TELEVISION OBS OWE as much to Peter Dimmock as Radio OBs did to Lobby. Peter was an RAF pilot and instructor during the war, and when he was demobilised in 1945 became the Press Association racing correspondent before joining BBC Television Outside Broadcasts as a producer and commentator in 1946. Most of his commentary was on racing but it was as an administrator that he really made his name. Up to the mid-50s, however, he must have produced as many television OBs as anyone.
I know that in 1950 he was producing at our first ever televised Test match from Trent Bridge. At that time he was in his late twenties and was brash, supremely confident and never believed in taking ‘no’ from anybody. In this Test we were due to start televising at 11.30 am, which was the actual start of the day’s play. This did not satisfy Peter. He thought – rightly – that there should be at least five minutes before play for the commentator to set the scene, give the result of the toss, and to talk about the weather, teams and the pitch.
Although he had been at Dulwich College he did not appear to know too much about cricket. But at least he knew that the umpires went to the wickets five minutes before play started. So he decided to go and see them and came back in triumph. ‘It’s all right. I’ve seen Frank Chester and Harry Elliot and they’ve agreed to come out at 11.30 instead of 11.25.’ I told you he was confident! Imagine a television producer being able to alter the start of a Test match. They can – and do – arrange the times of horse races to suit television. But cricket – no!
Anyhow, I expressed surprise without disillusioning him, and of course at 11.25 exactly, out of the pavilion came the two white-coated umpires. Peter was watching in the control van, and in my headphones I heard him shout: ‘By God, there go the umpires – they shouldn’t be out till 11.30. Stop them someone – quick.’
But of course Frank and Harry continued their slow walk out on to the field and the match started at 11.30, just as we started our television broadcast. Peter was quite unabashed, and thought that he had been badly let down.
From 1954 to 1972 he was Head of Television OBs, later on adding the impressive title of General Manager. He was a man of tremendous drive and enthusiasm. Nothing was impossible. No one was inaccessible. He would fight to the last ditch for anything he wanted and he usually won. Peter undoubtedly made the BBC supreme in television sport, and determined to get all the big events in every sport on to the BBC screens. He could be ruthless, tough and overriding, which all sounds rather intimidating. But although a lot of people felt they had been ‘done’ by him, it was difficult not to laugh and forget after it was all over. This was because Peter himself had a quick wit and a good sense of humour and especially in the later years he was able to take a joke against himself, and laugh.
He was always immaculately dressed in a rather traditional way, and he even had a watch-chain across his waistcoat. He had a military moustache, and often a flower in his buttonhole. He was debonair, dynamic and had a wicked twinkle in his eye, with which he won his way with the ladies. He created a television sports unit for the first time and was responsible for the weekly magazine programme Sportsview, which he presented for ten years. On occasions when he was away, I sat in for him, and this was not without its anxious moments.
It was the early days of the teleprompter where the script can be seen in the lens of the camera. In those days to keep the revolving script moving one had to press a button in the floor with one’s foot, rather like a dentist, or when you want to flush a lavatory on a train. I was a bit inexperienced in its use, and found that if I pressed too hard the script went too fast and disappeared from sight – and there was no way of getting it back. This happened several times, and I had to ‘ad lib’ the bit that had disappeared. I also found that in reading the teleprompter I was in the hands of Paul Fox, the producer, who wrote what he wanted me to say. On one occasion there was an item about boxing, of which I know nothing. Paul Fox and the promoter Jack Solomons were not the best of friends, and Paul had written into the script something which Jack thought was libellous. Anyway, at the end of the programme the telephone on the desk rang and it was an infuriated Jack threatening to sue me for libel. I managed to pacify him, but decided that I preferred my cricket.
Most people, I suppose, remember Eamonn as a television presenter of such shows as This Is Your Life, What’s My Line? or Crackerjack. But he started life in broadcasting as a boxing commentator. He was a middleweight boxer and a former All-Ireland Amateur Junior Boxing Champion. He first broadcast for Radio Eireann as a boxing commentator and then came over to England and for a dozen happy years presented Angus Mackay’s Sports Report on the Light Programme. They were a great combination, with Angus in the studio whispering results and latest sports news into Eamonn’s right ear. So quick was Eamonn on the uptake that the words seemed to go into his ear one moment and out of his mouth the next. He soon got into boxing and eventually took over from Stewart Macpherson as the BBC’s radio commentator, and in fact was not dissimilar in style and voice to Stewart.
In 1951 he was asked by Peter Dimmock to commentate for television at one of those posh boxing evenings, where everyone wears a dinner jacket, including the commentator. He hired his evening clothes for the occasion and at the end of the big fight was told by Peter to get into the ring and interview the winner. He climbed through the ropes and caught his hired clip-on bow-tie on one of them so that it came off. So for his first big television interview in front of millions he appeared in a dinner jacket without a tie.
It was a pity for the listener that he switched from commentary to television presentation, but of course it made him into possibly the best-known face in the country and certainly one of broadcasting’s highest paid performers. But he did not just stick to performing and was by far the most successful businessman of all the television stars, combining Chairmanship of Radio Eireann’s Statutory Authority with his own private interests, including night clubs.
Eamonn was a deceptive man. At six foot, he was taller than he looked on television, and still had a boxer’s figure. His main feature was his crooked smile and his main strength was his affability, modesty and friendliness in dealing with other people. He sometimes looked slightly embarrassed and believe it or not, after all his years of experience, was still nervous before a show. Although This Is Your Life was a recorded programme, it was originally done ‘live’, and Eamonn always expected something to go wrong. But somehow with him, it never did. A just reward for television’s ‘nice guy’.
I admit that I am fairly emotional and that there have been quite a few occasions on the air when I have found it difficult to speak because of a lump in my throat. But there is only one commentator whom I have actually seen cry with tears running down his cheeks. They were tears of happiness for a great victory by a combination of man and beast. The occasion was the White City in 1951 when Foxhunter – ridden and owned by Harry Llewellyn – won the King George V Cup for the third time.
I had somehow got involved in doing commentary on show jumping. I had few qualifications except that as a rather terrified young boy I used to hunt, and later up at Oxford rode once in a point-to-point or ‘grind’ as they are called there. I hired a horse called Tip Top who was a half-brother of Tom Walls’s Derby winner, April the 5th. The horse did not know it but he could have stopped when he liked. However, his racing instinct prevailed and although left at the start we completed the course and finished fifth. Looking back, it was a crazy thing to have done because I took Tip Top’s jumping form on trust and never once went over a jump on him before the race. A famous Oxford tipster called Captain Dean summed up my riding perfectly: ‘There are jockeys here today,’ he told the crowd, ‘who could not ride in a railway carriage unless the door was locked!’
Anyhow, it was considered enough for me to share the commentary on the International Horse Show with a real expert, ex-cavalry officer and BBC announcer, Lionel Marson. There he was in brown bowler hat and gaiters sitting alongside me. As Foxhunter completed the clear round which made him winner for the third time, Lionel rose, shouting into the microphone and quite openly sobbing his heart out. He was actually in good company as everyone in the stand around us seemed to be doing the same thing.
Lionel was one of the old school, had perfect manners, wore all the right cricket ties and was in fact a ‘proper gentleman’. He made one famous boob on the air when reading the news about the theft of the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey. The script read: ‘. . . it had been placed in the Abbey by Edward Ist.’ For some reason Lionel pronounced this as Edward Isst. The duty editor sitting alongside him pointed frantically at the Ist and Lionel, after a second’s thought, said, ‘I am sorry. I evidently got that wrong. I should of course have said, “Edward Iced”.’
Incidentally, those few show jumping commentaries were the only ones in any sport other than cricket which I have done, with the exception of the Boat Race. Having played a lot of rugby at Eton and Oxford I would like to have had a shot at that, but Rex Alston was firmly in the saddle and I was never given the opportunity.
Maurice came into broadcasting late in life. He joined Outside Broadcasts in 1969 when aged fifty and shared an office with me in Broadcasting House. He had been a schoolmaster and a writer and also had shares in a sports goods business. He brought great sporting ability to the commentary teams. Best known as an amateur footballer, he was also a good tennis player, and had kept wicket for London University.
As an amateur footballer he played for Fulham, Brentford and Reading and appeared five times for England as an inside forward in wartime internationals. He was stockily built and a fast mover with strong, slightly bowed legs. He was a superb passer and distributor of the ball and made many more goals than he scored himself. He had the reputation of being scrupulously clean and fair, and had only one foul given against him in his whole career – a player fell over his foot! He went on playing charity matches until his sudden death in 1976.
As you would expect, he read a game better than any other commentator and was able to anticipate many moves. He had a quiet voice and never appeared to hurry, yet in both football and tennis he always seemed to keep pace with the game. At lawn tennis he was especially easy to follow, even in a fast double with four complicated names. Maurice was much liked wherever he went, and his chuckle was infectious. He was a delightful companion during the three years in which we shared an office – on the few occasions when we were both there!
So far as I know there has only been one commentator who has ever been a gold prospector – Max Robertson. He was born in India, and educated at Haileybury and Clare College, Cambridge but left early to join some amateur gold seekers in Papua, New Guinea. I am afraid that they were not very successful, so that Max ended up in Sydney, Australia, where his versatile broadcasting career began. In 1937 he joined the Australian Broadcasting Commission as an announcer and general commentator. Two years later he returned to England and became an announcer on the BBC European Service.
During the war he was commissioned in the Royal Artillery (Territorial Army) and became an Adjutant, which gives a clue to his character. Max always organised himself well, and was punctual, meticulous, hardworking and self-disciplined. After the war he returned to the BBC, and although still with the European Service, broadcast from Wimbledon and the 1948 Olympic Games for OBs, whom he finally joined in 1950.
He will always be associated with his lightning radio commentaries on tennis, but in fact he had a variety of television and radio jobs. For radio there was the Coronation, a royal tour in Canada, a number of Olympic Games and some ceremonials. The latter included the occasion when the Queen of Norway arrived at the Guildhall for lunch with the Lord Mayor. Said Max: ‘The Queen of Norway is looking very attractive in an off-the-hat face.’
Max’s fast vocal style did not suit television commentary, but as he was possibly the best-looking of all the post-war commentators, he was much in demand as a presenter on television. He even took over Panorama for a short period, and his Going for a Song was one of television’s most popular programmes. He was a natural for this as he was a collector of Chinese and Japanese ceramics.
What was the secret of Max’s success? Besides the usual hard work and research, and the ability to produce colourful descriptions of what he saw, he was quite simply the fastest and clearest talker on radio. I have already said how much I admire racing commentators. But difficult as their task is they only have to keep going for a few minutes. Tennis commentators may have to keep going for several hours on end. Modern tennis too has become faster with the development of service and hard hitting. The real difficulty comes during a long rally in a doubles match. The commentator not only has to describe the shot but pronounce clearly the name of the player who made it. Just imagine having to commentate on a long rally in which these four ladies’ names were involved: Navratilova and Mandlikova v Kiyomura and Sawamatsu.
But somehow Max managed to keep up with the play, with words pouring from his mouth at an unbelievable pace, revealing a remarkable co-ordination between eye and tongue. There has never been anyone else quite like him and I doubt if there ever will be.
Of all the leading commentators since the war the most unsung and least known to the public must surely have been Robert Hudson. This was largely due to his quiet, unobtrusive and retiring personality. He was, in fact, one of the very few commentators who was not an extrovert. At the same time he was probably the most conscientious, and put most of us to shame with his meticulous preparation and research before any programme in which he was taking part. He was essentially the broadcasters’ commentator. We knew all the difficulties he had to overcome and so appreciated his great skill. To the listeners, however, he made it all sound too easy.
After leaving the army as a Major in the Royal Artillery he did his first cricket broadcast in 1947 for television, and for radio in 1948. His career was spent mostly with radio and he mainly commentated on cricket, rugby and ceremonials. He had two spells as an administrator, first up in North Region, as it was then, and later when he succeeded Charles Max-Muller as Head of OBs in London.
His commentaries on cricket and rugby were hard to fault for accuracy of description, and he made sure that his knowledge of the laws and details of the players’ careers was complete. In cricket, for instance, whereas most of us rely on the brains of Bill Frindall in the box, Robert always had his own little black book full of the records of all the players in the match. Most of us stroll casually into the box half an hour or so before the start of a game. But Robert liked to take his place about an hour before, and sit there concentrating on the job ahead.
I always had the feeling that it was quite a strain for him until the first ball was bowled. After that he was a different person and sounded confident and efficient, giving a completely accurate account of what was happening. Although in private life he had a good sense of humour, it did not often come through in his broadcasts, so he lacked some of the colour of someone like John Arlott.
Before I joined Test match Special, in 1970, Robert had become Head of OBs and given up regular commentary. It was in fact entirely due to him that I was invited to join the Test match Special team when I was dropped by television. Since he had left the commentary box I did not work a lot with him, which is perhaps just as well. I doubt whether he would have wholly approved of all the fun and games which we enjoy in the box today.
In spite of his great concentration Robert did make one amusing gaffe, during the England v New Zealand Test at Lord’s in 1969. The two teams were as usual being presented to the Queen in front of the pavilion during the tea interval. ‘It’s obviously a great occasion for all the players,’ Robert said. ‘It’s a moment they will always forget.’
One rather unusual feature about Robert was that at the end of a day he tended to fade away, and due to his shyness seldom mixed or talked with the players. In one way this is not a bad thing, as it is easier to criticise someone you don’t know personally. But it also meant that the players hardly knew Robert and often used to ask, ‘Who was that giving that excellent commentary?’
I have dealt with Robert as a cricket commentator but he was equally admired and respected by rugby enthusiasts. He was, however, best known as radio’s number one ceremonial commentator. He covered all the big royal occasions and until he decided to give up in 1981 had broadcast twenty-five Trooping the Colour parades. The drill is always the same each year, but somehow, by diligently talking to as many as possible of those taking part, Robert managed to make his commentary sound different. As for the royal occasions his research and meticulous timing put him into the Richard Dimbleby class.
Robert has officially retired but I would not be at all surprised if he was resurrected to take part in some future national occasion. He was always cool, calm and confident, and whoever succeeds him cannot be any better.
When the Outside Broadcast Department moved into the new part of Broadcasting House in the early 1950s, I shared an office with Raymond Baxter. He had come into the BBC via the RAF where he was a fighter pilot in Spitfires serving in North Africa, Malta, Sicily, Italy and with the Tactical Air Force in Europe after D-Day. So he was a well-travelled man, and when he left the RAF started his broadcasting career with Forces Broadcasting first in Cairo, and ending as Deputy Station Director of BFN Hamburg.
He and I were fairly different in character. I try to be five minutes early for everything, he was always late and gave many producers heart attacks waiting for him to turn up for a show. He was extremely knowledgeable in all things mechanical and scientific. I am quite hopeless at both. But we both had a sense of the ridiculous and whenever we did manage to meet in the office, we usually had a good laugh. As a commentator he was a natural for all things to do with cars, rallies, motor shows and Grand Prix racing. Similarly, for any air show or display he was completely in his element. He used to drive as a serious competitor and commentate at the same time in the Monte Carlo Rally, a difficult feat which he did extremely well. His motor racing commentaries for both radio and television were high class and I have never understood why the BBC did not use him more.
Raymond was very likeable and gregarious and this enabled him to know all the racing and rally drivers and have many of them as close friends. Once again I must stress how this affinity with those taking part in a sport is of great help to a commentator. It enables him to add the odd personal titbits which put that extra something into a commentary. Raymond had a very distinct style. He was very precise in his pronunciation and enunciated every syllable deliberately and clearly.
It was this, coupled with his knowledge, that made him such a good presenter of Tomorrow’s World on BBC Television. He had the ability to explain the most complicated piece of gadgetry or machinery in simple terms which even I could understand. To my mind he was a great loss to the programme when he decided to leave it because of a disagreement with a new producer. He had always been a ‘non-knocker’ and – rather like in Down Your Way – liked to look for the good things. The programme’s attitude to Concorde, which it criticised, showed the way things were going. The new producer not only wanted Raymond to cease being the sole presenter and share the programme with two others, but in-depth investigation was going to be the policy. Raymond was in favour of facts, not opinions. So regretfully he did not sign a new contract for another series.
Although he was the king of television technology, the modern whizz-kids tended to think him old-fashioned. ‘Dinosaurs were left high and dry when the world evolved away from them,’ said the new producer unkindly in explaining his reason for changing Raymond’s role as chief presenter. If old-fashioned meant being courteous, fair and good mannered in his handling of people whom he interviewed on the programme then Raymond certainly was old-fashioned – and rightly proud of it.
Among BBC commentators there seems to be a close affinity with the Daily Telegraph – Howard Marshall, Jim Swanton, Rex Alston and Bryon Butler all worked for both. Except for Rex Alston they were all journalists before they became commentators.
Bryon Butler was born in Taunton, Somerset in 1934; he was educated at Taunton School and did his national service with the Somerset Light Infantry. His newspaper apprenticeship took him from Taunton to Exeter, Nottingham and Leicester. His first job in Fleet Street was with the News Chronicle which promptly closed after he had been with it for sixty days. He claimed that he was in no way responsible for its demise! He then freelanced for a while, sub-editing for The Times, reporting on rugby for the Guardian and writing features for the Daily Express. In 1960 he did his first freelance job for the BBC’s Sports Department under Angus Mackay. He spent six years with the Daily Telegraph, writing on cricket and soccer, before joining the BBC staff in 1968, when he took over from Brian Moore as the Association Football correspondent.
So before joining the BBC he had had no commentary experience and was thrown in at the deep end, learning as he went along, as so many of us have done. He became, of course, one of radio’s top commentators, with a crisp, staccato style. His varied journalistic experiences made his reports on matches, or soccer’s news stories, punchy and full of telling phrases. More than any other commentator, perhaps, he seemed to speak in ‘headlines’ over the air, without resorting to clichés.
In 1969 he was brought near to tears at the end of a match on which he had been commentating. Leeds United had only to draw with Liverpool at Anfield to win the League Championship; but if they had lost, Liverpool would have been the champions. The score was a draw and Bryon was apprehensive of the reaction of the naturally disappointed Kop. Would they boo, fight, or try to invade the pitch? He need not have worried. After a pause the Kop began to sway, the scarves were held high and the Kop chorus sang out: ‘Leeds are the champions, Leeds are the champions.’ A pleasant soccer story, for a change.
Bryon came out with his fair share of non sequiturs, including:
‘Wilkins pushes the ball to the left – a perfect pass – to no one in particular,’ and ‘Keegan was there like a surgeon’s knife – bang!’ In one interview he asked Peter Shreeve: ‘Did you have any doubts about yourself when you left Tottenham?’ To which Shreeve replied: ‘I don’t think so’!
Bryon retired as the BBC Radio football correspondent in 1991. Soccer took him all over the world to about sixty countries, but I have a feeling that Bryon’s first love was always cricket. He played it whenever he could and once said that his greatest sacrifice was when he was reporting on cricket six days a week throughout the summer for the Daily Telegraph. The seventh day was the only free time he had to play cricket, but he gave it up for those six years to spend Sundays with his family. And despite his successful professional career, his finest hour was still the moment when, with the last ball of the last over, he scored the vital two runs needed for a victory over Taunton’s arch-rivals, Blundell’s, and was carried shoulder-high off the pitch by cheering Taunton supporters.
After commentating on more than two hundred Classics, Peter Bromley announced his retirement from broadcasting in June 2001. His last commentary was at the 2001 Epsom Derby.
If ever someone was suited to his job it is Peter Bromley. From Cheltenham and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, he served for three years (1948–51) in the famous cavalry regiment, the 14/20 Hussars. They were then of course mechanised but still maintained many of the old cavalry and horsey traditions. When he finished his service he rode for a time as an amateur until an accident forced him to give it up. He also acted as an assistant trainer before doing five years as a racecourse commentator.
In 1959 he joined the BBC under contract as their first-ever accredited sports correspondent. Cricket (myself and Christopher Martin-Jenkins), soccer (Brian Moore and Bryon Butler), lawn tennis (Gerald Williams) followed in the 1960s and early 70s with their correspondents, but Peter was the first of all. He added to his qualifications by becoming an owner, and then a consultant on horse-breeding. So, gifted with phenomenal eyesight, with a clear voice and a sense of pace, Peter has been one of the BBC’s outstanding commentators, mostly on radio, but with occasional television appearances.
You may have noticed that I mentioned ‘a sense of pace’. This is so important in racing, especially over the longer races. It is no good getting excited too early and Peter will calmly go through the horses giving their placings, and mentioning as many of the runners as possible. But as the race develops he will gradually increase his pace and begin to concentrate on the leaders, or those whom he thinks still have a chance. And then in the last two furlongs or so when the race is really on, Peter will speed up his tempo and allow himself to express the excitement which everyone feels when watching a close finish.
I have never heard him get the winner wrong. Even if the judge asks for a photo-finish Peter is not afraid to say, ‘. . . and in my opinion so-and-so just made it.’ Often too – as at Kempton – his commentary box is at an angle to the finish, and yet he seems to outjudge the judge. He also reels off the second and third, and most of the other runners too. As you know, I feel that the racing commentator has the hardest job of all, having to learn and recognise all the colours and then apply to them the name of the horse, jockey, trainer and owner. It can only be done by living on the racecourses and mixing with the racing fraternity, and, of course, by the usual essential for a commentator – hard work. Peter, like most of the other racing commentators, will paint all the colours for a race on a board and then learn them like a saying lesson at school. Of course the big owners and trainers are easy, but nowadays there are more and more syndicates in racing, each with their new set of colours.
Whatever our particular jobs may be in the BBC, people always seem to think it is all glamour, good living and being present at events which they would give their eyes to be at. But for someone like Peter it is never the bright lights and luxury hotels at the end of a day’s racing. For a one-day meeting he motors home straight away after his last commentary. But for a three-day meeting he will stay quietly away from the social life and do his homework each night. It is the same with Peter O’Sullevan. He is usually the last to leave the press box, sometimes as late as 8 pm, because he prepares for the next day’s racing before leaving the racecourse. How the racing commentators do it, I don’t know, especially as I am colour-blind. They must have fantastic memories to register in their minds the details of horses – sometimes twenty runners in one race – for all the races which they are broadcasting.
One interesting thing about Peter. He always has an assistant – more often than not John Fenton – who before the race will give the latest betting odds as they change. But even more important when working with Peter is to write down the names of the winner, second, third and fourth as Peter calls them out. He has been concentrating so hard that he often forgets which horse he has said was second or third, and his assistant has to thrust his piece of paper into Peter’s hand as soon as the horses have passed the post.
Like myself, Peter enjoys his life and his job, because apart from his delightful family and the odd shoot or game of squash, racing is his life.