Nonsensical Radio

As we loop over the hills and valleys of life we bump into some odd things. Some things are more odd than others, naturally.

At the beginning of civilised life, as I know it, we had a radio. It was big. It was like a piece of furniture. It had on it the name ‘KB’ so that, one presumes, was the manufacturer.

It was driven by a lead-acid battery from a car or tractor. It was only good for about an hour and then the battery would fade and start to boil if we were not careful.

Presumably this is where the phrase ‘steam radio’ came from.

I am now amused by the idea of ‘steam punk stories’ that are gaining in popularity—and rightly so, for many are well written and entertaining.

At some point either the radio was adapted or we acquired another radio to suit mains electricity.

Yes, we had electricity and running water and everything! We were in at the birth of civilisation, as I said above.

The thing is that the shows on the radio in those days were odd. Even then, as a very small boy, I thought that the shows were odd.

For instance; I would go into the nearby town on Saturday mornings to watch a matinee movie. It might be ‘Flash Gordon’ or a cowboy film involving Tex Ritter or Roy Rogers. Just occasionally they would show a full-length movie. This was a joyful occasion for such as we. I remember seeing ‘Rosemary’ and ‘McDonald of the Mounties’—Canadian Mounties were very popular in those days.

We had such a treat one Saturday morning, we saw ‘The Conquest of Everest’ starring Sherpa Tensing and Sir Edmund Hilary, who was a Kiwi. They were the first to climb Mount Everest, they did it in Coronation Year. That was the Coronation of Elisabeth II. It was at that precise moment that the Tudor Queen Elisabeth became Queen Elisabeth I, of course.

I was at the Coronation. We stood in Hyde Park watching the procession of dignitaries. Most memorable figure was Queen Salote of Tonga, she was very regal if not very large.

Queen Salote Tupou III of Tonga at Queen Elisabeth II’s Coronation

I had to have my tonsils out to go to the Coronation. My parents lied to me. They told me, “The Queen wants all children to have their tonsils out before the Coronation.”

A lot of radio programmes were missed for that occasion.

Much time was spent listening to short wave radio. I listened to different languages and tried to decode what they were saying by transposing digits in different words. Such is the naivety of extreme youth! It all fell apart when I found that ‘orange’ in English is ‘orange’ in French! Just pronounced differently, of course.

Now I’ve lost track. What were we talking about? Oh, yes. Odd things.

Some programmes on the radio were, to me, completely nonsensical. They still are.

Example: On Sunday afternoon, after ‘The Navy Lark’ that started just as we were finishing Sunday lunch, there was a programme that was introduced by a tune called ‘The Carousel Waltz’. This was from the film ‘Carousel’ by Rodgers and Hammerstein. The programme that it introduced was called ‘Movie-Go-Round’.

It was a radio show about films. Stunning. There were, during the programme, several clips but, of course, they were audio only. It seemed very strange to me that the radio would feature films that were visual entertainment.

Of course, in those days we had no television. Some people, in the cities, maybe, did have TV. Those of us that lived in the far-flung corners of the Kingdom did not.

Odd, isn’t it? We had a Queen. Why did we not have a ‘Queendom’?

To cap it all, we had a programme called ‘Educating Archie’.

This is something that you will, in all probability, not believe.

This was a general entertainment show—humour for the whole family. There is no problem, personally speaking, with the script. The problem arises when we consider the characters.

One character on the show was a dog. It was actually a fellow called Percy Edwards who played another dog, called ‘Psyche’, on a programme called ‘The Life of Bliss’.

That was reasonable enough, I suppose. But. The main character was Archie Andrews.

Here is the killer punch.

Archie Andrews wore a loud, striped blazer and sat on the knee of Peter Brough. Archie called Peter Brough ‘Brough’, logically enough, in the show.

He sat on Peter Brough's knee because Archie Andrews was a ventriloquist’s dummy.

On a radio show.

Beggars belief.