Did you know that Cliff Richard is only 70? I’ve spent such a large part of my life being told that he’s the Peter Pan of pop, and marvelling at his youthful good looks, I got the impression he was older. Anyway, this Wednesday, Radio 2 belatedly celebrates his birthday. (The big day was actually last October.) Penny Smith will interview him in a programme called, perhaps inevitably, Congratulations.
Like a cash-strapped nephew with an eye on an aunt’s legacy, radio has been assiduously paying attention to the older generation lately. Radio 4 recently aired Rupert Murdoch at 80, about a week after Radio 2 celebrated the career of David Jacobs, who is not only still broadcasting at 84, but has been with the BBC for an astonishing 64 years.
Just think, he was alive in the pre-Cliff era.
When it comes to age, radio is much more relaxed than television, which has a reputation for sacking female presenters as soon as the first crow’s foot appears. Miriam O’Reilly, who recently won an age discrimination case against BBC1’s Countryfile, is 54. In radio, that’s virtually teenage.
The precise age of Moira Stuart, once a TV newsreader, is shrouded in mystery. The best guess is that she's just under 60. Too old for TV, though you’d need a microscope to detect her wrinkles. Radio snapped her up. She put the tyranny of the Autocue behind her and is now having much more fun on Chris Evans’s Radio 2 show.
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Tony Blackburn, the first voice to be heard on Radio 1, is now 68, and presents Pick of the Pops, on Radio 2. Johnnie Walker, who does Sounds of the 70s, is 65. Bob Harris is 64 — young enough to have had a request read out on an early David Jacobs show.
Don’t think this is confined to Radio 2, which has long fought to dispel the impression that its presenters arrive at work in chauffeur-driven mobility scooters. Professor Laurie Taylor, presenter of Thinking Allowed, on Radio 4, is 74.
Roger McGough, 73, presents Poetry Please. It sometimes seems as if Nicholas Parsons has been refereeing Just a Minute since the Reformation, but, actually, he’s 87. In another eight years — the blink of an eye for somebody that age — he will outstrip Alistair Cooke, who was still presenting Letter from America at the age of 95.
Even women are allowed to age gracefully on radio. Annie Nightingale, who could teach Mariella Frostrup a thing or two about voices that weaken male knees, is 68. And, at 61, would Libby Purves still be allowed a weekly chat show on television?
Perhaps listeners have a greater concentration span than viewers. Whatever the reason, radio seems to appreciate the value of continuity. If it ain't broke, it rarely gets fixed. Just a Minute would not be the same without Parsons, just as I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue has lost some of its spark in the absence of Humphrey Lyttelton, who was forced to retire as the host at the age of 86 by the small matter of his death.
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Chris Evans is only 44, but I fondly imagine he’ll still be on Radio 2 in 40 years’ time. By that stage, of course, he’ll have been quietly shifted to the late-night slot on Sunday, where he will hand over to David Jacobs, aged 124, for the night shift.
Paul Donovan, 21, is away