Radio Days: Glimpses of a Golden Age

How The Goon Show, Hancock's Half Hour and Round the Horne created a revolution in post-war comedy

SOMETIME DURING the late 1980s I wandered into a bookshop in Surbiton, South West London. It was run by an irascible elderly man with a German accent. If you’ve ever seen the UK comedy Black Books, try and imagine what Bernard would have become had the series run for fifty years - just substitute the Irish accent for a German one.

In those days I used audio books to while away the insomniac hours. The bookshop had a carousel of audio tapes, and as I twirled it around I noticed out of the corner of my eye a customer, a middle-aged man I think, walk up to the counter and ask the owner about a book that he had been unable to find on the shelves. Instead of offering the customer some assistance, the bookseller berated him for being a nuisance. If the customer couldn’t find something to buy amongst all the lovely books that were on the shelves it was tough luck. The dazed shopper left with a flushed face and a flea in his ear, never, I assume, to return.