From the Any Questions archive
Post categories: Any Questions, Jonathan Dimbleby, archive, photography
14:05, Saturday, 16 April 2011
'Any Question' from Taunton. Major Lewis Hastings, Lady Violet Bonham-Carter, Ralph Wightman and St. John Ervine, the team of experts answering questions put to them by members of the audience during the broadcast from the Corfield Hall, Taunton. 1 October 1948.
You'll have noticed that this week's Any Questions (and, as a consequence, Any Answers) was cancelled and replaced by a programme of material from the archive (and an extra Bookclub). So I thought I'd bring you some Any Questions pictures from the BBC picture library.
The captions are the originals and you'll notice that the third is from 1941 and thus precedes the first transmission of Any Questions by some years - it must be from a predecessor programme, although it's not clear which one. All three pictures are from before Radio 4 itself came into being in 1967. It's fun to look up the great and the good of their era - and you'll notice that Ralph Wightman ('wildlife expert') appears twice - clearly a man of substance.
Rt Hon Gaitskell, M.P., talking to Mr C.T. Melling, CBE, M.Sc. Tech., (President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers) and Mrs. Melling; Mr. R.D.A Marriott, Assistant Director of Sound Broadcasting talks to Ralph Wightman. One of the events to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the BBC was the production of 'Any Questions' on Friday 16th November 1962 from former home of the BBC in Savoy Hill.
Margery Fry, Julian Huxley, Commander Campbell, Robert Graves, CEM Joad and WDH McCullough, 20 June 1941.
Paul Murphy is acting editor of the Radio 4 blog
- Transport allowing, Any Questions will be back next Friday at 2000 (and again on Saturday at 1310, followed by Any Answers at 1400).
Comment number 1.
At 11:35 18th Apr 2011, karen wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 2.
At 13:01 18th Apr 2011, Dark-Avised wrote:The third picture might be from The Brains Trust
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brains_Trust
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Comment number 3.
At 03:06 19th Apr 2011, Mike Kemp wrote:I see the 1962 picture (and presumably the show) included the president of the IEE. Was this the last time an engineer was invited onto the panel?
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Comment number 4.
At 07:45 19th Apr 2011, Lawrence Jones wrote:Message 3
"Was this the last time an engineer was invited onto the panel"?
No. The late Prof. Eric Laithwaite appeared quite a few times on AQ and he actually was a practising engineer. Newspapers articles were written when he first started to appear on Start the Week with Richard Baker. Shock horror, a man with a northern accent was actually appearing on southern Radio 4!!!!!!
Dr. Harold Aspden would be an interesting engineering guest on AQ, but not sure if he still works within the public theatre these days.
P.S. Mary Goldring - the engineer's friend - was also a regular guest on AQ
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Comment number 5.
At 20:17 21st Apr 2011, tigermontague wrote:Ralph Wightman was not just a "wildlife expert". He was a writer and great natural communicator known around the world for his other broadcasts in the 1940s and 1950s.
His marvellous Dorset tones would ring around our living room during many an Any Questions and even as a child the poetry of his words struck a chord with me.
He was like a breath of fresh air and I wish we had more people like him on our radios today, but I fear he would not fit in with the times now.
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