Passions: My love of radio from childhood ‘wireless’ memories to apps providing an endless audio stream

Shows have become the soundtrack to my weekends, writes Alastair Dalton

Radio was a big part of my childhood, usually being on in the kitchen at breakfast and lunchtime in the days before daytime TV. I recall it was how I learned of the death of Elvis Presley, while the theme music of the rural soap opera The Archers and its weird habit of fading out dialogue takes me straight back to our large old “wireless” set – in the original sense of the word – perched on a cupboard above the table.

But that radio – and others in the house – seemed permanently tuned to Radio 4, so it was with some bemusement I read about other stations which I thought I had no way of listening to, like Radio 1, in my parents’ copy of the Radio Times, once a household staple that became the best-selling magazine in Europe with a circulation of nearly nine million a week.

Later, I recall doing a swap at school to get my own radio, and I was finally able to tune into the late 1970s’ post-punk era that I still regard as the heyday of pop music.

An old wireless set this this was among Alastair Dalton's first radio memories. (Photo by Creative Commons Zero - CC0)

I’ve been a radio fan ever since, gradually widening my listening to pretty much all of the BBC’s major stations and continually finding new gems in their schedules. It’s a far cry from my younger self, incredulous that my dad could paint walls for hours listening to whatever happened to be on Radio 4 – and the entirely different programmes that followed.

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Radio now charts my weekends, from Shereen Nanjiani’s guests’ entertaining views on current topics on Radio Scotland on Saturday mornings to the guilty pleasure of retro chart show Pick of the Pops on Radio 2 at lunchtime.

Radio 3 is one of my newer discoveries, but having limited knowledge of the surprisingly wide range of music it plays, I’m particularly attracted to shows which play excerpts, such as This Classical Life on Saturdays, when saxophonist Jess Gillam and her musician guests discuss their favourites. Meanwhile, Words and Music, on Sundays, is a genius format, combining poetry, prose and music on a specific theme, such flight, twins and masks in recent and upcoming editions.

Radio – like TV – used to be appointment to listen/view, but with apps like BBC Sounds, there’s at least a month’s worth available, with some programmes available from years, if not decades ago. There’s only one problem – far too much to choose from.