And, on this bombshell, dear blog readers ...
Let us kick-off this latest From The North bloggerisationism update, the first in almost a month, with a genuinely important question upon which all of us really need to ponder. When one is a parent and is buying a Doctor Who DVD in, let's say for the sake of argument, the United States of America, which aspect of the production does one suppose should be most concerning in the contents warning provided on the sleeve? Is it 'Mild Science' or 'Fiction Violence'? It's tricky one, frankly, is it not? This blogger could go either way on that score.
Well, dearest bloggerisationism fiends, since last From The North was upon y'all (on 5 January) the major Doctor Who news had been the casting of a new companion, Varada Seethu, to work alongside Ncuti Gatwa in his second series, currently in production and to be broadcast in 2025. This, of course, immediately led to a rush of crass speculation about the reasons for Millie Gibson apparently leaving the production (not that it has yet been confirmed that she, actually, has). And, as usual with crass speculation, most of it was ill-informed or based on suspiciously 'real people don't talk like that' quotes from alleged (though curiously anonymous) 'insiders'. Take, this one for example. Or, this one. Or, this one. Most extraordinary of all, dear blog reader, was some abject prick of no importance of You Tube posting a video with the truly delightful title Woke Doctor Who DISASTER Gets WORSE. Companion LEAVES SHOW, Black Gay Doctor Who Not Diverse Enough. This blogger has absolutely no intention of providing a link to it, dear blog readers. If you wish to seek it out for yourselves then you have the title, it should be easy enough to find. But, be warned, you will need a shower to wash all of the verbal diarrhoea out of your life afterwards. A tip, mate, describing a loathing of the casting of a couple of non-white actors in a TV show as 'woke' isn't, actually that or anything even remotely like it. Rather, it's sick, venal, completely unabashed racism and you probably want to have a good hard look at your own life in that case. And, maybe, do something useful about it. Like, I dunno, die from cancer of the arsehole, perhaps. Or maybe something a shade more constructive. Just a suggestion.
Or, to put it another, slightly less nuanced way.
In fact, the announcement of Varada's casting seemed to bring out some real unexpected harsh nastiness and hand-flapping even in people whom this blogger thought were relatively sensible most of the time. A whole bunch of such dudes on the Interweb, for instance, where busy whinging about the timing of the announcement, blaming Russell (and/or - mostly and - the BBC Press Department) for 'throwing Millie under a bus' and declaring they did not intend to be be watching the forthcoming series (when we all know there is more chance of Hell freezing over than them not watching every single minute of it and then commenting on it, at length, on the Interweb afterwards) since there was, now, 'no point.' Of course, few of these people seemed to have put two-and-two together and worked out the most glaringly obvious and necessary reason why the announcement was made when it was; that within days of the announcement, location filming for one of the 2025 episodes was due to be taking place and, as with all Doctor Who location shoots, it would be attended by lots of fans with cameras at the ready who would then be uploading their on-location photos to a website somewhere near you with captions like 'who's this running along the street with Nucti? That doesn't look like Millie Gibson to me.' You hardly need to be a funking genius to work that out. And, indeed, that's exactly what happened.
In fact, dear blog reader, it was left to - and, this blogger is every bit as shocked and stunned as you lot probably are by this - someone at the Radio Times (which used to be run by adults ... and, seemingly, there are still one or two in the building) to talk a vague bit of common sense; in a comment piece entitled Millie Gibson's Future On Doctor Who Is Still Very Bright. 'Millie Gibson has not been "dropped" or "axed" - actually, the opposite as she'll still be in season fifteen, just in a smaller role.'
Anyway, From The North's own 'comment piece' on this malarkey is the following: Welcome, Varada, to the wacky, madcap world of Doctor Who and its own, unique, wacky, madcap fandom. Sorry that your first couple of weeks in the job have been somewhat shat-upon by crass and ill-informed speculation (and, more than a bit of ignorant hate-speech. We're not all like that, honest). Thanks Millie for everything you've done so far and may do in the future. You were great in The Church On Ruby Road and this blogger is very much looking forward to watching you and Ncuti in eight forthcoming episodes this year, at least a couple next year and any that you do thereafter. To fandom in general - please, do one (or several) of the following; calm the funk down, shut the funk up, chill the funk out and, you know, breathe normal. It's only a TV show. And, to anyone who has stumbled in here, probably with their knuckles scraping along the ground, who think that the casting of a black man and an Asian woman in Doctor Who does not fit in with your own, curious, worldview then, please, I say this with all due respect, get yourself a new mind. Less closed. More embiggened. Because, the one that you currently have appears to be narrow. And full of shit.
Meanwhile, according to the Daily Scum Express (which some people describe as a 'newspaper', something this blogger reckons might be a bit of stretch), 'Doctor Who fans were left "delulu" about a character's return after Madip [sic] Gill posted a selfie with Anita Dobson.' Madip Gill, in fact, does not exist though, Mandip Gill, former companion to Jodie's Doctor, in fact, does. And she did, indeed, post just such a photo. Which you can see, here. It's jolly nice. As to what 'delulu' means (it's not a word, dear blog reader and, believe this blogger, he has checked), perhaps we'd best leave that for another day.
If you're interested, there was a rather bland, paint-by-numbers Doctor Who piece in the New York Times which you can have a gander at here if you're of a mind to. It does contain the following, however, which kind of makes the entire exercise worthwhile: 'Gatwa's Doctor truly feels like a Doctor Who for the Twenty First Century and a fitting follow-up to Tennant's Doctor. The Fifteenth is stylish and liberated, with a vibe that is sensual and unbuttoned; he's a Doctor who seems much more at home than the others in his body. He is chipper but not frivolous and he is capable of depth that isn't limited to darkness. At one point in the episode, the Fifteenth Doctor cries - full, drip-down-the-face tears - over the abduction of someone he just met and how that abduction has hardened those implicated in the loss. Gatwa's Doctor shows a great deal of humanity, which isn't always a given for the character, who often understands humans intellectually but closes himself off to a more comprehensive human experience.' Yes. That.
'So, tell me Fluff, have you got dedication?' 'Not 'alf, Roy mate. It's what you need.'
Earlier this week, dear blog reader, this blogger filled in one of those interminable online questionnaires. You know the sort of thing which turn up in ones email in-box with alarming regularity. However, he was completely stumped by one particular question in this latest offering. Why is it, do you reckon, that they always seem to miss off Keith Telly Topping's own particular favourite in this category, Imperial Leather®™?
Picking up exactly where we left off last time around (which, you know, seems appropriate), here's From The North's semi-regular feature Doctors & Cats: Number seventeen. Oh no, it's that vicious, snarling, bad-tempered beast again. And a cat.
Doctors & Cats: Number eighteen. Beautiful cat, shame about the episode, though.
Doctors & Cats: Number nineteen.
Doctors & (Blue Peter) Cats: Number twenty.
Doctors & Cats: Number twenty one. I know, it's ginger - what were the chances?
Doctors & Cats: Number twenty two.
Doctors & Cats: Number twenty three.
Doctors & Cats: Number twenty four (for everyone who accepts The Curse Of Fatal Death as canon).
Doctors & Cats: Number twenty five (another one for all you lucky people who, rightly, accept The Curse Of Fatal Death as canon). Purr-fect.
Doctors & Cats: Number twenty six.
Doctors & Cats: Number twenty seven. 'The original, you might say ...' (Unless you're Chris Chibnall in which case, yeah, not so much.)
Doctors & Cats: Number twenty eight. Another one for all The Curse Of Fatal Death massive. 'This is not cat, Mrs Miggins, this is finest leather-trimmed ermine with gold medallion accessories.' 'Oh go on, Mister Blackadder, it's cat. Oh look, they've left the little collars on!'
Doctor & Cats: Number twenty nine. Once again dear bloggerisationism fiends, references to Jodie's 'lush, strokable puss' should, you know, kept to yourselves, if you'd be ever so kind.
Doctors & Cats: Number thirty.
Doctors & Cats: Number thirty one. Do we reckon, round his area, old Mad Tom is referred to as 'the crazy cat bloke'?
Doctors & Cats: Number thirty two.
Doctors & Cats: Number thirty three. Here we have a Doctor (and a couple of his fiends) wearing several.
And so we reach the end of a road well-travelled, dearest bloggerisationism fiends, with Doctors & Cats: number thirty four. And, okay, technically, this is a Doctor with two piglets and a sheep but, this blogger is sure there's a cat out there, somewhere in the vast and staggering Yorkshire landscape. (Seriously, you'd think in two thousand eight hundred and forty nine bastard episodes[*] of All Bastard Creatures Bastard Great & Bastard Small, there'd be one picture of Peter Davison with a sickly pussy in his hands, wouldn't you? But, no ... ) [*] An approximate number.
With all the cats now out of the way we must, therefore, start a new, semi-regular, From The North feature, which this blogger likes to call When Doctors Meet It Is A Humbling Experience: Number one. It's bigger on the inside, apparently.
When Doctors Meet It Is A Humbling Experience: Number two. Here, we have a glimpse of the final of the 1982 edition of the annual 'which Doctor has the nastiest sleeveless pullover competition?' Won by a Mister Davison of London with his truly vile entry. One which Mister Troughton, of London, simply couldn't match. Breakfast Time viewers were advised not to adjust their sets.
When Doctors Meet It Is A Humbling Experience: Number three. 'So, tell me sonny, what be you want to be when you grow up?' 'You!'
When Doctors Meet It Is A Humbling Experience: Number four. Mister Pertwee and Mister Troughton, seen here arriving for tea and cakes with their good fiend, The Man With The Stick from Vic Reeves' Big Night Out. And, what do we say when we see The Man With The Stick, dear bloggerisationism fiends?
That's right, we say ...
When Doctors Meet It Is A Humbling Experience: Number five. Oh, so that's how they did the regeneration sequence. Now it all makes perfect sense.
When Doctors Meet It Is A Humbling Experience: Number six. 'Look, I don't care if it is for charrrideee, mate, I am not wearing the hat. With this luxuriant bouffant? Don't be ridiculous.'
When Doctors Meet It Is A Humbling Experience: Number seven. One of these might be an Auton, admittedly.
When Doctors Meet It Is A Humbling Experience: Number eight. Two Doctors (and several of their fiends) seen here modelling the 'what the casual criminal-about-town of 1948 will, most likely, be wearing' line. Dig the trenchcoat, baby.
When Doctors Meet It Is A Humbling Experience: Number nine. 'Relax, Jodie, if you think the script for this one is bad, wait till you get to series three. Chibnall will be running-on-empty by then.'
When Doctors Meet It Is A Humbling Experience: Number ten. 'It's big and it's hairy and I be a'feared of it.'
This blogger will say only but one things for his very self, dearest bloggerisationism readers - when he decides that it's his responsibility to redo Apple's job for them, he does it properly and no mistake.
'Scum I was to that Beak. Nothing but scum. Tis for my accent and my situation that I am condemned. Tis for the want of better graces and the influence they bring that I am to board this prison hulk.' ' ... and for all them murders you done.'
Any road up me deario bloggerisationism fiends, one morning last week went something like this for yer actual Keith Telly Topping his very self. No, in fact, it went exactly like this for yer actual Keith Telly Topping his very self. Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House. Bed. Bathroom. Kitchen. Stairs. Walk. Bus. Walk. Medical Centre. Stabbed with really big needle. Heron's. Walk. Post Office. Walk. Bus. Walk. Bank. Poundland. Marks & Spankers. Brunch (see attached for details of the tasty scran involved). Walk. Bus. Walk. The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House. And then, somewhat inevitably, given all the walking, bed again. 'Life is a circle with no end or beginning' as Burt Bacharach and Hal David once noted. They certainly knew what they were talking about, them kiddies.
And so, dearest blog readers, we come to that special part of From The North dedicated to this blogger's horribly on-going medical malarkey. Or, strictly speaking, malarkeys as there continue to be several of them. For those dear blog fiends who haven't been following this epic adventure, over two years in the making, it goes like this: Keith Telly Topping spent some weeks around Christmas 2021 and into the New Year of 2022 feeling pure dead rotten, so he did; experienced an alarming five day in hospital; was discharged; received some B12 injections; then more of them; somewhat recovered his missing appetite; got an initial diagnosis; had a consultant's meeting; continued to suffer from fatigue and insomnia; endured a (second) endoscopy; had another consultation; got (unrelated) toothache; had an extraction; which then took ages to heal; had another consultation; spent a week where nothing remotely health-related occurred; received further B-12 injections; had an echocardiogram; was subject to more blood extractions; made another hospital visit; saw the unwelcome insomnia and torpor continue; received yet more blood tests; had a rearranged appointment; suffered his worst period yet with fatigue. Until the following week. And then, the week after that. Oh, the fatigue, dear blog reader. The depressing, ceaseless fatigue. He then had a go on the Blood-Letting Machine; got another sick note; had an assessment; was given his fourth COVID jab; got some surprising-but-welcome news about his assessment; had the results of his annual diabetes check-up; had another really bad week with the fatigue; followed by one with the sciatica; then one with the chronic insomnia; and, one with a plethora of general cold-related grottiness. Which continued over the 2022 Christmas period and into 2023. There was that whole 'slipping in The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House bath and putting his knee through the side' thing; a period of painful night-time leg and foot cramps; getting some new spectacles; returning to the East End pool; only to discover that he remained as weak of a kitten in the water. Or, indeed, out of it; felt genuinely wretched; experienced a nasty bout of gastroenteritis; had a visit from an occupational therapist; did the 'accidentally going out of the gaff in his slippers' malarkey; saw the return of the dreaded insomnia and the dreaded return of the fatigue. Had the latest tri-monthly prickage; plus, yet more sleep disturbances; a further bout of day-time retinology; a bout of extreme exhaustion; picked up a cold virus in the week that he got his latest Covid and influenza inoculations; got through the entire Department Of Baths malarkey (and then, its sequel) whilst suffering from significant, on-going, back spasms. Received the welcome news that his latest test for cancer of the colon had come back negative. And got scheduled for yet more blood tests.
During the three weeks since the last bloggerisationism update, this blogger had yet another couple of 'crack-of-dawn' appointments at the local medical centre, the most recent of which was with the delightful Nurse Jordan for his latest knacking, pure-dead-stingy B-12 injection. So, obviously, this blogger required a bit of breakfast, afterwards whilst his throbbing arm throbbed, quietly (actually, not so quietly if we're being honest, here) to itself.
Now, dear blog reader, here is a visual representation of what happens when one is on the bus coming back from the shops about three stops from home and the sudden realisation dawns that the truly terrible gastric accident one hoped and prayed wasn't going to occur until one was safely within ones own four walls simply cannot be stopped. Or reasoned with.
There was also a significant cold snap during which The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House found itself, once again, knee-deep in the snow outside (well, ankle deep, anyway). Is it just this blogger, or does this picture - used by the Daily Mirra to show their readers what snow actually looks like - include the single, most pointless use of an umbrella in all the live-long day, bar none?
This blogger was sad to learn this week that one of The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House's two local Chinese takeaways is going to be closing down in a couple of weeks time. Yes, this blogger is well-aware that this is very much a First World Problem type-affair but, still, you know, a good takeaway can be hard to find and when you do find a good one (or, even a good two), you don't want the natural laws of the universe being interfered with. The place will be taken over by someone else, eventually, since the family that ran it only rented the gaff - as, indeed, they took over from a previous couple about a decade again - but, whenever someone new takes over an eating establishment that you like, you're never quite sure what you're going to end up with. Fingers crossed, however, that the new management - whomsoever they are - will be all right. The same place has, as already noted, undergone one change of ownership ten years ago and it more-or-less retained its identity then (in fact, the chicken that the last-owners-before-the-present used in their chicken curry, frankly, pissed all over the current version. Big thick meaty chunks, so they were!) So, more news on whether yer actual Keith Telly Topping's regime of salt-and-chilli King Prawn with red and green peppers, yung chow friend rice and a tasty sauce of his choice will be affected by this malarkey at some later date. Until then, the other - broadly-speaking excellent - local Cantonese establishment will be getting all of The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House custom that's going till there's an alternative once again.
In 2010, Kevin Younger began an article in the Gruniad Morning Star with the words: 'Recognise the faces but can't place the names?' Among the list of Britain's top ten 'great unsung television character-actors' which followed was the divine Georgina Hale. 'This slinky, adenoidal, estuarine glamour-puss oozed naughtiness in some interesting films and some classic television in the 1970s,' Younger wrote. 'She has latterly cornered the market in nouveau riche languor and middle-aged decadence,' atypically using the standard Gruniad Morning Star trick of using ten words where three would probably do just as well if not better. Although most of her screen roles were on television, Georgina, who has died aged eighty, was a favourite not only of us here at From The North but, also, of good old Mad-As-Toast Ken Russell, who once said she was 'an actress of such sensitivity that she can make the hair rise on your arms.' She was at her best for Russell in his fictionalised biopic Mahler (1974), portraying the wife of the Austrian composer, played by Robert Powell. 'It is Georgina Hale's playing of Alma which gives the film most of its vitality,' observed the Daily Mirra's critic Arthur Thirkell. Alma, Mahler's ambitious wife, joins him on a train journey through Austria, which is punctuated by flashbacks to key events from his life. This stifling of her creativity is symbolised in the opening scene, as Gustav dreams of his wife rolling around on rocks, stark naked and trying to set herself free from the translucent cocoon that surrounds her. Later, he dreams about his death and burial, with Alma leading the funeral procession, then stripping for her new, Nazi, lover. Georgina's performance was rewarded with a BAFTA as most promising newcomer. She had previously appeared in Russell's two 1971 masterpieces: The Devils, as the pregnant, abandoned conquest of a philandering Catholic priest (Oliver Reed) and The Boy Friend, as Fay, one of the company singing and dancing alongside Twiggy in the director's screen version of Sandy Wilson's stage musical pastiche. She made uncredited cameo appearances in two more Russell films, Lisztomania (1975) and Valentino (1977), and played the young Jim Hawkins's flirtatious bingo-calling mother in Russell's bizarre take on Treasure Island, a 1995 TV movie with Long Jane Silver (Hetty Baynes) in the lead. In between, Georgina was kept busy on television with roles such as Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain, in ITV's Ladykillers (1980) and Moya Lexington, an amalgam of the pioneering aviator Amy Johnson and the actress Sarah Churchill, in Terence Rattigan's After The Dance (1992) for the BBC. 'She's on the drink, on the drugs and she flies her own aeroplane,' said Hale, proudly. She also found a new audience as the witch Tabatha Bag in the later runs of the ITV children's series T-Bag, beginning with T-Bag & The Pearls Of Wisdom (1990) and ending with Take Off With T-Bag (1992). She took over from Elizabeth Estensen, who had played Tabatha's sister, Tallulah, since the programme's first episode in 1985. But Georgina then saw screen roles begin to dry up. 'Once I reached fifty one, my life changed,' she said in 2002. 'Four years ago, I tried to change my agent and eleven turned me down. One told me they didn't take actresses over forty five because it was "too depressing to talk to them on the telephone."' There was even a two-year spell spent washing dishes in a restaurant, but stage work kept her career going.
Georgina was born in Ilford, to Elsie and George Hole, who ran a pub. She said that she grew up overweight and shy and kept changing school as her parents moved around different pubs - something she believed damaged her education. 'I couldn't write, spell or read,' she told the Glasgow Herald in 2002. 'There was a real shame in it and you were the dunce of the class, always getting whacked around the head. We were on the move a lot, so going to so many schools, always being the new girl, it was so frightening and so nerve-wracking as a kid and it really affected me.' Her mother died when she was eighteen, followed by her father four years later. At the age of nineteen, having never visited a theatre, she was given tickets to see West Side Story, which, she said, 'blew my mind.' She was working in London, as a junior with a Knightsbridge hairdresser, when she spotted an actors' workshop in Chelsea teaching the Stanislavski method technique. This led her to RADA, graduating in 1965. Tweaking her professional name to Hale, she began her career with the Royal Shakespeare Company in walk-on roles at both Stratford and The Aldwych Theatre, London (1965 and 1966) and, rep in Liverpool, the following year. Her West End debut came in The Seagull, by Chekhov, at the Duke of York's Theatre in 1976 as, according to The Stage's critic, 'a tender, thoughtful, charming' Nina. She then starred as Bobbi Michele, alongside Lee Montague, in the British premiere of Neil Simon's Last Of The Red Hot Lovers at The Royal Exchange, Manchester (1979), which transferred to The Criterion (1979-80). Hale was back in the West End - earning an Olivier nomination - as Josie in Nell Dunn's Steaming (Comedy Theatre, 1981), set in a Turkish bath. Even though she appeared naked for Russell on film - and was seen wearing nothing but an apron as she cooked breakfast for Roger Daltrey in the 1980 crime movie McVicar - she told the Liverpool Daily Post: 'I don't mind having to take my clothes off. It's a slice of life, after all.' Her later stage roles included Gwen in Simon Gray's black comedy Life Support at The Aldwych in 1997 and Greta Scacchi's adoptive mother in The Guardsman, by Ferenc Molnar at The Albery, three years later.
On television, she first made an impression as Adam Faith's wife, Jean, in Budgie (1971-72). In the 1972 film Eagle In A Cage, about Napoleon's imprisonment on St Helena, she played the fallen emperor's friend Betsy Balcombe. Her other film appearances included supporting roles in Butley (1974), Sweeney 2 (1978, as the sexy-voiced telephonist Jack Regan wants a date with), Castaway (1986), Preaching To The Perverted (1997), Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont (2005) and the nowhere-near-as-bad-as-the-title-suggests Cockneys Versus Zombies (2011). Hale's television career spanned six decades. Her first major appearances were supporting roles in plays for The Wednesday Play, ITV Playhouse, ITV Play Of The Week and Menace. Recurring roles in series followed, in Budgie and then as Lili Dietrich in the mini-series The Strauss Family (1972). In 1973, she starred in A.D.A.M as a physically disabled woman who develops an unusual relationship with the sentient computer system that controls her home. Directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the drama was broadcast as part of ITV's Sunday Night Drama strand. In 1975, Hale appeared in two television plays written by Simon Gray, broadcast in Play For Today, Plaintiffs & Defendants and Two Sundays. In 1978, Hale appeared with Michael Gambon in a BBC adaptation of Chekhov's The Seagull. Her CV also included appearances in the likes of The Flying Swan, No Hiding Place, Public Eye, Virgin Of The Secret Service, The Main Chance, The Protectors, Notorious Women, Upstairs, Downstairs, Yes, Honestly, Piccadilly Circus, Hammer House Of Horror and Murder Most Horrid. In December 1992, Hale appeared in two plays produced by Simon Curtis, broadcast as part of the series Performance. Two years later, she was in the sitcom pilot The Honeymoon's Over, written by Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson, broadcast in the Comic Asides strand for BBC Two. In 2007, Hale made a guest appearance in the crime drama The Commander. Nancy Banks-Smith noted in the Gruniad Morning Star that Hale 'was able to do wonders with a mere sliver of a scene.' Other television appearances include guest roles in Minder (1980), the Doctor Who serial The Happiness Patrol (1988), One Foot In The Grave (1990), The Bill (2002), Emmerdale (2006), Hollyoaks (2010), Crime Stories (2012) and Holby City (2016, her final screen appearance). Georgina's 1964 marriage to the actor John Forgeham ended in divorce.
Annie Nightingale, the first female presenter on Radio 1 and the station's longest-serving DJ, has died aged eighty three. Her family said that she died on 11 January at home in London following an illness. In a statement they described her, correctly, as 'a pioneer, trailblazer and inspiration to many. Her impulse to share that enthusiasm with audiences remained undimmed after six decades of broadcasting on BBC TV and radio globally. Never underestimate the role model she became. Breaking down doors by refusing to bow down to sexual prejudice and male fear gave encouragement to generations of young women who, like Annie, only wanted to tell you about an amazing tune they had just heard. Watching Annie do this on television in the 1970s, most famously as a presenter on The Old Grey Whistle Test, or hearing her play the latest breakbeat techno on Radio 1 is testimony to someone who never stopped believing in the magic of rock'n'roll.'
Annie joined Radio 1 in 1970, never left and holds the world record for having the longest career of any female radio presenter. Her programme Annie Nightingale Presents featured the famed dance music fan's 'biggest bass bangers': her most recent show, broadcast on 9 January, featured songs by Deadmau5 and remixes of songs by AJ Tracey and Jorja Smith and US rapper Ice Spice (no, me neither). The BBC Director General Tim Davie called Nightingale 'a uniquely gifted broadcaster who blessed us with her love of music and passion for journalism, for over fifty years. As well as being a trailblazer for new music, she was a champion for female broadcasters, supporting and encouraging other women to enter the industry.' But then, he's a Tory and nobody really gives a damn what he thinks. About anything.
Anne Avril Nightingale was born in Middlesex in April 1940, the only child of Celia and Basil, who ran a family wallpaper business. She attended St Catherine's School in Twickenham and, reportedly, became a fan of blues music as a teenager. She later attended Lady Eleanor Holles School, Hampton and the School of Journalism at the Polytechnic of Central London. She started her career working in newspapers, spending a short time at the Brighton & Hove Gazette and then moving to become the only woman in the newsroom at the Brighton Argus. There, she wrote a pop column, Spin With Me and also worked as a court reporter, feature writer and diarist. The latter got her interviews with Sean Connery and Peter Sellers. She recalled facing little overt sexism at the paper and that she was allowed to publish occasional feminist pieces. Her brightness and personality got her a role as an occasional panellist on the BBC's Saturday night Juke Box Jury starting in 1963. She later became the host of the Associated-Rediffusion TV pop show That's For Me (1965) in which she booked musicians who had not previously been seen on television such as The Yardbirds and introduced The Who's first promotion film. At this time, she also hosted other specials for Associated-Rediffusion, including The Glad Rag Ball at Wembley, starring The Rolling Stones whilst making occasional appearances on the BBC's A Whole Scene Going and Ready! Steady! Go!. She continued working in television while simultaneous running a chain of fashion shops and modelling. Inspired by her friend, the pop-artist Pauline Boty, she launched a fashion boutique. This swiftly became a chain called Snob. Annie put on fashion shows and took part in them, notably a charity show for Bernard Fitzalan-Howard, Sixteenth Duke of Norfolk, at Arundel Castle.
In the late 1960s, inspired by the advent of pirate radio, she lobbied for a job on the BBC's nascent Radio 1, which had no female presenters when it launched. 'When the pirates and then Radio 1 came along, I was very keen to get involved,' she told NME in 1978. 'I seemed to find that broadcasting came easy - certainly easier than writing. But nobody wanted to know.' By 1970 she was successful - thanks in part to support from The Be-Atles' press officer Derek Taylor and John Peel (both close friends) - and a trial run led to a Sunday afternoon presenting job where her Request Show was required listening for an entire generation of music fans, this blogger very much included. She was the only female DJ at the station for twelve years, until Janice Long joined in 1982 and claimed that she faced much sexism within the male-dominated bear-pit. By the eighties, she had transferred to an evening slot, which gave her greater freedom over the style of music she played. 'From day one, I chose the records I wanted to play and stuck to it ever since,' she wrote in her 2020 memoir, Hey Hi Hello: Five Decades Of Pop Culture From Britain's First Female DJ. 'I wasn't there for the "exposure". I preferred the evenings, where I wouldn't have to introduce playlist tunes I didn't like. That would have been like lying to me.' Few, who heard it, will ever forget the night in 1984 when she played the entire, extended-twelve inch version of Franke Goes To Hollywood's newly-released 'Two Tribes' (all ten minutes of it) and, at the end, asked listeners 'aren't you glad you weren't born in the Eighteenth Century? Because, if you had been, you'd never have got to hear that!' She presented various music and discussion programmes on the station and joined The Old Grey Whistle Test as host in 1978 following the long-awaited departure of Whispering Bob Harris. Notably, she fronted an episode broadcast in the wake of the murder of John Lennon in 1980. Again, there were many legendary moments like the night The Damned had gotten drunk with Annie following rehearsals and decided to smash up their gear after a chaotic performance of 'I Just Can't Be Happy Today'. A giggling Annie, the consummate professional, told the audience, 'you must bear in mind that this studio is haunted by The Who!' whilst Algy Ward provided her with a 'dun-dun-duuuun' accompanying bassline, Until the mid-1980s, she wrote regularly for the Sunday Mirra and penned music columns for the Daily Sketch and the Daily Scum Express.
During her time on Whistle Test, the show moved away, thankfully, from its traditional bias under Harris for laid-back snore-inducing singer-songwriters and tiresome progressive rock and embraced the modern world of styles such as punk, post-punk, new wave and Two-Tone. She left the series in 1982 handing over to David Hepworth. Her tenure saw her champion artists as diverse as The Ramones, The Adverts, Talking Heads, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Ian Dury & The Blockheads, Public Image Ltd, Gang Of Four, Linton Kwesi Johnson, The Au Pairs, Patti Smith Group, Iggy Pop, Blondie, Robert Fripp, John Cooper Clarke, U2, The Jam, The Clash, Wreckless Eric, Nina Hagen, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, X-Ray Spex, Adam & The Ants, The Teardrop Explodes, Madness, The Specials, The Selecter and The Undertones. Annie also interviewed artists for the show, including Mick Jagger, Mick Taylor, Jeff Beck, Frank Zappa, Dusty Springfield and Paul Simon. In 1980, she accompanied The Police on their world tour, which included places which had seldom hosted rock performers - including Mexico, India, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Greece and Egypt - with the tour filmed for a documentary. Still, the fact that she frequently had the opportunity to throttle Sting and never did shouldn't be held against her too much when weighed against all of the good stuff she did. In 1985 she was part of the BBC team that provided the coverage for Live Aid.
Annie commanded a loyal listenership. In the early 1980s, Mark Ellen recalled standing in for her on her Sunday evening show and noting the extent of her listeners' devotion. 'They thought of Annie as an eternally sympathetic figurehead who understood what they were going through, a sort of fabulous and unreconstructed Goth auntie,' he told the Observer in 2020. 'They absolutely adored her.' In the late 1980s, she became a pioneer of dance music at the station, exposing the then-underground acid house scene to the mainstream. She also became an in-demand DJ herself, playing clubs and festivals around the world. In 2002 she was awarded an OBE for services to radio broadcasting and in 2020, she was appointed a CBE. Annie published three memoirs: Chase The Fade in 1981, Wicked Speed in 1999 and Hey Hi Hello. She was close to Paul McCartney, who commissioned her to write a book to accompany the re-releases of his LPs Tug Of War and Pipes Of Peace and who once, allegedly, proposed marriage to her in the 1960s. 'I don't think he was serious!' she recalled. 'I didn't take it too seriously.' She also had long (often, chaotic) friendships with a whole range of the rock aristocracy, from David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Keith Moon, to Joe Strummer and Debbie Harry.
She was one of the first outside the Be-Atles immediate inner-circle to know about John Lennon and Yoko Ono's relationship, but she kept it a secret, despite her journalistic instincts telling her it would make a front page story. She told Jimmy Page his band weren't going to get anywhere with a name like Led Zeppelin, hung out with The Byrds at her London flat and recalled mistaking their conversation about taking acid as referring to pounds, shilling and pence, was part of Jimi Hendrix's entourage at The Isle of Wight and her close friendship with Keith Moon saw him ask her to write his life story just ten days before he died in 1978. Rather than move to the likes of BBC Radio 2 and play music aimed at older people as many former Radio 1 broadcasters did as the station chased a younger audience, she maintained her youth-focus as a presenter into her eighties. 'If I can play what I like and say what I like and encourage the young to do the same, then that's the dream to me,' she told the Observer in 2020. She was also a noted supporter of young broadcasting talent. In 2021, she launched the Radio 1 scholarships to help discover female and non-binary DJs and she spoke passionately of the importance of believing in younger generations. 'We should trust young people, because when we have done in the past, like in the 1960s and the 1990s ... we've all reaped the benefits. I experienced the attitude of those times, that feeling that young people could create this fabulous new world together. They still can, if we help them.' Annie had two children, Alex and Lucy, with her first husband, the writer Gordon Thomas, whom she had divorced by 1970. A second marriage, to the actor Binky Baker in the late 1970s, also ended in divorce.
And, finally, dear blog reader, the only nominee for this week's From The North headline of The Week Award is the Basingstoke Gazette for Man Banned From Every Wickes In The Country After 'Tank' Protest. which seems a bit on the harsh side but, then, we don't know what, exactly, he pee'd into the tank in question. And from what height.
