Radio requests – Micky's Up blog

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.

As a kid, in my Balham flat, we had radios installed into the wall. I would avidly listen to see if my request for Nelly the elephant was ever played on Stewpot’s Junior Choice. It never was. Nor was the ending of Götterdämmerung.

Through my mother’s guidance, I discovered I preferred Motown to Right, said Fred (the song not the group); Puff the magic dragon or A windmill in old Amsterdam (a song which encouraged rodent infestations – and that’s how plagues start – we all remember 1665, don’t we?).

Your request would invariably be linked to someone’s birthday; going to big school or thanks to a nan for doing something.

I’ve been listening, as a Baby Boomer, to Boom Radio.

Having got over the shock of listening to various DJs thinking they were long dead, the requests are very typical for our generation (forgive me if you were born after 1964, and therefore not a baby boomer).

This week I heard someone hoping the replacement hip operation had gone well. When we listened to radio as kids, we couldn’t even spell hip, let alone know it could be replaced. Also, you thought lumbago was a Caribbean island and sciatica was a Greek philosopher.

Still, one song rarely requested on Junior Choice was Mustn’t grumble – probably because, when you’re eight or nine, you don’t understand the concept. However, when you’re 65…

Category: Radio requests

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