Oh What A Time... - #116 The Nation’s Favourite: The True Adventures of Radio 1 by Simon Garfield (BONUS EPISODE)

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

While we're off on our Christmas holidays, please enjoy this bonus episode!AND DON'T FORGET! The comedy history podcast that has spent as much time talking about the invention of custard as it has the industrial revolution is here with its first ever live show! Thursday 15th January at the Underbelly Boulevard in London’s Soho. 🎟 Tickets are on sale now: https://underbellyboulevard.com/tickets/oh-what-a-time/And in huge news, Oh What A Time is now on Patreon! From content you’ve never heard before to the incredible Oh What A Time chat group, there’s so much more OWAT to be enjoyed!On our Patreon you’ll now find:•The full archive of bonus episodes•Brand new bonus episodes each month•OWAT subscriber group chats•Loads of extra perks for supporters of the show•PLUS ad-free episodes earlier than everyone elseJoin us at 👉 patreon.com/ohwhatatimeAnd as a special thank you for joining, use the code CUSTARD for 25% off your first month.--Onto this episode:For our beloved OWAT: Full Timers, this month we are delighted to present a book review detailing Matthew Bannister’s infamous overhaul of Radio 1 in the 90s. Say goodbye to DLT and Bruno Brookes and hello to Danny Baker and Chris Evans!And don’t forget if you’ve anything to contribute to the show you can wing us an email to here: [e-mail] can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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For all your options, you can go to patreon.com forward slash O-Watertime. Hello and welcome to Oh What a Time. We are on our holidays right now. It's that Christmas New Year period where podcasting just stops. But don't worry because we've got some very old archive subscriber episodes for you to enjoy until we come back in the new year. But if you have someone in your life that you love and you want to get them a gift, then what about the gift of comedy history? Because on the 15th of January 2026, Oh What a Time are doing our first ever live show at the Underbelly Boulevard in Soho. Tickets start from just 25 pounds and you could be there to get your tickets right now for the 15th of Jan. Just go to ohwatertime.com and if you enjoy this

episode, remember there are lots of bonus episodes to be enjoyed over on the oh water time full-timer package to sign up to our patron to get two bonus episodes every month plus early release episodes, add free listing and all that good stuff. You can head to oh watertime.com. Anyway, this is a fantastic subscriber episode from many moons ago. Enjoy. bought a metal detector this weekend, it's half term, and the last two days I've really got into metal detecting in a big way. I love it. It's so calming, and it's constantly that sort of scratch card moment of as you're pushing a dirt away, could this be the game changer? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is this going to be a billion pounds in gold bullion?

Yeah, exactly. So I'm staying at my... mother-in-law's house, which is near to a field where two years ago, 100,000 pounds worth of Roman gold was found. So there is stuff in this area of Norfolk knocking around. Wow. So who got that? They were proper metal detectors as opposed to a dad who's bought a 20-pound metal detector from a toy shop. Yeah, yeah, with a six-year-old son.

Yeah, exactly. But they found a real haul of Roman coins and all this sorts of stuff. That's incredible. Do you know what mudlacking is? I do know what mudlarking is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I follow a mudlarker on Facebook. And he...

You might need to explain what this is, by the way. Mudlarking is basically the banks of the Thames. Yeah. It's like a micro beach on the banks of the Thames when the sort of tides out. Yeah. And it is actually described as a beach.

Yeah, yeah. But if you went on holiday and that was the beach in front of your hotel. You would be devastated. So with mudlacking, it's people, I'm assuming they use metal detectors, I don't know, but they will just find stuff that's been washed up over the course of the last two and a half thousand years. And they will find a leather shoe that dates from 1650. And they'll find a load of Victorian tools.

The stuff this guy finds is absolutely incredible. Obviously London has been so busy. And the Thames, you know, if it gets chucked in there, you're not going to, realistically, you're not going to jump in and get it out. So anything that falls in there, it tends to be there. And then I might get washed up, but no one's on those little bunks anyway. So there's just this treasure trove of stuff that's often hundreds of years old. And I think I might get into mudlark, actually.

Well, Elle, there is treasure everywhere in this country. And I think if anything reflects that, it's the list of things I've found in the mere 48 hours that I've been searching. Okay, you ready? Let's go. First one. In the middle of my mother-in-law's garden, where there's now a huge hole in what was previously a nice lawn and is now a family issue, we found the golden topped to a spray can. But there was a moment where it was gold, and I pointed out, she said, well, we'll have to keep digging to find out if there's anything important. Up came the nice garden, it's a spray can.

We also found the part of an engine for a 1950s Cadillac, very weird. How? And how do you know that? That was in a field and there's a thing on Google where you can hold the object up to a camera and it'll tell you what it probably is. Yeah. It's amazing.

I didn't know about this. My wife is. God, that's changed the mudlucking game, isn't it? It's another leather boot. Yeah, yeah. And finally, that's a golden shield. Last night, something which is either

the ring pulled from the top of a can or a medieval ring of incredible value. I'm not quite sure which it is. It's very rustic. I'm leaning towards the latter. But that's just in 48 hours, Al. That's just in 48 hours.

So you extrapolate that. You could realistically live for another 50 years, Tom. Yeah, exactly. I mean, as long as you quit everything to become a full-time metal detector, you are just one enormous horde of Roman coins away from making an absolute fortunes. And if I just keep finding metal,

you can also sell metal to the scrapyard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's profit in that. An ancient, one ancient ring pull at a time, you're going to, you're going to, you know, if you get a skip full of those, you're looking at a good 30 quid. But genuinely, there is, like, anyone hasn't tried it, or if you haven't tried it, it is, it's so relaxing. And you're just, there's a sort of meditative quality. I completely get why people like it. You just, you're just sort of scanning it around calmly.

There's an excitement. Oh, could this be, obviously you don't really think it's going to be anything. But there is something really satisfying about it. And that frisson of like, oh, could this be? be, could this be? It's just great. I completely get why people love it. Isn't there a lot of metal about? There is a lot of metal about, and I'm finding most of it, yeah. Hang on, Claire, your wife, she works, isn't she? She does work, yeah. So she can surely, till death is two part, sustain your dream, which is to become a full-time metal detector, quick comedy

of podcasting. You've done, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've made your point. You've I've learned living as a comedy writer for 20 years. Yeah. You've done your bit. This is the real Tom Craig. I've not, Chris, I'm sure you agree. I've not seen him this energized. Who is this new Tom Crave?

I even had an idea for our live show, which is that I will give the second best thing that I find as a prize out at our live show. I'm obviously not going to say on air, I'm going to give the best thing in case I do find something of genuine value, giving a 45,000 pound golden necklace to it. I appreciate you coming, but not that much. But I will bring something I find and give it to a listener.

What I love our life shows. You heard of magnet fishing? What's that? I follow a couple of guys who do magnet fishing. So basically you rock up to like a river or a canal, like London or Amsterdam, with a really powerful magnet on a big string. And they just pop it in the river.

And they look when they grab something, they haul it up and they see what they've got. And sometimes they find safes, I'm not going to lie, 80% of the time, It's either a gun or a machete. Is this a police? You get the odd shopping trolley. No, it's this guy.

I can't right. I think he's called like Bondi Treasure Hunter. Okay. And he just goes fishing with this huge magnets and pulls things out of rivers. Wow. Sometimes he finds like Second World War grenades and all sorts. There's another thing actually which is in line to that.

This is what YouTube videos I watch, which is a bit like mudlarking, but extreme. It's underwater metal detecting. So you can get metal detectors at work underwater. People dive down into the bottom of riverbeds where there's lots of stuff, actually, you know, watches, all this sort of stuff. And they scan around as YouTubers who just come up and they'll find old iPhones and all these sort of things and kind of occasional. Old iPhones, you say. But they're waterproof now, Elle, so they're fixable.

Yes, but they weren't then. But if any listeners do this, and if you found anything of value, I'd be genuinely intrigued to hear. Yes, Gritchard. What it is. There is one really interesting thing, which I will mention to you. There's a little leaflet or pamphlet that came with my son's metal detector, and it gave a tip as to where you're most likely to find treasure geographically. I don't mean in the country, but what sort of landmarks?

Can I guess? It's genuinely interesting. Well, I've just been reading about the Battle of Hastings, and one of the few clues they have about where it happened was that they feel. they find hordes of coins buried near the battlefield where basically soldiers were burying their earthly, earthly possessions before the battle so that after the battle they could go reclaim them. But obviously, when they die, those coins or whatever it was, they just lay buried unknown. That's so interesting. That isn't the answer, but that is really interesting.

So that's a big thing, isn't it? Pre-banking, you just have to put your stuff somewhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Burry. That would be a nightmare. Yeah. Medieval banking. Well, um, bearing a mind that was it Richard the 2nd's skeleton was found under a car park in Leicester, I'm going to say under car parks.

It's all under car parks. That's exactly it. No, you're most likely to find gold, gold coins and things like that, at the base of a tree because that's where people would stop to rest or they would stop when they were travelling and naturally they would drop things and that's a thing.

So generally, you have to think also the other reason is they were markers so people remembered where their things were. So it's not going to be, it's highly unlikely it's just going to be out in the middle of a field. It's more likely to be by an old tree or buy a hedgerow, that sort of stuff, especially medieval stuff. There's a bit of South London,

where it's like Upper Norwood, South Norwood, West Norwood. And that Norwood comes from the Great Northwood. So that patch of South London was at one point covered in a forest. And there are still, by Dulwich, there are still patches of the Great Norwood. Norwoods. It's a very ancient forest. There are slivers of it, you know, here and there. Surely that's going to be metal detecting manor from heaven, isn't it, you would think? An ancient forest is a thousand, you know, a thousand plus years old.

Should we do a special when the three of us go out metal detect? Oh, yeah. That would be so much fun. I would love that. Okay, I've never done it. I'll absolutely do that. I will take you metal detecting. I mean, I've got, I'm 48 hours deep now, so I know my stuff. I'll tell you very, the first hole I dug up, by the way, I had nothing in it because it turned out I was detecting the metal eye ringlets on my Converse All-Stars. So I was picking up my own shoes.

And then dug a hole in my mother-in-law's garden. What a think. Imagine you've got a nice gold coin. You sit down at the base of a treat of a rest as you're walking from Oxford to Cambridge. and then you start walking and then like eight miles later you're like oh god that sodding tree

I bet a podcaster finds that in 500 years yeah I can't wait for them to hurry up and invent Uber so you've got a 20 quid metal detector what does like what are the different metal detectors so the kids version

which my child has which means I have to sort of It's not easy on the lower back because it's quite short. It just reacts when there's metal down there. Expensive metal detectors you can change, from my understanding, the reading, so it'll pick up on different

types of metal. Oh, wow. So you can like, it'll just scan for silver or just scan for whatever. That's my understanding. It's got a different beat, is it? This is a good one. This is a good one. Shit! Get out of your travel now!

Game changer, game changer. Just set mine to gold and leave it at that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. But, no, I think that's, and also you can change the depth and that sort of stuff, which is, I think, is my understanding. Please email in if I'm wrong. Another interesting thing is that if you detect on a wet day, it will detect further down into the soil. Wow. So that's the whole thing. The best time to detect is just after it's been raining because it will sense things further down. So raining by a tree. Raining a really wet day under a tree.

That is the ultimate way to metal. That's how you become a millionaire. There you go. So there you go. So we will one day to a, oh, what a time, metal detecting special, the three of us go out. Okay. Maybe with an actual expert, that could be fun. That could see if we can find anything. Here's a question for you.

It's the O'Water Time Metal Detecting Special. Ellis, Chris and Tom are metal detecting. We find £100,000 worth of Roman coins in the Great Norwood. An old slip of the Great Norwood was my idea. Okay, yeah, yeah. But there's the three of us, and it's also Charlie's... 20-pound battles a vector. Yeah.

Who gets the money? How do you divide that up? I think it's wrong to steal from a child. And the benefit of me saying that it's my child. It's going to change them. He's going to be quite weird. He's going to be quite a weird kid, doesn't he? Yeah, exactly.

More because of the year two, he's just got a lot of cash. all of its really old tender though can't use it in the tuck shop but yeah that is it well I think you know just probably fight fight it out wouldn't we really just sort of lay down a simple ring made up of salt so we know where the edges are and this historically us being the healthiest

best way of doing it exactly yeah each given a dagger and just go for it to see see it comes out on top yeah exactly there we go I'm genuinely excited about that that of course will happen the metal tech thing special will happen but that is for the future for the now

And this podcast will end acrimoniously when we win an absolute fortune. Something is like far better than the Sutton Who. So people refer to the Sutton Who from that point onwards as that piece of shit. Yeah. Oh my God. It's a no water timer. Oh, wow. Oh, wow.

So before we crack on some actual history, though, let's do a little bit of correspondence. Here's an email which blew my mind in a way that I should know this, but I don't, but also a secondary point of that, I still don't quite understand the difference that's being made. Let me read this out. Chris Peirce has emailed us to say, Corrections Corner. Love the pod. Sorry though, I think you made a mistake in inventions. Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, not the internet. Yes. Did you know that? Ah, okay. There's been a version of the internet for much longer than the worldwide web. Yes. So Chris says here the internet had been around... He invented it in 1989, yeah. He says the internet had been around for a long time before that. If you had a computer and a modem, you could easily send an email long before. I did not know that.

There's a tomorrow's world where they send an email from 1984, but Timber in his lead and invent the World Wide Web until about 1989, I think. So the idea of websites that you can access... Yeah. So is that basically what it is? So the internet is the... The internet is Caputas talking to each other. Got you?

The World Wide Web is web pages. There we go. And who'd have thought Ellis James would be the person to explain this to me? Yeah. I love tech. You've become so obsessed with metal detecting. You've got no room in your brain to put anything else anymore. There you go.

So thank you for that, Chris. And one other brief email, this is simply a little footnote. James Osborne has emailed to say, catching up on last week's show. Ellis said that Metros in Cardiff has died RIP. It is still very much open. So not for us. What was that? Metros.

To drive people away from a business. Metros, if you live in Cardiff, is still alive and well, despite Ellis's claim. It was a goth club. It is a goth goth. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry, sorry. Sorry, it is a... Why are you so desperate to perpetuate the idea?

Have you got a rival bar? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yes, Sisters of Mercy, which is on the other street. It's sort of on next street along, and we also sell, we also, you know, sell booze and play golf music. So, yeah, no, I still go to metros as a student. I love metros, yeah, it's still alive and kicking. So there you go. Thank you very much for that, for those two emails.

Well, we love being corrected on this show, because how else would we learn? How else would we grow? And the fact that we love being corrected, for me, displays growth. It shows that we're grown-up adults We're taking responsibility for our own actions And we also know that the listeners like to correct Which is why sometimes we make mistakes just for them Yeah

Are you guys the same? So I'll say something It'll sound like I'm an idiot And I don't know what I'm talking about Yeah, yeah, yeah But actually I've done it for you Because I know you like to email in about it Yeah, it's all part of our grand plan

Exactly, yeah Which will end as we say When we start our metal detecting special Everything will come to a class Anyway, if you would like to send us an email, whether it's an idea for a topic for the main feed of this podcast, or I don't know whether it's a correction, or it's just general correspondence, you can send it to this address. All right, you horrible luck, here's how you can stay in touch with the show. you can email us at hello at oh what a time.com and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at oh what a time pod. Now clear off.

All right. So on this subscriber special, I'm going to be talking to you about a book that I've absolutely loved. And this copy was given to me by Josh Whitcomb. I think it's actually his copy. And I know he loves this book. It is the nation's favorite, the true advice. adventures of Radio 1 by Simon Garfield. And oh my God, this book has been so good. I loved it so much.

So it's basically a behind-the-scenes look at the BBC Radio 1 during one of the most controversial reinventions in history. Wow. So what area is that then? Is it the Matthew Bannister one? Yeah, it's Matthew Bannister. So do you know Matthew Bannister, Crane? Is this completely alien to you in the subject?

I don't know. Long Distant Runner. Is that right? The nephew of Roger Bannister, Matthew Bannister. So it's a really turbulent period in Radio 1's history. You've got Matthew Bannister's been brought in. He's the new controller. And he has reinvented GLR radio in London in the 80s and 90s, like a local radio station.

At GLR, he brought in a lot of brilliant radio personalities, Chris Evans, Danny Baker, Emma Freud, Chris Morris. And in 1993, he is chosen as the. man to replace Johnny Beerling as controller of Radio 1 and the problem he's got is that Radio 1 launched in the 60s and a lot of the DJs that launched

with Radio 1 in the 60s are still there in the early 90s. The problem was they were really, really Radio 1 was huge. Huge. It's really successful but it's not fulfilling its remit. It was also very exciting when it started in

1967 because it was it was a national station that played pop music. The problem was, by 1993, because they hadn't got rid of those old DJs who were often very, very popular as well, it had become ripe for parody amongst the young, and they were the people who Radio 1

was meant to provide for. So the thing that was sort of, not final nail on the coffin, but a thing that really summed up how Radio 1 was seen was smashy and Nicie, the Harry and Phil and Paul White as characters. Yeah, so it launched in the 60s.

By 93, they've got the same DJs, basically. But Radio 1 is meant to be serving the youth demographic. However, as Elle touched on there, it is tremendously successful. You've got 19 million people in the UK tuning in to Radio 1. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a phenomenon. It's a phenomenon. Like, it is such a fundamental, central part of people's lives.

But because of the unique way the BBC is funded, the commercial rivals to Radio 1 were like, well, hang on, This isn't the remit of Radio 1. It's really smashing our kind of the commercial radio stations that are competitors. Radio 1 is meant to be a youth-orientated station. But in 1993, here's some of the DJs you've got. Simon Bates, remember Simon Bates? Oh, yes.

Davely Travis. Oh, yes. Alan Freeman. We'll talk about the hairy cone. You'll be glad to know. Whistling Bob Harris? Yeah, whispering Bob Harris. It's whispering. Is it a whistling?

It's whispering. No, because Bob Harris used to talk like that. Of course. So we've got Grandfung Railroad on the old grey whistle test. I've met whispering Bob Harris. Have you? And I've read his autobiography. And his autobiography is absolutely fascinating because he was the serious music guy alongside John Peel.

The difference with Bob Harris and John Peel is that by the 90s, Peel was into techno. And really, really heavy, like, house music and stuff of that, whereas Bob Harris was still into sort of guitar-oriented music from the sort of 70s. And he really, he'd stopped at punk. He was actually attacked, he was attacked by Sid Vicious in a club in London because he didn't, he wasn't playing punk bands on the old Grey Whistle Test. So he was a sort of, he's a really fascinating bloke Bob, but by this point, he's not, he's certainly not a youth-oriented DJ by the 90s.

And the next man, once we were watching, I don't even know why I was doing this. It was in my parents, this is recently in my parents' living room, and we were watching the Super Bowl half-time show. And my dad, and my dad goes, oh, I remember here. Like, what, there's someone singing. And my dad goes, I remember that guy. He used to be on Radio 1. I looked up at the screen, and it was Bruno Mars on stage at the Super Bowl. And I was like, do you mean Bruno Brooks?

Is that, oh, yeah. My dad, for a brief moment, thought Bruno Brooks was doing the Super Bowl half-time show. Love it. Two things. A, that's hilarious. B, sort of shows how massive Bruno Brooks was. Because he was hugely famous.

My dad thought that's completely logical that that could be happening. Bruno Brooks. Why did he leave Radio 1 when he's gone into bigger, better things in American? That is incredible. I think that's one of the few things. that would mean that I would stay up late enough to watch for Super Bowl half-time

if I knew that Bruno Brooks was going to be performing a 20-minute set. During the 90s property boom, this is in Harris's book, Harris borrowed 130 grand from Bruno Brooks, the DJ, to buy a flat, and then the bottom fell out the market, and he couldn't pay him back. And then he was charged, Brooks was charging an insane amount of interest and took him to court and tried to take his records. Who was that? Records.

Bruno Brooks. Bruno Brooks took Bob Harris to court and tried to take his records because he had this amazing record collection. Bob Harris to argue, I can't do my job and I'll never work again if you take my records. Yeah. He was charging interest of like a $1,300 a month, Austin, at one point. Well, that's really interesting. There's a lot of insinuation in the book that Bruno Brooks is really wealthy. They say at one point he lives in a castle.

I read once in Q Magazine a very, very long time ago, so I apologise if this isn't correct. He would buy records, and you would go around to his house to listen to the record, and he'd charge 5P a listen. That's how he's living in a castle, 5P a listen. That's amazing. Like a pub jute box from the early night.

Wow. 2.1. Good on him. The rich stay rich. chel that's the thing yeah so we've touched on it a little bit there that radio one had this reputation as being really uncool and one of the things that brought that into focus was the characters that harry enfield portrayed smashing nicey and there's there's brilliant there's lots of basically the format of the book is lots of interviews with people who live through this period

and they've got an interview of harry enfield would you like to hear harry enfield talking about the creation of smashy and nicely yes please smashy and nicy are in my opinion the best characters pa paul whitehouse and i have done together it just seemed odd to me that although millions of people listen to Radio One every day, no comedian had ever taken off their DJs before us. It had always struck Paul and me that there were two main types

of DJs, those who loved music like John Peel and Alan Freeman, and those who loved the sound of their own voices like DLT. Great. Well, Smashing it nicely. It's basically DLT. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He also struck us as a funny old place, because in 1990, when we started doing the DJs, the whole youth culture was ultra-modern with the take-off of dance music and fashion-conscious music-based magazines like Q. But Radio One was still dominated by DJs with 70s haircuts. And cuddly cardigans.

Whose idea of a good record was tie me kangaroo down. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah, there you go. Harry Enfield talking about smashing and icy. Yeah, so. And also, I think I went to a Radio 1 road show. We were talking about Radio 1 road shows just before we started this episode.

I actually went to one in the old world. Did you? Yeah, when I was young. And I think it was like, it was at the National Car Museum somewhere. And part of it was like a teddy bear's picnic. And I'm sure, I'm sure Bruno Brooks came running out, like smashing sign tennis balls into the crowd. Yes, yes. That sounds like a Radio 1 road show.

And they used to get huge. crowds. They would be in Torquay. There'd be 70,000 people there. Really? It was enormous. Like they were the Rolling Stones. Wow. Yeah. That's amazing. That's really gone away, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'd never get 70,000 people turning out for Nick Grimshaw. No, and I think Nick Grimshaw's very good. But they were just, they were just so massive. But that's also, it speaks to a period when people had less choice. isn't they? Yeah, I think that's it.

Now everything is this sort of spread out experience for a thousand, fragmented experience. Yeah, exactly. There was a documentary about the Radio One Road show in the 90s when Chris Evans was doing it

and he was still getting those massive crowds. You know, they would do, you know, Barry Island and stuff. And it's called Sixth Command in Somerset. And it's really, really amazing because Gary Davis is like, who else can play these crowds? There's like 10 bands.

Yeah. And we were just knocking tennis balls as a crowd. People were losing their minds. I went to that Radio One Roadshow. The only thing I could remember was the tennis balls into the crowds. Yeah. It's a good bit. Was he into tennis?

Did he ever talk about tennis? He was really into knocking tennis balls into massive crows. Love it. I'll give you a choice now. Do you want to hear Matthew Bannis to talk about the culture of Radio One? that he inherited or do you want to hear John Peel talking

about the radio on Christmas Pie or you can have both can I briefly suggest something for our live show I'm volleying signed

metal detecting fines into the into the crowd some of them sharp I'm not I'm not caring about what they're saying yeah

just just whacking them right there friend of mine at a pantom I got her nose broken because one of the one of the actors

threw a bag of flour into the crowd What is it? What is it a panic of? Throw a bag of ice, quick. Why a bag of flowers, an accident? Oh my God. It was deliberate and it broke her nose.

She's on a deviated septum since 1988. It does feel that with even an averagely talented solicitorial lawyer should get some decent pay out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That feels easily winnable. Yes. Doesn't it? I didn't expect to have someone

throw a bag of flour into my face of a theatre. It's just like throwing a kilogram at some... It feels winnable. Yeah. Pretty cool. Oh, dear. I think for time, you can only pick one. Would you want the culture of Radio 1

or John Peel describing the Radio 1? Oh, can we have both, please? All right. All right. I'll start with the culture. Matthew Bannister. Radio 1 was run by bloke's in blazers and suits and ties, and the women did typing and put up. balloons at parties. That's what they were there for. The men were for shifting trucks around

and getting into a field of status quo. There was also a good deal of sexism and patronising on the air. On the road show, there was a lot of throwing cream cakes and water over women. So it wasn't just tennis balls, it was just throwing stuff. When I went to a string of leaving parties for long-established Radio 1 producers in my capacity of chief encourager of their leaving, there were these incredible speeches about how sexy Alice had been, their wonderful PA, and made the best cups of tea and had great legs. Wow. So it was horrendous.

That is exactly the culture I imagined at Radio One. But just to read it like that, you're like, oh, God, he's so archaic. Awful. Okay. Do you want John Peel talking about the Radio One Christmas Party? This is John Peel. The most appalling event in the Radio One Year, and it required something pretty special to take that particular accolade was always the Radio One DJ Christmas Party.

And in the way of these things, it would take place in October. Right. You'd have to go to one of the Broadcasting House Council Chambers. It would go on for hours because they would record the entire thing. And because I was married and had children, I would be asked the same question every year by Mike Reed. It was, you've got a family. And how are you going to spend your Christmas? I told him what we were going to do

and then they'd play teenage kicks and then I'd go and get drunk. Always the first thing that people did when they came into the room was look anxiously at the seating plan and you could tell by the look on their faces whether they had found themselves anywhere in the vicinity of Simon Bates.

General rejoicing quite clearly if they found they were not. On one occasion, Kidd Jensen, Paul Burnett and myself, not a carefully honed fighting team, but nevertheless filled with drink, we went down and waited in the underground car park at the BBC for the opportunity to beat up Simon Bates. What? Fortunately, he didn't turn up, or we might have suffered an embarrassing reverse,

as he's probably stronger than us. Wow. That's the other thing about the ego. Sexism and violence, basically, something to be here. All the DJs kind of hate each other. This last one thing that comes through, they've all got such enormous egos. And they're very rare.

I think the only compliment I could remember finding was like Simon Mayer was very complimentary about Chris Evans coming in. He actually said, oh, he's very good. He's kind of enlightened station. But most of the time, the DJs hate each other. Yeah, that's fascinating, that, isn't it? So we talked about David Lee Travis

at the start of the show and how he's the inspiration for Spashi and Icy. Would you like to hear a bit now of what a typical Davely Travis show sounded like. Oh, yes, please. So they've got some transcript in the in the book to give you a sense of a typical Davley Travis, though, and it's just...

Okay, this is broadcast on the 23rd of August 1986. Today we have the final of the current tournament of Give Us a Break, Snooker on the radio. Contestants from Bath, Romford, Sheffield and Droitwich Spa. We'll have the Trannogram, the dreaded cringe of course at 12 o'clock and two featured albums, the new one from Daryl Hall

and the recent classic from Kid Creole and Di Coconut's. So keep it here. As somebody once said, we have three hours of mayhem for you. Okay, then he plays Annie, I'm not your daddy. And he says, Methinks he doth protest too much. To get it out the way, I've been away.

Between last week's show and this week's show, I thought I'd take the opportunity I had for a break. And I went over to Corfu, which is a bad place to go in the middle of August, when it's extremely hot and the hotels don't have air conditioning. So for some reason, I've got a bit of laryngitis. And I do apologise for that. Play the erythmic's record.

That's the erythmics. Even after all these years, I can't help but be amused by the name. The erythmics. Wonderful. It's so bad. I don't think there's quite enough in that observation, is there? Eurhythmic. Wonderful.

Oh, man. It's so parochial. Like, this went out on national radio. Yeah. So one thing that the book does really well is kind of described the fact that the public and the media and the tabloids lose their mind about the changes and Davey Travis being made to go. I mean, people thought he was crazy. Yeah. Dave Lee Travis resigns on air in 1993.

One thing that happens is that all these old DJs, they know their time's up. So they want to get in there and quit before they're made to go. and a lot of the time they want a grandstand and like performatively say these changes are destroying radio one which never happens on commercial radio because they're terrified on commercial radio that you're going to criticise the sponsors so on the BBC they might say right listen

Friday is your last show and then you can make it your last show and you can actually say you know if you've had five great years or whatever but they very rarely give you that allow you that on commercial radio in case you, because like when Danny Baker left, BBC Radio London, were you listening to that day, Chris?

No. He uses his two-hour slot to criticise the execs for two hours in between records. It's absolutely sensational listening. I need to check that out. Oh, it's all on YouTube. It's amazing. Oh, really? I'm going to check that out.

1993 Dave Lee Travis resigns on air and he says, changes are being made here which go against my principles, and I just cannot agree with them. And I always thought with that quote, like, changes are being made here which go against my principles. I was like, the changes being made are, you can't work here anymore. So what do you mean they go against my principles? I can't agree.

Well, of course you can't agree. You want to work there and they don't want you to work there. That's it. They talk as well about, so the music has to change. Because obviously it's quite broad. And now they're going to have more of a youth focus. And the most famous and controversial aspect of that playlist change is that they ban status quo. Right.

We say no more status quo. We don't want any more status quo. And how to StoX Quo react? They sue Radio 1, which of course, Radio 1 actually quite likes, because it's a big public statement that the Radio 1 is changing. So Radio 1 actually likes that. But there's a bit, there's an interview with Francis Rossi, and I thought this is...

Also, by the way, Statist Quo, they were crap in 1985 at Live Aid. Do you know what I mean? This is 10 years later. Yeah. They were long gone by then, anyway. Francis Rossi says, Maybe we played into Bannister's hands It brought a very high profile

To the idea that this was going to be a station For young people We used to be unique in this country In that we had a coast-to-coast radio station If your song did get played in the morning You know that every fucker from Lanz End to John O'Grote's Had a chance of hearing it Now the way radio is going, you don't

I like current music I like Love is the Law by sea horses On top of the Pops But I can't deal with the fact that it's new Because there's no way It sounds like a cross between the Beatles and Bad Finger I liked a recent Wallflowers and Gangsters Paradise, but mostly with the rap, blows a raspberry. I'm not that interested.

I don't see that the street culture of L.A. has anything to do with West Drayton. I play CDs in my car. I play Tori Amos, although I always did like a girl who sings with her legs apart. Dinosaures. Wow. Wow. Yeah. But there were loads of coast-to-coast stations in the UK. They were still being played on Radio 2. Yeah. Which has millions of listeners as well. I mean, but Radio 1 was a sort of real behemoth. It's Radio 2 now. Radio 2's the big one. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is what I'd never understood about this transition. Why don't they just relabel Radio 1, Radio 2? And just, you know, make a new Radio 1 for youth. Why? Because half of it was like you have to piss off this existing audience.

You could have just moved them across the Radio 2. Just relabel it. It never made sense to me. But Radio 2 is even more old-fashioned in the 90s. Yeah, that would have been like the guys who first went on air in the 30s hanging around. I think I was one of the few young people that listened to sort of local commercial radio on the way to school. So all the other kids in my school would be listening to Radio 1, but I would listen to GWR, it was cool. Oh, yeah, yeah. And so it would be call-ins where you'd get to win a prize, which are very specific to the Bath and West Country area. Metal detecting.

No, yeah, no, it would be like a year's free swimming at the local swimming. but that sort of. It would be really local prizes and all the voices were local. That's what I used to listen to on the way into school. I used to listen to Atlantic 252. Did you ever listen to that? No, I didn't think we had that.

That was big Atlantic 252 on Longwave. And they had an advert. They had an outfit atlantic 252 where it went, Hi, my name's Andy and I listened to Atlantic 252. My name's Jessica and I listened to Atlantic 252. My name's Richard. I listen to Radio 1

Don't be your dick Listen to Atlantic Oh very good Do you know what Elle You're the first person I've ever met Who listened to Longwave Radio

I thought it was for like ships or something I was like Atlantic was impossible to tune Was a big deal Is it still going It can't still be going Is Longwave still going Yeah because

Five Lives on Longwave, or it can be in... 19252 was an Irish longwave radio station Broadcasting to Ireland in the United Kingdom and used to play pop music, so that's why I liked it. GWR used to have a rotation of about, I'd say, eight songs. That was like the full track listing on GWR. They would just go round and round and round. But I'd just stuck with it.

I don't know why, I just found it quite comforting. And I suppose I liked the idea that it was sort of part of the local community. something quite nice about that guess. You'd hear about events that were happening and all these sorts of things. I just enjoyed it, really. I'm jealous of that upbringing, because growing up in London, my local radio would have been, like, Capital. And that breakfast DJ would have been Chris Tarrant,

who you would see on the daily anyway. So you're really quite spoiled for choice. At the peak of its popularity in 1993, which when I was listening to it, Atlantic 2-52 had 6 million listeners aged 15 plus in the UK and Ireland. Like, it was, yeah, it was an oddly big station at one point. Six million? Yeah.

Good on him. That's a lot, isn't it? Can't fault those numbers. Do you want to hear some Radio 1.90s ratings? Yes. I'll tell you how this change went. So firstly, let me describe how up in arms the public were. There's a section here from Matthew Wright.

At the time, he was show business reporter for the sun. He says, the strange thing about fading DJs is that the stardom seems to stay in their heads and egos for longer than it may do in other areas of the entertainment profession. Yeah. Hello. In some senses, the same was true of the press. I was on the sun. when the big purge happened, and we regarded it as an absolute outrage. All the recognisable faces with the cuddly image were being swept away.

The attitude was Matthew Bannister is axing, the greatest DJs the country has ever known. It seems ludicrous looking back on it now, because people like DLT were so obviously dinosaurs. But at the time, it seemed like Radio One was signing everybody that Matthew Bannister had met in the Groucho Club. There's something of like the Alex Ferguson clear-out, isn't there? Yes. It is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's big wrong to Sir Alex.

You'll never win listeners with kids. I'm too much of a people pleaser to have a clear out at a radio station or a TV station, TV channel. It would just, the idea of going in and sacking a load of popular dinosaurs, I just could not do it. I think you'd bring in new DJs, not get rid of the old, and everyone just have incredibly contracted show. Yeah, they all get 10 minutes slots. Nobody's ever let go Between midnight and 5am All the dinosaurs do an hour each

So the listening figures So remember early 90s 19 million people are listening to Radio 1 By the last quarter of 1994 Radio 1 listenership was Down to 11 million So they've lost almost half their audience But in comes the saviour, Chris Evans

And there's lots of talk about What a big deal it was signing Chris Evans I think at the time it was the biggest radio deal ever concluded. He takes over in April 1995 and the book details the negotiations to sign him but then also how like this is peak Chris Evans

he's just started doing TFI Friday and he's only, he's not at Radio 1 long doing the breakfast so he joins in April 1995 and he's gone by January 1997 and he starts, he's tremendously popular, does very well builds the audience for the first time in ages but because he's doing TFI Friday and he's just so busy

and I think he's going out getting pissed quite a lot as well he's just his head just completely goes there's lots of criticism about his kind of on-air content but what's interesting is like so many big radio personalities

before him he uses his on-air time to criticise the bosses at Radio 1 it's classic stuff it's classic stuff all the hits so this is Simon Garfield

speaking about how Chris Evans then basically starts turning on the bosses at Radio One. Frequently, mostly in jest, Evans would have a go at Bannister on air. He called him the fat controller. He accused him of being out of touch. One comment in October 1996 displayed a little more aggression. By this stage, Bannister had become director of BBC Radio Liz Fogan's old job, a promotion that entailed having overall authority over all the national radio networks apart from Five Live. He remained day-to-day controller of Radio One. Evans told his listeners that he'd been talking to

banister. Look, he said, how ungrateful is this guy? We save his job, because when we joined, he was frankly slipping down the banister. He was out on his ear. We turned this station around. We make his job safe. And now we also get in the job of Radio 234. And now yesterday, after 18 months of doing the show, he decided to give us a pet talk all of a sudden. All right, well, thank you very much. After we've got you your promotion, now it's time to keep the breakfast show in line. Well, thanks a lot, Matthew. you. Wow. But the thing is,

you see, the listeners loved that stuff. Yeah. I listen religiously to Chris Evans. And whenever you do that, he'd be like,

oh my God, he's having to go his boss again. This is up to, I know he's going to play, take that. I do know what you mean. Like, when you're tuning

into a radio show and you get the sense that anything could happen. Yeah. Like, and it's going to be newsworthy. That is something worth tuning.

Whereas I found it quite comforting on GWR, that feeling that nothing could happen. There was no risk of anything happening. And I found that quite secure. It's quite comforting. So Chris Evans goes in January 1997 and taking over... By the way, I always thought that Chris Moyles was like the big savior as well.

Am I wrong? He referred to himself as the same. Oh, that's right. Slightly different. And they talk about, well, yeah, they talk about Moyles. oils. But Mark and Lard takeover, who for me are God-tier, Radio 1, Radio 1. I definitely remember this. I was so pleased when they did, but it wasn't right for them. It's funny, though, so they're eight months, and if you're familiar with the Mark and Lard show, it just didn't work

at breakfast. There's a quote from Matthew Bannister, he says, looking back now, of course, it perhaps wasn't the ideal choice, but it was the best option at the time. I didn't think it would be a three-year job. The first thing that struck me about the show that was one, While self-deprecation was a very endearing quality late at night, and we're a bit crap and can't really do this, had sounded very funny and entertaining an occult late-night show. There's something about the history of the Radio One Breakfast show, the people's expectations.

That means that self-deprecation can quickly turn out to be rather unnerving to a listenership. That's expecting to be woken up with a confident laugh and so on. Yeah. Because I was a huge fan of their 10 to midnight show. and I was knackered at school every day because I would stay up and listen to the end and I was like, oh my God, finally we've got the best two teachers on the radio

have taken over breakfast and they're going to bring all this amazing music to the masses. They're going to change world culture. But yeah, being self-deprecating, it's at 10 past 8 in the morning, it's weird. Have you done a breakfast show before, Al, by the way? Is that something you've experienced and how did you... I wouldn't fucking touch a breakfast.

show because I am so bad in the morning. And you're busy getting a kiss to school as well, aren't you? I've been on breakfast radio to promote things, but it's agony for me. So yeah, no chance. Absolutely no chance. In an insane decision at university, I did a breakfast radio show on student radio. What time did you start? That was during my MA, at least.

But that was, so I'd have to be in at seven in the morning. I'd do that. What a decision? What was I doing? What'd have I been seven? I was a student. Why am I shooting together? But were you on air at seven?

We were on air at seven. Oh, so you had to be there before seven. Yeah, I'd be there like six in the morning as a student. Oh, six. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's early. That is early. Were you asking, did we win best radio show at the Bournemouth and the radio?

Yeah, so who won best radio show that? That's funny. It was actually, Al, because a little known show called Tom and Penny in the morning. I remember writing emails into that show. Did you? That showed how our listeners it was. They'd get red out So I'm assuming you weren't getting a hoogam out of you guys

Didn't go to our uni, did you well? No, no, but still, it worked. It seems like people are listening in that way. Maybe we should end the Radio One Odyssey With a little section from Mark Radcliffe On Air the day after it's been revealed That they're getting sacked as Radio One Breakfast Show hosts This is what Mark Radcliffe says on air

Morning everyone Well, we turned in first, we'd like to say thanks a lot for all your emails of condolence. We're not going to read them out because that would smack of self-aggrandizement, something we haven't done nearly enough of in the last few months. Funny.

Later in the programme, we've got Posh Spice, Victoria Adams on We Love Us, a chance to win some pyjamas, and there's Ask Lard, in which our kid solves your homework problems, all the top quality items that have made this show so dispensable. Great.

Yeah. At October 97, Zoe Ball and Kevin Greening takeover, And to be honest, it all just starts running a lot smoother after that point. But it's interesting that there's stuff in the book about how they choose the playlist and also the day-to-day administration of Radio 1, things like Steve Lamac needs a holiday or Simon Mayo doesn't want to do any promo for the World Cup. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a fascinating time capsule in public service radio.

That is so interesting. Would you ever listen to Radio 1 now? Not really. That's not your station, I guess. Or would you? Is that a thing you'd ever? Sometimes I get in the car and my wife has got Radio 1 on. I'm like, this isn't for you.

You have outgrown this. You can have Radio 2 or Radio 6 or Radio 5 if Elle was on. Do you want to hear an old-fashioned thing? It's a bit noisy for me. You can't even get it on a long wave either. Yeah. One of my most listened to things in regard to that L, by the way, on Spotify, is the sound of waves breaking on a shore.

I looked at my top listen things yesterday, and that was in the top five. So that's where I am in life. Yes, that's fair enough. It's not Metallica. It's not the newest dance craze on Radio One. It's the sound of seagulls and waves. You know, embrace it, I think. I'm going to have to read that book.

Yeah. Oh, mate, it's so up your street. So what's that book called again for listeners? The nation's favorite, the true adventures of Radio One, Simon Garfield, came out in 1998. It is brilliant. And I've gone from reading one archaic, old English regime being swept away by a new regime to reading exactly the same thing, but in 1066. So my next book review will be the Norman Conquest.

Oh, great. Good stuff. That was fascinating. Thank you very much for listening, dear listeners. As we said, at the top of the show, if you want to email us with any of your great metal detecting finds, that would be great. Have you ever found anything? Was it of value? Did it change your life? Also, if there's any books you'd like us to read and do a subscriber specials. Great shouts. Do email those in. I think it's due. I should probably do one sometime soon because you guys keep reading books and it's making me look bad. So I will read a book and I will talk about it at a point. Thank you for listening though, guys and we will see you very, very soon. Bye.

So, you know, Oh, Oh, and Oh, and Oh, I'm going to be able to be.

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