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Recollections
Radio Programmes |
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Frank Ferri
Newhaven, Edinburgh |
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Thank you to Frank Ferri, now living in Newhaven, Edinburgh, for
sending me these memories of radio (or wireless) programmes that he
listened to in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Frank wrote:
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Music
"There were daily
broadcasts of
Housewives
Choice or the American Services network, AFN, from Germany and on a
Sunday there was Family Favourites and Radio Luxemburg record
program.
These
were the only popular music programs of the time."
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Drama
I remember:
-
Dragnet, the
American police crime drama series, featuring Jack Webb, a brilliant
thriller.
-
Dick Barton
Special Agent with his two accomplices Snowy and Jock.
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Into
Battle, a series of war stories and (best of all)
- 'This
is Your Story Teller, The Man In Black' narrated by Valentine Dyle,
the man with the deep frightening voice who told stories of murder
and mystery."
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Coal Fire
"I remember baby
sitting my wee brother whilst my parents went off visiting
relatives, banking up the fire with the precious coal and turning
out the lights.
You
saw the shadows of the flickering fire make weird forms and shapes
on the walls and ceiling. With that, and the noise of the
draft coming from under the door, listening to these horror stories
accompanied with the atmosphere of self inflicted fear would make
anybody’s flesh crawl, let alone that of a child.
My parents would quietly return, thinking we
would be in bed and frighten us with their sudden entry. Then came a
big rollicking for not being in our beds and having too much coal on
the fire." |
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Church
"My
father, a regular church goer, would call me in the morning to go to
10.00 AM Mass. If I didn’t go with him, on his return, if I
was listening to Family Favourites (the only source of radio popular
music) he would switch the radio off in anger as my punishment."
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Frank Ferri, Newhaven, Edinburgh: April 11,
2008
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