Are you sitting comfortably?  Once I get my hand out of Archie Andrews,  then I’ll begin.

Listen with Mother started 75-years ago this week.  We’re probably all of an age that we’re only sitting comfortably if we’ve a series of support cushions on our favourite chair.

Radio has been an ever-present in my life, except for a few weeks when I owned a Walkman.  I got bored with it as the only CD I had was “Reginald Dixon’s Greatest Hits”.   I’ve had a dread of the seaside ever since.

On the wall of our Balham flats were radios which played the Home, Light and Third programme.   The Third Programme rarely got played as none of my relatives were classical music fans.   They thought Brahms was something you got after too many Christmas snowballs; Chopin was something you could do on Balham High Road and Schubert was something you got in a Lucky Dip bag.

I would binge listen to any comedy on the radio.   It showed my possible career choices: rag ‘n’ bone man; archdeacon; Bluebottle. 

During the late ‘60s I desperately wanted to be called Julian and have a friend called Sandy.   Now, that would have been bold.

Very sad Sooty never made it on the radio.  Bye, bye everybody and hello Paderborn.