Aircheck Tracker
Bob Glen wrote: 'I wondered if you or someone out there could help me, I'm trying to find out a bit more about Tim Gudgin, the voice of the football pools on BBC's Grandstand every Saturday afternoon. He has been around for many years. I can remember him on radio when I was a kid, and he was a Radio 2 presenter for years. Do you or anybody else have a profile for this veteran of broadcasting, and how old is he? I knew he had been around for many years and even so I have never seen what he looks like, that would be interesting. I seem to remember him reading a children's story on "Listen With Mother" when I was very young. Hope you can help. Bob.
AIRCHECK replies: Many thanks to Sarah, Tim's daughter for taking the time to contact us with more details on an AIRCHECK favourite - Tim Gudgin. The details Sarah has provided have been worked into our profile, and are shown in brown.
Profile: Tim Gudgin: Born in
November 1929, Tim's got a very distinctive, and recognisable voice. He
started with the BBC soon after returning home from Hamburg, having completed
his National Service. It was in 1952 that he joined Bush House's European
broadcasting service and seconded there in 1954 on Light Programme
presentation. 1955 saw more permanent domestic radio presentation at the
BBC.
He was the announcer on Series 2 of 'Round The Bend', broadcast on a Friday evening on the
Home Service, what is now Radio 4 from 7:00-7:30pm, repeated Mondays on the Light Programme
months later from 8:30-9:00 working alongside Michael Bentine, Benny Lee, Peter Hawkins, Dick Lester, Jean Campbell, Judith Chalmers and Rosemary Squires. Episodes featuring Tim aired from December 1958 to March 1959.
He did the same for Series 3 aired Fridays on the Home Service from 9:45-10:15pm alongside Michael Bentine,Ron Moody, Clive Dunn, Benny Lee, Janet Walters, Dick Lester, Judith Chalmers with the music still provided by Nat Temple and his Orchestra. Programmes aired from May 1960 to August 1960.
He started reading horse-racing results for BBC's Grandstand in 1958, and started as a reader on the
BBC Radio 4 quiz 'Quote - Unquote' from Series 30, his voice has even been part of art - courtesy of Simon Patterson's 1997 work Colour Match displayed in the Tate Gallery, in which he
read a list of English football teams and a text based on the code numbers of Pantone Colors - an international colour standard used by printers and designers.
Tim regularly reads the scores on BBC1's Grandstand - having to tie his tongue around all the Welsh team names. Tim's apparently had lessons to pronounce the likes of TNS Llansantffraid and Flexsys Cefn Druids.
In
1965, Tim left the BBC staff line-up to go freelance, presenting such well known
shows as Housewives Choice, Midday Spin, Out and About, Saturday Night on the
Light, Treble Chance, Today, Late Night Extra, Home This Afternoon, Top of the
Form, Listen on Saturday, Music Box, Family Favourites, You and the Night and
the Music (YATNAM), Friday Night is Music Night, Marching and Waltzing, Night
Ride, Melody Hour, Swingalong and many more. He worked on Blue Peter
reading 'Bleep and Booster' stories and he was also a question master on 'Top Of
The Form' with Paddy Feeney.
Tim has been known to present shifts reading the
news on BBC Radio 2. It was in 1976 that he
rejoined the station on a contract as both presenter and newsreader. His voice
has been heard on many radio commercials as well as television - Tim was the
voice for Square Deal Surf.
He
officially retired from the BBC years ago but has worked on contract
since. He was on an episode of Channel 4’s The Priory with Zoe Ball and
Jamie Theakston and they had to disguise his voice for viewers to guess why he
was famous.
Tim
has 5 daughters and one son, and 2 grandsons and 5 granddaughters.
Mike Plant writes: A couple of memories that may be of interest:
1] In the Summer of about 1967, on the Home Service, shortly before the launch of Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4, Tim introduced a 15 or 20 minute slot at around 9.30am featuring live studio music by someone who I think was James Moodie and the Top Hatters, and a singer Cherry Somebody, called "As You Were", and the signature of the programme was the assembled group calling out "As - You - Were" quite loudly.
2] On one of Tim's 'Nightride' programmes not very long after the start of 24 hour broadcasting on Radio 2, he recounted the story of how he had always wondered why there are so few women involved in writing and/or composing music. It fell to him, one day, between stints of reading the news, to phone the well known conductor/musical arranger Angela Morley, to arrange some dates for a recording. Indeed he said this would be the exception to the rule, a woman in what he perceived to be so much a man's world. He reached the required number, spoke to a child, asked to speak to Angela Morley, at which point the child called out to the parent--" Dad? It's for you!" Things like that stick in the mind, don't they!