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Pre war or 1950s Luxembourg- any surviving audio?

swb1964swb1964 Posts: 4,700
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in Radio and Podcasts #1
Between the dawn of the BBC and the arrival of the pirates, Radio Luxembourg was about the only alternative to Auntie.

Obviously recording shows off the radio then was no casual matter, but is there much surviving audio?

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  • radioanorakradioanorak Posts: 4,247
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    #2
    Have a look here
    www.azanorak.com
  • swb1964swb1964 Posts: 4,700
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    #3
    That looks good, but the files seem to need a password.
  • radioanorakradioanorak Posts: 4,247
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    #4
    I believe the password is freeradio
  • swb1964swb1964 Posts: 4,700
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    #5
    Thanks :)
  • Gerry1Gerry1 Posts: 4,223
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    #6
    swb1964 wrote: »
    Between the dawn of the BBC and the arrival of the pirates, Radio Luxembourg was about the only alternative to Auntie.
    No, there were many other stations available, such as Radio Athlone, Radio Normandie, Radio Lyons, Poste Parisien and EAQ Madrid.

    Shortwave was also popular.

    Seán Street's thesis "Crossing the Ether: Public Service Radio and Commercial Competition in Britain with special reference to Pre-War Broadcasting" looks like a very interesting read. Note that there is an associated CD/DVD so that's a route that may be worth investigating.
  • swb1964swb1964 Posts: 4,700
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    #7
    Gerry1 wrote: »
    No, there were many other stations available, such as Radio Athlone, Radio Normandie, Radio Lyons, Poste Parisien and EAQ Madrid.

    Shortwave was also popular.

    Seán Street's thesis "Crossing the Ether: Public Service Radio and Commercial Competition in Britain with special reference to Pre-War Broadcasting" looks like a very interesting read. Note that there is an associated CD/DVD so that's a route that may be worth investigating.

    That sounds interesting, although the link doesn't work for me.
  • Gerry1Gerry1 Posts: 4,223
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    #8
    Apologies, DS automatically added a prefix that broke the link.

    eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/393/1/Street,_Sean_Ph.D._2003.pdf
  • swb1964swb1964 Posts: 4,700
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    #9
    Yeah that *does* look interesting. I'll have a proper look later when im back on the pc
  • radioanorakradioanorak Posts: 4,247
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    #10
    At 419 pages, that would take half a lifetime to read
  • Gerry1Gerry1 Posts: 4,223
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    #11
    radioanorak wrote: »
    At 419 pages, that would take half a lifetime to read
    Only if you're a butterfly...
  • Phil DoddPhil Dodd Posts: 3,975
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    #12
    There must be some audio of "Candid Microphone", the Luxembourg version. Part of one of the sketches, where Jonathan Routh and colleagues try to take a grand piano onto the tube, has been broadcast since. They had a recorder hidden inside the grand piano, to catch all of the conversation with LT staff frantically trying to stop them doing it...

    Jonathan Routh was one of life's few genuinely funny men, without him "putting on" any soft of act. He tried to bring the series to TV as "Candid Camera", and got away with it for a time until the Americans told him "...you can't do that ! WE got there first..." If only there were still broadcasters around like him, instead of a bunch of clowns baking cakes, living in a "house", trying to sing or ballroom dancing, then I might still have a television...

    There is confusion because of the same-named programmes existing on both sides of the Atlantic. Wikipedia once had things arranged correctly, but now even for them, things are mixed up. His own page on Wikipedia still is mostly correct, and can be seen at :

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Routh

    Obituaries for him still exist online from the Guardian and Telegraph. In 2008 when he passed away in Jamaica, his obituary appeared in the Times ( in the days before it disappeared behind a paywall and became yuppie-mummyfied ). As I said at the time, if anyone deserved their obituary in the Times, it was him; someone who did so much good cheering us all up with his mischief...

    So I hope that at least SOME of the audio from Luxembourg's Candid Mike still exists, because you should find it a treat...

    All the best !
  • MikeBrMikeBr Posts: 7,889
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    #13
    Phil Dodd wrote: »
    T
    So I hope that at least SOME of the audio from Luxembourg's Candid Mike still exists, because you should find it a treat...

    All the best !

    Some here as they were as an EP

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzZM_5XdcBo

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QziHIYd7wvs
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