in on his own so maybe that’s why he gave up mentally and finally let go. As I said earlier he was a TV addict, particularly of local news and Jeff and I knew his illness was serious when he said he had not looked at TV for a couple of weeks, nor shown any great interest in the General Election.
Where ever he is now, the struggle is over, he had a fascinating life, it’s a pity he never got round to writing the biographical book it would have been a great read. We shall all miss him and the large number of you here today is a testament to the way so many of you, his friends, think so fondly of him. He was a great old bloke, a friend I could share anything with and I know my phone bill will be halved now I can no longer call him for a short phone call of an hour or so. Bye Bye Bernie.
Johnny Beerling, Controller Radio 1 1985 to 1993
If anyone who knew Bernie wants to know more there's a longer version of this published as a blog with lots of pictures on my website
www.johnnybeerling.com/blog.