After 20 years the BBC is ending its foreign-language shortwave transmissions from Nakhon Sawan after failing to renegotiate its agreement with the Thai authorities. The transmissions were directed mainly at places like Afghanistan and Pakistan where radios are sometimes still the only source of news.
It is not entirely clear why the negotiations failed, although the BBC cited "financial constraints". However, an underlying problem could be that BBC and Thai officials have somewhat differing ideas as to what constitutes "accurate and impartial news".
I have always had a soft spot for the BBC World Service shortwave radio. For my first 30 years in Thailand it became a regular and essential companion thanks to a handy small Sony set which, alas, expired about 15 years ago. In those days, before satellite television and internet, the BBC shortwave service was one of the few reliable sources of news, along with the Bangkok Post of course.
Over the years, that radio accompanied me to virtually every province in Thailand. It was particularly comforting to be sitting in the jungle in some remote part of Nakhon Nowhere and hear the refrains of Lilliburlero come wafting through, and of course the booming chimes of Big Ben. Even the beeps of the time signal and the strains of Oranges and Lemons were comforting to British ears.
It was also quietly satisfying and equally bizarre, listening to a ball-by-ball cricket commentary from England while spending the night in a hill-tribe village near the Myanmar border.
On the beach
The BBC didn't always bring good news. I recall one particularly disturbing week towards the end of 1984 while loafing about on an island off Krabi with just my little radio for company.
While sitting on a deserted beach watching the sand crabs at play, news of Indira Gandhi's assassination came filtering through. Then, in the space of just a few days on that same beach, the radio greeted me with the cheerful news that the baht had been devalued 15%. And then I got bitten by a crab.
I'll read that again
I've always admired the correspondents and newscasters responsible for the live reports on radio and television. I've got landed in that situation on a handful of occasions and it was absolutely terrifying. In live programmes, it is so easy to let slip the wrong word or get tongue-tied and sound like a complete idiot.
There was a splendid gaffe on BBC radio some years ago when the newsreader announced: "The unorganised conference -- er, I'm sorry, the UN organised conference." Another unfortunate slip occurred in the 1973 Middle East war. With rumblings in Lebanon, a BBC foreign correspondent referred to "Lesbian forces moving towards Israel".
Even such everyday programmes as the weather forecasts are not immune from sporadic slip-ups. On one occasion BBC listeners were told of a "trough of low pleasure drifting across Europe" while they also informed us that "widespread fist and mog can be expected".
Something that was frowned on by the BBC in those days was slang. This ruling may have been influenced by the time the veteran presenter Jack de Manio interviewed a newly appointed female assistant governor at a male prison. In a classic example of foot in mouth, De Manio asked the lady quite innocently: "Do you think the prisoners will regard you as a good screw?"
It's the voice
The key to the enjoyment of radio programmes has always been the voices. Obvious though it may seem, you need the right voice for radio and it has never mattered what you look like. As the old joke went: "You've got a good face for radio.''
Winston Churchill's stirring wartime speeches wouldn't have been so effective if he hadn't possessed such a splendidly rich voice. One of his critics, author Evelyn Waugh, even dismissed Churchill as "simply a radio personality who had outlived his prime".
One radio voice that fellow wrinklies may remember is that of newsreader Alvar Liddell, who was heard regularly from 1936 to 1972. His voice was the personification of correct BBC English, which was all the more extraordinary because his parents were Swedish.
Liddell became a household name during World War II. Prior to the conflict, BBC newsreaders were an anonymous lot. But after 1939, fearful of impersonations by enemy propagandists, the BBC insisted on its newscasters giving their names on air. "Here is the news, and this is Alvar Liddell reading it" was a familiar and comforting refrain during the war.
Gently, Bentley
In the austere days of the early 1950s, before our house was invaded by television, the radio was my family's main source of entertainment.
I recall my dad sitting in front of a coal fire on a chilly winter's night chuckling away at the most popular show, Take It From Here. Among the stars were Jimmy Edwards and Dick Bentley and one of the first catchphrases to become institutionalised in Britain was Jimmy's injunction to Dick, "Gently, Bentley". Anyone named Bentley had to suffer that retort for many years, and some probably still do.
Later in the '50s I was brought up on Hancock's Half Hour, arguably the best radio sitcom ever. Tony Hancock was brilliant and some of his regular expressions like "Have you gone raving mad?' and "Stone me!" became an indelible part of British culture.
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