How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S9, Ep3 How to Fail: Annie Nightingale

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

At the age of 80, Annie Nightingale still manages to be one of the most forward-looking and future-facing people I've ever interviewed. She is the legendary Radio 1 DJ - the first woman ever to get a job at the station and now the BBC's longest-serving presenter and a vital force in British music.Annie joins me to talk about confronting sexism, breaking the mould, getting the best of of interviewees and what it's like to have met everyone from David Bowie to Paul McCartney to Eminem and Jim Morrison (he didn't impress her much tbf). We also touch on her convent school education, her inability to tell a lie, her failure at A-Levels and her terrible financial planning. She is, it has to be said, a total riot.*PLEASE PRE-ORDER MY NEW BOOK! Failosophy: A Handbook For When Things Go Wrong is available here*To celebrate the publication of Failosophy, I am doing a LIVE show at The London Palladium. It is also live-streamed online. If you'd like to buy tickets for either option, you can do so here.*Annie Nightingale's memoir, Hey, Hi, Hello, is out now.*How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. We love hearing from you! To contact us, email [e-mail]* Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayAnnie Nightingale @aanightingaleHow To Fail @howtofailpod         Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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wants you to start living a more fulfilled life today. Visit betterhelp.com forward slash HTF. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P. And join the over 1 million people taking charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. There is a special offer for How to Fail listeners where you can get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com forward slash HTF. Thank you so much to BetterHelp. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding

that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. Annie Nightingale turned 80 in April, but don't let that give you the wrong impression. This is a woman who is forward-looking and future-facing, always on the hunt for the newest sounds in music. As the first female DJ on the BBC, she got the job in 1970, Nightingale was already a pioneer in terms of gender, but she went on to break other moulds too, championing the early music of David Bowie, Ian Drury and Eminem amongst others. She still presents on Radio 1, making her

the BBC's longest serving presenter and a vital force in British music, a cultural tastemaker who commands the respect of artists, listeners and peers across the world. As recounted in her latest book, Hey, Hi, Hello, it's been a wild ride. Nightingale hung out with The Beatles, Paul McCartney once asked her to marry him as a joke, and has interviewed everyone from Bob Marley to Billie Eilish. She was made a CBE in 2019. This is a woman who has always loved radio. Her earliest memory of it was a Bakelite wireless bought for her by her father. The gift was a prescient one. I was in my own world and it was just me and the radio, she recalled in 2016. It is an intimacy that she still retains on air.

Listening to Nightingale, you feel she is talking directly to you, guiding you through a carefully curated playlist of all the best, most interesting sounds. Radio is, she explains, an authentic and honest medium. It's best to die than tell a lie, she says. I can't tell lies on the radio. My voice would give it away. Annie Nightingale, it is such an honour to have you on How to Veil. Oh, thank you very much. How was it listening to that introduction? Very full of praise.

The line about better to die than tell a lie comes from my convent upbringing, and I wasn't even a Catholic. And I was sent to this convent when I was small. And the nuns used to give us this jingle, better to die than tell a lie. And I took this so seriously I wasn't a liar anyway but I was terrified of saying anything that wasn't absolutely

serious in case I went to hell and hanged myself that's where that line comes from but I do think that the voice does tell the truth and I think usually with broadcasters you can tell if they mean it or not and I think that's so important. Have you ever told a lie, Annie Nightingale?

I think I probably withhold things. We can't all go around being blatantly honest and saying, hello, nice to see you, you look terrible. You can't. You can't do that. But I don't know, I really, no, I can't do it. Actually, I can't do that but I don't know I really no I can't do it actually I can't it's so interesting because we were talking before we started recording about how much I admire you as someone who has blazed a trail for women like me who work in the media and I know from doing many celebrity interviews that sometimes you do slightly have to skirt around the truth.

If you haven't genuinely loved their last film or their last album, you kind of have to gloss over that a bit. But I imagine you do that very diplomatically. Yeah, of course. You can't say, oh, hello, welcome to the studio. I hated your last album. No, of course you can't. I mean, you wouldn't do that to your best friend. So, yeah, I think that's a civilization you know and being diplomatic but at the same time that borderline be by being sycophantic which I loathe that as well but at the same time you know you might be seeing a very young person who needs encouragement we all need reassurance we all need validation I think yeah yeah you've got to encourage people and be that, really.

I mentioned in the introduction that you are 80 now. But do you, like me, agree that age is empowering rather than diminishing? I hope so. I mean, I'd like to point out that I was 30 before I could get anywhere near a microphone. I realised this is what I really, really wanted to do. Because of all the sexism and the jaws being bolted and barred and locked for several years, nowadays people, goodness they can, they can get into broadcasting when they're 15, 16. So I was already 30 before I could enter that if you shift that timeline to 50 years back 15 years I mean it doesn't make a difference and

it's just a figure I mean I'm I've been very grateful for my genetic makeup my dad was listening to her reggae stage when he was 80 so maybe it's a family thing I'm not trying to be down with the kids I mean obviously I'd be ridiculous can be embarrassing and I don't know anyone who enjoys going wow it's another zero birthday you know the big oh the big three oh the big I don't know whether any of us really welcome it it has given me a lot more peace of mind I'm still a warrior I was worried about everything but I think I've acquired a bit of knowledge and that I'm a real learner I want to know everything that's going on everywhere all the time and I absorb knowledge and that doesn't

go away and I don't live in the past now a lot of people will not be in my position with being able to carry on working this is my absolutely greatest benefit that I've been allowed just to be like to carry on working I read somewhere that most of your friends are younger than you do you think that that keeps you young in spirit well it depends if they are yeah there are people who get mature when they're 33 they really are i've noticed that so i think it's individuals and so it doesn't quite pair down quite that way but i'm not trying to kind of curry favor with younger people to keep myself young it's not like that it's people i've got things in common with and it doesn't matter how old they are

you know i have a friend who's my age who lives in cape town he's had quite a similarly you know interesting life and we keep in touch you know i feel she's same as me we haven't changed in that sense if you want to be old to be old if you want to be awake and alive and get the most out of this life then why not and that doesn't mean having to have a career that means watching the news to me and being interested in what's going on meeting young people saying what do you think about this I want to know I'm just curious I want to I like communicating with people I want to find out their opinion I don't want to lecture them and if their experiences add to mine that makes

everyone's life more interesting that's really really all it is I mentioned in the introduction some of the extraordinarily famous and talented people that you have met along the way and I'm sure you get asked this all of the time but if there were one of those people that really sticks in your mind or who became a formative influence on your own life who would that be well I guess the name is kind of straight mine it's probably David Bowie because I met him very early on in his career and this is when the Beatles were about to break up really we. We all know, I mean, there's a million stories about that. But I think musically they were drawing apart. And they'd been together, you know, George Harvey and the Beatles since he was 15.

And they wanted to spread their wings. They wanted to work with other people. And John Lennon had his thing with going with Yoko. And they were all, they were adults now and leading different lives. I want to experiment with their music. But everybody thought, who will be the next group? Who will be the next band that will take over from the Beatles? When I heard David Bowie, I thought, it's him.

It's one guy. It's not a band. I met him, and he was a support act. And I took him to the pub across the road, and I said, you are the future. And I really believed it because he was writing his song called Space Odyssey, which was, you know, it was the time of the moon landings. And I'd grown up with a very romanticised idea of what life in space would be like. So that appealed to me.

But it was not a love song. It was about a guy floating in space who'd become a celebrity. I mean, it's an extraordinary concept. And that, to have that mind, to have that concept, that was not Moon and June and love songs. And then obviously he became much more famous with the glam rock and Dickie Stardust and all that. But it was that real song that opened my mind

to what he was thinking, the concept that he was thinking outside of what had been really pop music. You know, love songs and breakup songs. It wasn't about that. And in fact, I found the cutting of Delight, and it said I wanted to write a whole album about space music. I didn't intend Space On to be a single. Obviously, he developed new chains, and we all know the rest of that.

So the fact that he managed to stay ahead over the decades, always stay ahead, he never, ever fell backwards. And then even his death was a work of art. I mean, I still speak to this about that. So, yeah, that was a huge influence. Going from the sublime to the somewhat less sublime, you also met Jim Morrison, who you've described in the past as a bit of an arse yeah I just find him incredibly pretentious I was sort of in the middle of interviewing him and I said what do you think about money Jim you know it's a general

topic and at that time I smoked cigarettes and had a lighter and he got this hundred dollar bill out of his pocket meant to set light to it I thought okay yeah yeah I thought so that was so I wasn't that wildly impressed with him not easily impressed I love that about you let's start with your failures because you were generous enough to send me not three but nine possible failures your favorite I have I have I that's such a singular act of generosity are you someone who's comfortable then with the idea of failure it seems to have come quite easily to you to imagine these things to send to me well I don't like the f word very much I would prefer to put it in a slightly more positive way like I didn't fail my driving test for example I didn't pass it this time yeah like no it's the same thing the negativity of the word bothers me because I don't want people to feel that they have

not achieved because in some tests whatever it is whether it's a screen test a driving test or anything you have not fulfilled the criteria that was necessary that does not mean that you are failure that's exactly annie yes i so agree so i try and avoid that word because i think it can be self-destructive to people and it's like okay that didn't work let's try something else and certainly through all the early failures were I think tests as a person were all different every single one of them to me I couldn't do handstands well was that a failure yeah I've got weak wrists I was terrible at gym I hated gym I couldn't like roll over the horse I terrified of it I couldn't do that I couldn't do that but I didn't say I

failed at it but you know there's just physical things you find out early on that you're not going to be an athlete you're not going to be a great ballet dancer ice skater and those are the kind of images that I was fed as a young girl and then being called nice and girl well singing no I did a recording test with EMI I pretended that it was for a newspaper feature but obviously deep down I would you know I was a big fan of Dusty Springfield I mean a fantastic boy but it was very good to be able to have a go. At least you've ticked that off. At least you said, right, I'm not going to do that.

But then I used to think that people, maybe everybody except me, was naturally talented. And therefore, they would go on to become a great painter, a great teacher, a great writer. And that they didn't actually have to do anything. They didn't have to work at it. They were just naturally talented. I could not draw the back legs of a horse,

which is quite difficult, the angles that you need to draw a horse. So I was convinced I couldn't draw. I did what was then O-level art, and I had a very supportive art teacher. I said, no, no, I'm no good I'm no good art because I can't draw back legs and horns so that is where this negativity should not come in. Do you think Annie that women or girls are particularly prone to being knocked back by

verdicts like that by almost like internal criticism? Very, very good point. Now, that takes me to where I'm very, very great to my dad. I was an only child and he was one of four and none of the other four had any children either. So it's only occurred to me comparatively recently that it's a very unusual situation. So my dad mainly treated me as a boy and a girl because he didn't have any boys. You know, he taught me how to row a girl because he didn't have any boys you know he

taught me how to row a boat because he's been done rowing and we live by the river thames swimming he taught me swimming the sea and now people have swimming lessons at school and well my dad taught me how to swim and i'm not athletic i'm not good at all of that but i think that opened up those possibilities of doing things which other people might have said, oh, you can't do that, you're a girl. And when I was about 13, me and my friend, we wanted a train set. We wanted the hornbeam big, set it out around the room, and we spent our pocket money buying things like level crossings

and little stations. I don't know if we ever got the train, but that was symbolic because boys got train sets, not girls. I like girls as well, but I didn't see why I shouldn't have a train set if I wanted one. It was beginning to show something was coming through that I was not going to be a conventional female. And you're talking about a time when women it was like go

to school get a job maybe but the main thing get married sit down have kids my parents are not happy together you know I had friends I go to their houses and I'd see their mums unhappy women living in maybe quite nice houses with quite aggressive husbands whose main thing in life was how big a car they could get stasis symbols and I just thought women were desperately needing the company of their daughters because they were isolated at home again it's taken me years to think back and think what conclusions I joined from that but it just didn't seem right it's society making conformity and that is what I rebelled against so you talked there about your failure to take art on as an a-level but one of your failures I passed a level but I didn't take it yeah but one of your failures out

of your nine failures I have picked three is that you failed to get encouraged to do A-levels or to go to university, which I think ties in with what you've been talking about. So tell us what happened there. Well, I actually got a scholarship to a very academic school, still going. I was in the top 10. It's called Lady Eleanor Hollis School. And once the convent thing had happened, obviously my parents said get me out of there before I become a nun age nine so I set an entrance exam which would have meant fee pay but then they had to take a quota of I don't know what you call the scholarship kids or something

because maybe because I'd taken this exam they let me in but my parents said no way they would have been able to afford the visa so there I I was, but I was then really, really average. I was average at any, I did not stand out in any way. I quite like English best, but I didn't know the sport. We played lacrosse, which is really terrifying. And as the years had gone by, I realised I had a good education. But at the time, I never really felt I fitted in. I became obsessed with music as a teenager and movies,

and I was not considered Oxford's material. I wasn't considered A-level material. You see, there wasn't that much expectation anywhere. Family, I'm not saying it put me down, but whether it had been knocked out of them by World War II and they just had to exist, you know, I think now we're perhaps all realising a little bit what that life might have been like,

except we're not having our houses bombed out of existence. Nobody was saying, you've got to become a professor. It wasn't expected. I think they just wanted you to have some kind of secure life and marry some bloke with loads of money, and it just didn't feel right to me. I don't want to marry a man for his money that very rarely works out anyway I was definitely wouldn't so they wanted security probably for me financial security they were

not academics so why would they ever think that I should go to university I would like to have done because at that period it would have been fantastic because the British culture was coming out of that, which is like Beyond the Fringe and all those, you know, I was very drawn to comedy. But I had one year in college at what is now the University of Westminster that was then a polytechnic. And that was fantastic because I didn't learn much, but I grew up a lot in central London,

right opposite the BBC. I had no idea that I would ever, ever work there. No idea at all. So that year helped me grow up a bit. My parents were saying, this is a journalism course, which in those days were very rare. And they went, well, you know, you have to have something to fall back on. I thought, no, that's the deal.

You let me do this course and then I have to prove to you that I can do this job and I won't have to fall back on the secretarial course. It sounds like you really knew yourself at quite a young age then to have the resilience to be able to do that and plow your own furrow is really impressive is it well I don't know I'm an Aries my birthday's April the 1st I mean I know it's all most people think well that's nonsense nightingales that's our real name family maybe they're actually more than I realized and they didn't have any other children but they weren't academic I mean the two aunts I mean they just had tea all the time. You'd go and there was lots more tea. So it was a cake.

I don't even know where they went to school. So there was no academic background. But it was popular culture. It was the movies. And what really won big journalists was go see one film, which is Roman Holiday. I love that film. Yeah, but everyone said, oh, yeah, Audrey oh yeah Audrey Hepburn I go yeah but that was not

the inspiration for me it was Gregory Peck being a journalist driving around Rome you know having an adventurous life it was a Hollywood movie. Oh gosh I so relate to that because when I watched that movie I had exactly the same thing because I also knew that I wanted to be a journalist at quite a young age but tell me yeah I did it's funny that the same thing because I also knew that I wanted to be a journalist at quite a young age. But tell me, yeah, I did. It's funny that, isn't it? Because I didn't have any history of it in my family. I just, there was something internally that I knew. But you mentioned that the legacy of World War II on your parents' generation and indeed your generation. And you've talked a bit about your dad, but what was your mother like? and you've talked a bit about your dad but what was your mother like she was the fifth out of six children she thought she was a baby so apparently when she was born and she got all the fuss made

out of her from her four sisters and brothers and then another one came along a boy I mean she misses it she's that kind of put her nose out of joint she wasn't the baby anymore and she was not happy with my dad she'd say I'm very disappointed in your father because he was not a natural businessman he had inherited the wallpaper business from his father who I think was a very dynamic man but he died when I was very small so I don't really know but he runs Sanderson and dad was expected to take over the family business which is something else I feel really strongly about. People should not have to do that. Well, it's a shop.

You know, John Smith and son. Why should John Smith's son have to run the shop if he's not cut out for it? My dad was not a businessman. He was an artisan. He was a very sensitive man, very nice person. It was wrong. And what can you say now? And then my mother died quite young, and he spent another 30 years on his own.

I actually said to him once, she's never seen, because I mean, a lot of women find him attractive. And I said, did he not feel that he should have somebody else in your life? And he said, I didn't want to upset you. And I thought, oh. He's a very sensitive man, so I miss him very much. He was a role model for me about I hope being a decent person and what a wonderful thing that has been to be inspired by so I've probably been off the subject but

no never yeah it was beautiful there was a north-south divide not in a kind of conventional way so the nightingales came from Lancashire and my mother came from Surrey which everyone thinks more posh but her sister's been all because their family had grown up in France so they spoke French in front of her which she couldn't speak and she'd think that was very rude and I agree so she felt slighted so there's a sort of opposite north-south divide going on there socially I didn't see the ideal lovely family life as being something that I'd witnessed I'd seen women being not happy really and the dads being under huge pressure to bring home the bacon and be the bread winner and that these people were divided in half and that seemed to me so wrong you know what if

you were a dad who actually liked cooking and he wanted and you're better at that and maybe you know the mom would have been the better breadwinner and that or appalling life that that generation and no doubt beforehand and up until comparison recently and probably still going on that injustice really gets to me yeah looking people in boxes we're all different all of us yeah it strikes me reading about you and in preparation for this interview that the life that you have lived has been a direct counterbalance to your upbringing in a way because you're very rare amongst women in the public eye in that there isn't very much out there about your personal life, about your life as a mother, about who you were married to and all of that.

And I salute you for that. And I wonder whether that was a conscious decision on your part to keep the two separate, even though you were working and rushing home to Brighton to raise your daughter, but you didn't ever talk about it no I have a son and a daughter and they did not opt to share a life in public with me and that's where we leave it and we're happy with that and I'm happy with that so that's it so your failure I put that in quotation marks to do A-levels or to go to university,

is that something that you regret? Or do you think that it has taught you something important? Well, I just don't believe in regrets. We can't have them. You can't go back. You can't go back. So what's the point? I'm not going to bruise about it. There's lots of other things one would like to have done. All of us or yeah maybe I should have done that my dad used to go on about I wish I hadn't sold that car dad it would have rusted you know that'd be ridiculous so I'll try to eliminate regrets with all my mistakes lots of mistakes and you have to learn from them maybe I wouldn't have enjoyed the university I had that year at Polytechnic Centre London it was a very good year for me and maybe that was quite enough you can't go back you are the result of your experiences good and bad so

accept it move on adapt to survive love it love it now after Polytechnic you did become a print journalist and I realize I'm fast forwarding quite a few years here because your second failure is your failure to become a DJ for three years when Radio One started so the big one yeah it is the big one and that's why I wanted to do it seconds we had most time to talk about it because it was literally because you were a woman wasn't it oh yeah I mean they were quite open about it and the thing is i did feel qualified by them because i've been writing about music for years and i've been at fancy tv shows so i felt well it's not as if i'm saying oh i'd like to be a dj you know i'd like to be a

movie star with no experience i had enough qualification so i was absolutely godsmacked so the background to this is we had this pirate radio station Radio Caroline Radio London absolutely fantastic they made a lot of music of that period the 60s really happened in the UK they brought on that and registered to go to the tv shows that brought us black music and Motown and fabulous excitement amazing. The BBC were not part of that. Then the Pirates got closed down because there were literally ships out at sea in international waters, which I thought was terribly exciting

and dangerous and wonderful. And they were closed down and the deal was with the government, said to the BBC, right, you now run this pop station for the kids. And so they took on most of the ex-pirates who became the first wave of DJs there and one of the things they said to me when I went oh this is it I'd seen the pirates out of sea and I thought oh god I'd love to do that but I couldn't imagine doing that

swimming out to sea and so when they'd gone on to dry land I thought where's the opportunity so I couldn't see what the big problem would be and then they actually said well it's because you're a woman and I went what's that got to do with it and they said this job is a husband substitute

so I was like what I could not believe it that's it in a nutshell I've forgotten boys to death I mean Like, I could not believe it. And that's it in a nutshell. I've forgotten boys to death for hours. I mean, to say that to you as well, because you were out there hustling, working,

you knew that women like you existed and you weren't listening to the radio for a husband substitute. Yeah, I mean, exactly. You know, what was coming up was like Cosmopolitan magazine, feminism was coming in. There was a lot of, eventually there was a lot of pressure and I was writing stuff and she you know I was saying I thought it was very wrong and I used to say to them look I may be absolutely no good at this at all I absolutely appreciate this please can I just have a go and just let me have a go if I'm no good I'll shut up and go away forever, I promise. And that was the thing, because I could not understand

why gender had anything to do with it. That was the point. It had not affected me in writing for magazines and newspapers and doing TV. What was the thing about radio that you had to be a bloke? Yeah. I don't understand it. So after they said that to you, what did you do?

I wouldn't accept it. I wouldn't accept it I wouldn't accept it I kept going on and I think you know that the mood was changing I think they then realized that they would have to take on maybe one tokenistic just to you know keep the pressure off and because I know this is quite important I say to everybody If there's an area that you want to work in, circle it. Keep circling it. It's not a matter of don't be in the right place at the right time. You might have to be in the right place for a long time before that opportunity happens.

A lot of other female DJs have happened on radio because somebody went on holiday. Somebody was ill. And they go, oh, my God, who do we know? Now, if you have some experience, you've gone in and started off making a tea or learning how to edit stuff, and you're the one that comes to mind. And that, I think, applies to anybody that wants to achieve something

that is difficult to get into. Just keep on that periphery of what you want to do. I was very fortunate because I was a journalist, but I didn't really think I was that good a journalist. I didn't have much confidence. I didn't think I could write very well. But once I got in front of a microphone, that felt right. That thought, yeah, this is what I really want to do.

And so I probably didn't persist. But, I mean, I think I've actually got to the point I've almost given up thinking, oh, it's never going to happen. But because of this increasing public pressure, if you like, they had to take somebody on. So, you know, you'd be the one to try it. And then the weirdest thing of all is that I thought I'd last a year, but they extended contract.

I was the only female there for 12 years. I still can't understand that. And I still have to think, well, maybe, maybe else wants to do this. I'm a freak. And because they used to say to me, why would a woman want to be a DJ? Because it's the best job in the world.

I could see that, you know. Why they didn't get that I couldn't see that. I think it's a very male thing. It's very techie. Most of the guys who set up Radio 1 have been ex-REF. So it was a techie thing rather than a creative necessarily. It was John Peel. Obviously, without John Peel, it would never, ever have happened.

I might not have wanted to join that kind of boys' gang. So there was somebody out there who was playing wonderful, fascinating music. So obviously it was a great inspiration to all of us. On your first day at Radio 1, were you intimidated by the nature of the old boys club? Did you feel that you had to prove you were twice as good as the next person? For years.

First night, first show, I completely blew it it I stopped the record that was actually playing by mistake so it's disaster and I thought well that's it they gave me a job and I've learned it you know that kind of terrible complex about making mistakes went on for years I didn't have a problem with talking but it was a technical not making technical mistakes and they regarded that as being very important i think more than certainly a daytime guide and then you get to notice that with two real differences in radio one is the daytime people who are and still and it's a hell of a job you've got to be an entertainer and have a fabulous massive audience in the evening you could play what you really wanted now the only reason I wanted to be on radio was to play the music

that I love I did not do it to become famous I didn't want to be a celebrity I wanted a medium because I thought it's so simple I've heard a piece of music I could play it to you down the phone and say what do you think do you think am I mad is this great that and it's so simple i've heard some music i could play it to you down the phone and say what do you think do you think am i mad is this great that and it has not changed that was my thing so they didn't really know what to do with me because you know i was not a fast slick jock dj i wouldn't fit that and it wasn't actually until years in when i started to do this show on a Sunday where I found this dream audience. And I could do exactly what I'm saying to you, but play this track and say, what do you think of this?

And they would respond and go, absolutely, it's terrible. What are you talking about? But we had that rapport. And that became the Sunday Night Request show, which lasted, well, it was in two goes it's on the afternoon then the real rich period was 82 to 94 and that started as a three-month filler and that went on for 12 years and I adore those people to this day because we played the most bizarre I kept thinking they'll take it off they'll take it's too weird too weird and they didn't and you

know they sent me a list of records and I think, oh that's good 12 tunes, I could play all of them in one but there might be one I didn't know and that one would actually be a real find because that person's taste was really good so we were both learning and we shared it it was like their show and that's

a whole generation Here you are 50 years later still on Radio 1 and there's a guy who has collected a lot of those shoots from that period and put them on the Spotify list the quirkiness of it that summed up that period but I found those people I found the person at the end of the phone if you like I can't audience. It's 7 o'clock on Sunday. They were at school or college. They're doing their homework they should have done on Friday.

And they had put me a pen in their hand. They could write down, you know, it was pre-internet, an email. So they had to write down what they wanted to hear. And they'd do a drawing around it. And you'd go, you know, I hope you're not doing A-level art. You know, that rapport grew with them. And that is absolutely a beautiful thing for me in my life. You say rightly that it took 12 years for the next woman to come along,

and that was Janice Long. And then many years after that, it was the generation that I grew up with. It was people like Sarah Cox, Lauren Laverne, who I know you were interviewed by recently for Desert Island Discs. And now there's like a bevy of strong women on the radio. It is great. And it's great for the listener to have so much more diversity. But how else has your job changed in that time, either negatively or positively?

Are there some things that you miss and other things that you love? And how has it changed? Obviously, it's evolving all the time. Somebody said to me, I said, shall I send you a record? I went, oh no. For years, it's all downloads. It's all technology.

And I've embraced the technology. And it's very good that Radio 1 did when it did because that huge technological digital revolution, Radio 1 kind of got completely wiped out by that. And they were really ahead of the game in the early 90s, I suppose, which is a very rich period. And I loved that period, even though it was not of their generation, but they let me in. They need to be ahead of the game and we had to all learn everything new. In a funny way, I wasn't so intimidated because we all had to learn at the same time.

Whereas in the beginning all the priorities as they all knew everything technically before I got anywhere near having that opportunity now we all had to learn from page one and so it was less intimidating when that big revolution happened things are much easier now you don't have the fear of playing the wrong track with all the swearing in it that's going to get you taken off air. It's technically much easier. It sounds better. It's not clunky like it used to be. You, as a listener, and I as a listener, expect that.

The production qualities are way, way wonderful. Sometimes people send me old programmes that they found on Mixcloud or whatever, and you just think, oh, my goodness. Oh, dear, all that too. Oh, yeah, but that was them. And what has amazed me, that radio, audio, has survived. It survived TV. It survived MTV.

It survived video. It survived the internet, all these platforms. Why has it survived? Because I think people still need that human voice between the music. You can put on endless playlists with no human voice. And it's been proved that in times of crisis, it communicates, it connects us together. And particularly now when people can't be close to each other it's probably doing very well because you know it's a voice out there that's not something you know but you think you do know them do you hang out with the other radio one presenters with with me and nobody has time

nobody ever had time no because you know you get your studio slot booked in advance if you're not out of your studio on time they're banging on the door because they need the studio and all the details that is not it never was that kind of culture they never knew what they did the rest of time everybody else had other jobs and they were doing photo shoots or they were doing tv shows or writing it was never a job that you just did that you went in the office at nine in the morning stayed all day and all night it's not like that and we'd be separated by specialists not now not anymore but at one time it'd be specialists on one floor and daytime on another and so you'd probably get to know the specialist people a bit more I did now I mean John Peel came out of my house once to go to a football match in Brighton because he was a Liverpool fan and our DJ that

is funeral so there are a few but mostly not by design but simply because they're very busy people and it's not that kind of it never was they were DJing you know they'd be DJing around the world come in do a show off and you know thank you we'll have you see there please so it was very little I've got you know people I'm very fond of like Bobby Fixon who I've known over the years he's now a big star on the Asian network Sarah Cox is one of the loveliest people on this earth I think they never hang out anywhere I don't think ever maybe once it just doesn't happen what do you think those nuns at your convent school would make of you now? Probably gather their children around them and keep them as far away as possible. I just think they would think I would be a very bad influence.

Were you naughty at school? Not really, not desperately. I think we'd get, you know, a little detention or something, but I wasn't really a rebel at school. I was a rebel out of school. So in French class, they said, is it true you went to the cinema three times last week? And that was considered very bad.

So I was considered flighty. That's another reason why I probably didn't do A-levels or university because I was now in this sort of rave culture. I was caught up in the music thing. And that didn't go down very well with the very seriously academic people and fair enough that was their thing this is mine. I think that's such a good example though of something that was once dismissed at school or by authority figures as flightiness or a hobby or rebellion can actually turn into your passion and your livelihood and I

think that's such a good thing for people listening to realize I hope so I mean the thing is where's the line this whole thing about get a safe job something to fall back on you know we're facing this terrifying recession at the moment what do you advise young people to do to get through the next six years I'm desperately worried for them if it's risk-taking I don't know whether that's a good thing but you know if you invent TikTok that's done pretty well yeah I like to say to people follow your dream it's that good advice because if you're a young boy you won't be a footballer and you may not actually be good enough and you could spend a lot of your youth practicing football and never, ever getting anywhere.

And that might be then very bad advice. You've got to have some kind of backup, maybe. Exactly. I think follow your dream and have a backup plan. And also realize that the dream you think you want might not necessarily be the right dream for you. Because certainly in my life, I've been going, you know, focused on one area

and then another opportunity has come along that I'd never anticipated. And that's where the rich stuff sometimes lies. Exactly, I couldn't put it better. Thank you for saying that. I say to people, do what you feel now. You don't know. There's a job out there that doesn't even exist

that we don't even know about that is exciting future be open-minded but give yourself as much opportunity to be able to take that if it happens to you take that opportunity so if something comes along and see it as an opportunity I never imagined I'd be on the radio I never imagined I'd be on TV at all but it's sort of being over the opportunity you can't always take them up you know nobody can

and you think oh missed opportunity oh go on bruise about it for the rest of your life no point doing that just think well I couldn't do that

and then I used to think this is an Eminem song so one chance one opportunity but that's great if you're able to grasp it but you can't always for all kinds of reasons. But then maybe you get another go.

Exactly. Maybe you start off, you're a boy, you want to be a footballer, and it turns out that you can't get a trial for Leicester or Leeds or England. But what if you become Alex Ferguson? A huge figure, incredibly influential all over the world, as a manager. But when you're a little boy of seven, you don't want to be the manager, you want to be number seven on whoever's scoring the goal.

So there's all that periphery that you don't even know about that actually might be incredibly much more rewarding. I'm using football as an analogy because there's so many, right now, the hero of the day will be the person who finds a vaccine for covid and i imagine there may be a lot of young people thinking well i'm going to do physics because i want to help the world you don't know what these influences that are happening all around us are and because the internet has changed everything and young people can see the world it opens up the way to see what's going on. You can see about the protests in Hong Kong.

You can see what's going on. We should not live in a closed off world anymore and see those opportunities. I just want everyone to feel fulfilled. It may not make you a lot of money. Just give people the opportunity to find fulfillment. And that is my great dream for everyone. Oh, Annie, you are so speaking my language. I love it. If I can guide you onto the third of your

failures, it made me laugh this one because it's a failure of discipline over money. And you mentioned that you failed economics at what was then O-level stage. But tell me more about your lack of discipline over money. Is that something you still have? I'm much better than I used to be. I'm very fatalistic, which is absolutely stupid. You know, you say, oh, fate will take over everything. Fate, destiny, you know.

Destiny is going to make sure that you have a wonderful life and you're financially comfortable and you're beautiful and you've got a wonderful home and family. That's absolute bollocks. You make your life. You've got to make your life tough and you've got to make your opportunities. And I've never been so interested in money for its own sake,

but what I've realised is that you need a certain amount to create freedom to then create fulfilment if you've had no education all these children at the moment who've been off school living in eight children one family with one laptop between them if they're lucky what kind of opportunities are those children going to have what chances are they going to have to fulfil their dream that's that's what kind of really gets me that it's not a level playing field I was very fortunate that I was able to go to a very good school and it took me a long time to appreciate it really but I do now but I never had

a lot of money it was not a very very important thing in my life that is why it's the only subject I failed I took I think altogether nine no levels and only my That is why it's the only subject I failed. I took, I think altogether nine, there was only my failed. I thought it was quite significant that it should have been economics. I wasn't interested in it per se. I was interested in what it could do where, you know, it could pay for you to go and play in somewhere and have experience.

I wasn't good with money for a long long time I have learned I'm much much better do you have a pension no no neither do I I'm so relieved to hear that because I think that a lot of people in the creative arts just feel like they'll keep on working forever I probably couldn't afford to have one and I'm a freelance and then you hear awful stories about people who've put money into their pension thing and then somebody's stolen it or something that would be a terrible betrayal to me I mean the r word and I don't mean that in the covid sense but the r word as in r e t i r e retire yeah no thank you i'll do anything to keep working because i love it a lot of people and i

want the mental stimulus of it i'm probably a workaholic now which is great that's what i want to do and what do you spend your money on for fun? I don't know. Nothing at the moment. What about clothes and glasses? You've got such a good sense of style. Well, one pair of sunglasses you might refer to were 18 euros at an airport in Italy about five years ago. I've never, ever been able to find anything as good as that. I'm terrified of losing them because I can't replace them.

I mean, you know, he's spent 200 quid. Yeah, I like expensive sunglasses, but they're still the best. I just think they enhance, they're an enhancement, which is a bad thing, you know. We should all make an effort to be at least pleasant to look at. I don't mean glamorous and dull up to the nines, but you're the only person that doesn't have to look at you. When I'm at home, I don't look in the mirror if you're working in the office or something somebody's sitting opposite you they've got to look at you well make it a pleasant experience

not showing off and go look at all my incredibly expensive stuff be considerate about other people you're a true creative Annie Nightingale may you never lose your 18 euro sunglasses and may you never retire i cannot thank you enough for coming on how to fail oh i've been i've so enjoyed it this is what i love is connecting with people this is like a radio show to me but you're there the other end you can talk back to me i feel exactly the same annie thank you so so much thank you this is the best of luck with everything you so, so much. Thank you, Elizabeth. Best of luck with everything you do and never give in,

never take no for an answer. Yes! If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently it helps other people know that we exist.