How to make your mistakes with style


Yesterday's Mendelssohn problems on BBC Radio 3 chimed beautifully with the following story. It is told by the late and great Cormac Rigby, and is about Radio 3 presenter Tom Crowe, who made his many mistakes with great style.
The best of all Tom Crowe stories is that wonderful moment when, on a Morning Concert, somebody had mistimed the final record, which I think was the Hebrides overture, and it over-ran its slot, and they weren't fast enough to suppress the Greenwich Time Signal at nine o'clock. And so the closing bars of the music and the Time Signal coincided, and there was a sort of shocked silence from Tom, and then he came on the air and said: 'Radio 3. The time is nine o'clock, and I do hope that the Mendelssohn didn't interfere with your enjoyment of the pips.'
From a book with a title says it all, The Envy of the World, Fifty Years of the BBC Third Programme and Radio 3 (Phoenix ISBN 073802503) by another much lamented broadcaster Humphrey Carpenter. Quite appropriately the book is out of print. The photo shows the Green Continuity Suite in Bush House where I made my mistakes in the early 1970s. You can see Leevers-Rich Mk2 tape machines with remote starts on the desk. More memories from then in The Year Is '72.

Picture credit Old SMs wherein also lurks a rare photo of me in my BBC Days. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Comments

Colin Pierpoint said…
Even worse! A new Technical Operator in Cardiff was doing the Welsh Home Service Continuity (some years ago!). He had been told never to miss a GTS, and never leave a church service before the blessing at the end. So when a service overran, he took both: "Go in peace PIP, In the name PIP of our Lord PIP..." etc.
8:13 pm
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