Six brilliant stories from Annie Nightingale's 54 years of broadcasting

Note: This article was updated on 12 Jan 2024.

The legendary Annie Nightingale was BBC Radio 1’s longest running DJ, starting in 1970 as the station’s first ever female presenter. Half a century later and Annie – who turned 80 in 2020 – joined forces with Nick Grimshaw for a special conversation in which she discussed five decades behind the decks.

She discussed how she'd always been a champion of new music and young talent, and dived deep into the genres she helped popularise and artists she championed, from David Bowie and Primal Scream to Deadmau5 and The Chainsmokers.

• Listen to a collection of shows celebrating the broadcaster Annie Nightingale

Here are six of Annie’s best stories:

Annie met David Bowie when he was a skinny 22 year old kid with frizzy blonde hair. After seeing him open up for another band, she dragged him to the pub across the road from the venue. “I said ‘you are the future’,” remembered Annie, who was one of Bowie’s early champions. Three years later he created his Ziggy Stardust persona and became a global star. “He always stayed ahead of the game and that’s why everybody thought so much of him,” said Annie. “To me he was the heir to The Beatles.”

Speaking of The Beatles, Nick Grimshaw finally got the truth out of Annie when it came to Macca popping the question. Did it really happen? “Well, sort of yes,” reveals Annie. “But I don’t think he was serious!” Paul McCartney apparently asked Annie to marry him while she was in the middle of interviewing his protege, singer Mary Hopkin. “I didn’t take it too seriously,” she laughed, explaining that later she went on to be very good friends with his wife Linda. Annie firmly believes that The Beatles changed the world. “They created a huge revolution,” she explained. “It wasn’t just the music, which was sublime. They opened the doors for young people to do what they wanted to do… Nobody has changed the world like they did.”

Once named Caner of the Year, it’s no surprise that Annie liked to party. A regular face in Ibiza, Miami and even a solar eclipse rave halfway up the Andes, Annie also recalled a memorable night spent with a platform boot-wearing Nick Grimshaw when she got her first and only tattoo. “We both went, ‘well I will if you will’,” she said of the incident, which took place at 3am.

On hearing The Clash’s seminal 1979 punk single 'London Calling', Annie was astounded by how good it was. “I said to Joe Strummer, that is a Top 10 record. He said ‘no it isn’t. I bet you a Cadillac that it won’t go Top 10’.” Annie took the bet and the track went to Number 11. The next week she went on air and explained that she now owed Joe a car, but had no way of getting her hands on one. A listener called in and said they had one they weren’t using any more and she could have it, the only trouble being that it was a broken down wreck. Somehow she managed to get the car to the Radio 1 building and handed it over to Joe and the rest of the band. “They said, ‘that’s very nice’, but they couldn’t drive!”

In 2001 Annie won an MBE, but broke royal protocol at the ceremony, speaking to the Queen before the Queen had spoken to her. “I thought I’d make it a bit easier for her!” she revealed, and said she started chatting about Prince William’s teen aspirations to be a DJ. “I said, ‘your grandson seems to be pretty keen on DJing’, just to open the topic and have something to say to her… the only word she said was ‘probably’!” It can’t have caused too much trouble, because in 2020 her MBE was upgraded to a CBE for services to radio. However, they asked for her MBE back so they can replace it – and Annie put it somewhere so safe that she couldn't remember its whereabouts. “I don’t know what I’m going to say to Buckingham Palace,” she told Nick. “It’ll be here somewhere, but I don’t know exactly where… It’s a bit embarrassing!”

Annie was the lucky recipient of an invitation to Eric Clapton’s wedding to Pattie Boyd, which took place at the guitar hero’s country estate in 1979. Amongst the guests were Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Elton John and George Harrison (Boyd’s ex husband), Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, who all took the stage after the ceremony. Sadly, Annie didn’t quite make it. “I never got there!” she said. “Remember, this is the days before Uber and mobile phones! My car broke down. John Lennon had moved to America by then, but I think it was one of the last times that the other three Beatles played together.”