What's your earliest memory of R3/Third Programme

[gradus]

An die Musik introducing err...

[LMcD]

464m white at the top, Home service was on 434m and Light Programme on 1500m red at the top. The colour referred to the knob which had to be turned before then turning the tuning knob. I seem to remember in the early days broadcasts were limited to certain hours of the day, evenings only. This would be sometime in the 1950s. Dad was a regular listener! There were also many music programmes on The Home Service including Music Magazine. 1964 it was renamed Network Three, and hours increased. Then the transition to R3 in 1967 followed by 26 years of great broadcasting and 26 years of decline!

1946-Oct 1957: 1800-2400 hours
Oct 1957-1965: 24 hours a week
1965-1967: Launch of BBC Music Programme, which included some sport. Up to 14.5 hours a day.
As you say, became Radio 3 in 1967. 24/7 broadcasts came some time later, I believe.

[kernelbogey]

When I was growing up in West Cornwall in the fifties, Third Programme reception was poor, as for Alpie and others here. For my parents and older brothers, the Third was a kind of intellectual Mecca: as I remember, listening to the Brains Trust was a weekly duty. (i was banned from the room when it was on as silence was required in order to catch every learned word.) I can't remember when music became more common there than on the Home Service (now Radio4). I seem to remember lunchtime concerts on the Home into the early sixties: I would sometimes listen to them when home at lunchtime or in the holidays. (George Hurst was an indefatigable conductor of them.) I have not checked the date, but when the BBC introduced Network Three, as the Third Progamme became, with an earlier start time, my listening there increased - I began a Russian Course, for example. This may have coincided with my brother building an FM tuner from a kit, which I guess might have been between 1956 and 1958, which enabled us to listen to broadcast music properly.

The Envy of the World - the History of the Third Programme by Humphey Carpenter is a good, entertaining and witty read; and would clarify some of those dates that are now for me lost somewhere down Amnesia Lane.

[Quarky]

In the late 60's, a flat-mate would listen to Opera on Sunday Afternoons .

Around 1970, I had my own place and would listen to Radio 3 in the morning when it started at 7 am. Did I have a stereo/ VHF receiver? The name of the "breakfast" programme? Anyway I recall they would play the Brandenburg concertos one by one through the week, and then start again, I believe. I was most disappointed when they stopped.
.....If it happened today, I would probably have complained (in fact I did!)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The Third Programme was an evening-only event until the 1960s, but then the BBC (who were admirable then) decided to use the wavelength during the day, in three slots.
The Third continued as before, but was preceded by an early evening educational hour or so, called the Study Programme. The rest of the day became the Music Programme, and what a wonderful new creation that was.
My father had always placed labels on the radio to facilitate tuning:
H = Home Service
L = Light Programme
T = Third Programme

I decided it was time to update this, replacing the T with MST, which worked out quite well when the letters could be remixed as TMS (Test Match Special).

[rauschwerk]

An die Musik introducing err...

Music Magazine with Anna Instone and Julian Herbage (Sunday mornings). Didn't hear that very often until I stopped going to church.

[rauschwerk]

And Boulez's Le Marteau sans Maitre, I would hope.

I listened to atonal avant-garde music only in a dutiful sort of way until I discovered the music of Roberto Gerhard, which came as a revelation.

[french frank]

I never grew up listening to it but I have a hypothesis that a lot of members here did.

I suspect you are right, given the number of people who remember what they first heard when they started listening, but not how they came to hear about the Third Programme themselves before they became listeners. There were homes, like mine, where the Third Programme didn't exist. They listened to the Light Programme and the Home Service. The only memory I have is of my grandfather, a Welshman, saying of Harry Secombe, "My golly, that man can sing!" (following a performance more probably on television - my memory was of Secombe finishing an operatic aria by promptly falling flat on his back).

I never heard the Third Programme, and my memories of beginning to listen to R3 are foggy, perhaps a chance remark by someone I knew? I'd say my memory of R3 dates from the Drummond era (or maybe shortly before), when I was in my forties. I know where I was living, and have a dim memory of contacting the BBC to ask where I could find the music when the Test Match commentary was on (as far as I remember, you couldn't). I don't remember particular programmes - certainly not presenters - as one music programme merged into another, with occasional speech programmes. I do remember, much later, Through the Night beginning - a welcome relief from the World Service for an insomniac. I have a clearer memory of some of the Kenyon programmes in the '90s, like Artist of the Week.

[kernelbogey]

Music Magazine with Anna Instone and Julian Herbage (Sunday mornings). Didn't hear that very often until I stopped going to church.

Music Magazine, which ran from 1944 to 1973. Herbage was the presenter throughout the run of 1,155 editions

- Wikipedia

[Beresford]

SOME SOURCES OF ROMANTICISM
Six Lectures by Sir Isaiah Berlin
5th October 1967 7-30pm

[cloughie]

1970/71
Classical music on the radio in the mornings
Tom Crowe
Interpretations on record
Anthony Hopkins talking about music
Sounds interesting (prog rock show,Sunday evenings)

‘Sounds interesting’ has never been bettered as a non-classical programme on R3!

[Dai Cottomy]

I remember listening to Huis-clos (No Exit) by Jean-Paul Sartre at the age of fourteen.and is the source of Sartre's most famous quotation, "l'enfer, c'est les autres ("Hell is other people").

I was in bed and listened on my little Ferguson radio. I had just discovered the 3rd. programme and found it had lots of good stuff on it, and was a welcome change from the "Home Service" which was the choice of my parents. I have checked and the date was Tuesday 8th October 1946.


I

[gurnemanz]

I had bought (with paper round savings) my first transistor radio as a teenager in the 60s and have vague memories of enjoying taking a bath of an evening with the radio for background music. One time I must have tuned to R3/Third (not sure which) rather than the usual Radio Luxembourg whose reception was often somewhat flaky. The Choral bit of Beethoven's Ninth came on. I must have been hearing it for the first time and remember thinking something like: Wow!

[oddoneout]

I don't have early memories as such; my mother had the radio on much of the day during the week, Home Service. The Third programme would have been on when I was in bed I imagine for the most part. When the time on air was increased my music listening would have also increased. I would think it was a move welcomed by my mother as she was not allowed to operate the recorded music facilities in the house - they were jealously guarded by my father - although eventually she was allowed access to the tape recorder. I did become aware that my radio listening was not the same as my peers at two particular points. Firstly when the Beatles hit the airwaves and any knowledge of their output had to come from my schoolfriends - and not be shared at home... Secondly, around the time I moved up to grammar school I realised that no-one else listened to the same radio channel. I do remember listening to the various talks with my mother, and I also remember the very strong 'music is to be listened to' rule, which meant that talking wasn't allowed, reading was frowned on, although non-noisy activities were permitted; my mother's knitting was sometimes a cause for disagreement if father was gracing us with his presence to listen to a concert broadcast.

[gradus]

Music Magazine with Anna Instone and Julian Herbage (Sunday mornings). Didn't hear that very often until I stopped going to church.

Ah yes, thank you.