Latest / The Discussion Podcast / RadioAlty & Me - Ed Pugh: From Pirate Radios to Radio Alty Breakfast

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RadioAlty & Me - Ed Pugh: From Pirate Radios to Radio Alty Breakfast · The Discussion Podcast

• 0:01
  This is the late late lunch show with rod maxwell supported by,
• 0:08
  child bird learning in nature's playground,
• 0:13
  so it's rod maxwell and radio altie and as part of the radio altie at six series
• 0:18
  talking to a number of the presenters radio altie is part of me and radio altie
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  and i'm delighted to be talking to Ed Pugh,
• 0:25
  who is the voice of Radio Alty, big Radio Alty breakfast show on a Monday from 8 until 10.
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  And something I got to know, and I was actually just thinking back,
• 0:35
  Ed, when we first met, I'm sure it was over a coffee in Blanche Flower.
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  It was. It was a two-hour session chatting.
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  We had it in common, I think. I'm sure that, I'm surprised that didn't put you
• 0:48
  off for life, but there you go.
• 0:51
  So let's talk, obviously you've got your show on a Monday, and we'll come back to that.
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  But your love of radio started quite early in your life, like a lot of us.
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  It was something that was your first dabble in media, if you like,
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  as a young person. Yeah, indeed.
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  One of the records I've chosen is Jeff Lynn's When I Was a Boy,
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  and it was The Line Goes Along, When I Was a Boy, I Had a Dream.
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  And about the radio waves that affected him and made him want to go into music.
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  I listened to my little tiny little radio that I've still got.
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  It's called a Pie Puppet, can you imagine?
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  And I would listen to this in my bed late at night.
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  Because the BBC then was the light program in terms of music.
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  And it was brass bands and big orchestras and things like that.
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  And occasionally they would play some pop music on Pig of the Pops,
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  the early days of Pig of the Pops. with David Jacobs, who's a radio coordinator and lovely voice.
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  Anyway, but the one to listen to was Radio Luxembourg. Yes. Because they have
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  music shows every night, but only from seven.
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  And the quality, of course, was ridiculously bad.
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  Anyway, and then the pirates came along, and everything changed after the pirates.
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  And now, obviously, that forced the government to come up with Radio 1 on the BBC.
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  And then commercial radio came along. Anyway, and I did some,
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  I had a tape recorder and I used to record shows with the next door neighbors
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  and we'd do little music shows and things like that.
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  And then I also, at school, I persuaded someone that we should do Radio Tulls
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  Hill, which was the school I was at in South London.
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  And they let me put this together with other friends in the school and they
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  let me they put me in the headmaster's study where I would broadcast across
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  the Tannoy system because that.
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  Only way they could do it. And being a good boy, I didn't actually notice any
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  of the things that were on the headmaster's desk. I could have changed everything, really.
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  Anyway, I could have changed all my bad qualifications.
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  Anyway, that. And then later on, I met some other friends and became good pals
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  and we were in a group as well.
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  And we used to broadcast each other from up in the bedroom down to the kitchen.
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  And we'd play the records we liked.
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  It was just playing radio,
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  But I went to the BBC to Radio 1 when Radio 1 started, and I had a name then
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  of Ed Richards, because I thought Ed Pugh didn't sound very kind of, you know, DJ-like.
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  So I called myself Ed Richards, and I sent this tape off, and I've still got
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  the letter from the BBC saying, thank you very much for your tape.
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  I'm afraid to say you really need more experience in ballrooms and discotheques.
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  So there's my radio one. Never happened, of course.
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  But my goal was really to work in television. Well, do you know what?
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  The fact that television was always what I wanted to work in,
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  but radio was often another thing that I wanted to do.
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  In fact, later on, much later on, after some... I'm trying to remember exactly
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  when it was. I think it was after I left BBC Scotland and I was an independent
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  for a while with a company.
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  That all folded and I applied to run what is now Radio 4 Extra.
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  So it was called Network Z, was their working title.
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  It became Radio 5, which was when it started, it was going to be basically its programs on it.
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  But this was actually, it wasn't then, that was later. It was going to be a
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  network with drama, comedy, and various other things.
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  And I applied for that. And I did get an interview.
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  I was down to the final four, which considering I never worked in radio,
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  was quite good. But I met the boss of radio.
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  And you could tell when she was looking at the ceiling that I was not particularly engaging her.
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  And I think she's made up her mind already. Well, I...
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  But I know Mary Callen-Kerrin. She's very good. And she'd worked in BBC records.
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  And she knew all the material, basically.
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  And she was a friend anyway. and surprise, surprise. Well, uh.
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  Whereas the radio has always been there somewhere in my, and obviously I listen
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  to it all the time, you know.
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  Of course I listen to Radio Alty, and there are other stations,
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  but there's only Radio Alty.
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  Well, I think the BBC's loss is Radio Alty's gain. I'm going to take a break
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  and then come back and talk to you about your life in TV.
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  And I think it's your life of creativity. I think I want to talk to you also
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  about how radio is almost the ultimate creative form, because sometimes you
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  can adjust to things in a matter of seconds, a matter of minutes.
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  And it's a very flexible, very flexible media.
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  So today, delighted to be speaking to our Ed Pugh, I call him,
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  Radio Alti's voice of the big Radio Alti breakfast on a Monday morning,
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  eight until 10. I'll have to say it's the best.
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  Those radio breakfast programs are fantastic. I listened to a station beforehand
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  and then at eight o'clock, I always tune in to the big Radio Alti breakfast.
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  We'll be back with Ed in a couple of minutes time.
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  You're listening to The Late Late Lunch Show. Back to the Garden Childcare,
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  where little explorers grow naturally.
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  It's Rod Maxwell and Radio Alty. And to celebrate Radio Alty being six,
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  we're doing a series called Me and Radio Alty, where I get the chance to speak
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  to a number of our presenters,
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  some of whom you see a lot, some of them you see hardly ever,
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  but you always hear them.
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  And speaking today to the voice of Monday's big Radio Alty breakfast,
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  Ed Pugh, a man who has taken his experience of working in TV into the radio.
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  Now, Ed, we were talking about TV.
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  You work quite extensively in children's TV, is that right?
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  Yeah, I think when I started, I really wanted to work in entertainment,
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  comedy, that kind of thing.
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  And for various reasons, as I moved up the ladder from starting at the runner's
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  stage, they called him floor assistants, but I was a runner,
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  and then an assistant floor manager, and then a floor manager and a production manager.
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  And increasingly, even though I applied to work in comedy programs or entertainment programs,
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  I didn't get the gig and I'd worked
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  a lot in children's and the people seemed very nice
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  and the programs you know you're a bit in children's you
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  do a bit of everything you know it's right across the
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  board and I then applied for
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  a job there and they said well if you do this
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  production management on a drama you can
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  have a go directing Jack and Ori which I
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  did and then that seemed to go well and
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  they said oh you can do another one which i did and then
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  as time moved on i was given the chance to do a jackanory playhouse which is
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  a bit more elaborate and that seemed to be all right and then i was asked as
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  time time went on again and i think by that time i was substantive in the department
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  they gave me some grange hill so and i,
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  Grainshield as a director. So the thing I love about this is I'm seeing myself
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  sitting watching these programs and not knowing anything about the people behind it.
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  And now, in front of me now, and every Monday I'm listening to a person that
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  was involved with something that was really important in your childhood, really.
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  I mean, children's TV in that time was really, really important.
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  And there was only maybe ITV and BBC to watch it.
• 8:56
  Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. Was it 1984, I think, Channel 4 started? Yes.
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  Something like that. And yes, I started in 1970.
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  And BBC Two had arrived, but there were only two BBC channels and one ITV. That was it.
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  And if you wanted to work in ITV, it was a very different scenario.
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  But I worked in the BBC, which I'd always wanted to work in.
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  And I'd grown up. I bought BBC handbooks.
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  I knew stupid little details where all the transmitters were around the country.
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  I knew about everything. In fact, I think I'd said to you earlier when I met
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  this woman who was the head of radio, when they launched, I think it was radio.
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  I'm trying to remember what station it was. Whenever they launched it,
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  they said, This is the brand new station, the first one since 1970.
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  I wrote to her saying, no, it didn't stop in 1967.
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  You should know that. Anyway.
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  So you went from being a floor runner to when you were doing Jack and Norrie,
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  and you worked on Grange Hill as well. What was your role in those productions?
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  I was a director on Grange Hill.
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  So I did two episodes the first year. Next year, I did four episodes.
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  And I was doing other things.
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  At one stage, they put me on a quiz show as a producer.
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  And I think they saw, hopefully, they saw some talent. and they kind of used me to do various things.
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  And then I did a comedy series called Jossie's Giants written by Sid Waddell,
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  who's a dance commentator.
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  But in fact, he was a TV producer come director in Manchester.
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  And Jossie's Giants was shot in Manchester.
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  So we did all the filming up in Chatterton and then we did the studio in Oxford Road.
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  In the studio that is now gone. It's now an office block.
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  And we filmed all that over two years. And in the second year,
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  I applied to run what they call the BBC Children's Unit in Manchester.
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  So that's when I moved up, thinking that this would be a good development for my career.
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  And maybe, you know, that would help me to go back to London as an even higher person.
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  But of course, here I am still in Manchester because it never happened.
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  Well, you're a higher person in our eyes anyway for staying in Manchester.
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  I want to come back and take a break and come back and talk about production
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  and directory, because I'd love to understand a little bit about the difference
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  between the two, because really in radio, you're both, aren't you?
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  And you're the presenter. You're doing all those skills.
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  But today at Radio Alta 6, me at Radio Alta, I'm delighted to be speaking to
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  Ed Pugh, a man I could talk to for hours. And I think I did do it.
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  Probably bored the life out of me.
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  He was probably glad to get on radio rather than sit and having coffees with
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  me back in the day. That's six years ago, Ed. That's mad, isn't it?
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  Mad indeed. Time flies. We'll be back with Ed in a couple of minutes' time.
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  This is The Late Late Lunch Show with Rod Maxwell on Radio Alt-T.
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  Now, Ed, TV production, like radio, like all media production,
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  has changed massively. But if we go back to when you were working as a producer
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  or a director, first of all, and a producer.
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  As a director, you have a writer, you have somebody who has come up with the
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  idea, say it's green chill, then you have episode writers or series writers.
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  How much involvement does the director have in the creative process?
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  Or how much are you there to capture the moment? Or how much is it pure logistics?
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  I think it's in that kind of process where there's obviously lots of episodes,
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  the producer is the real person to guide the writers.
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  So basically you are given a script,
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  And that is your script, or you're given four scripts, as I would be.
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  And then you have to plan with your team how you're going to make that work.
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  And hopefully, obviously, bring out the flair in, A, the acting talent.
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  And if you remember, you know, all these are young people.
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  Quite a lot of them came from a, it wasn't a stage school. It was a school.
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  It was Anna Shearer's theater school. and people would just go along on a Thursday,
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  Friday night, whatever it was for a certain time and she would help them develop their careers.
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  But people like Todd Carty and Sue Tully came through that and Pauline Quirk
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  and Linda Robson came through that, lots of people and it was brilliant.
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  And there were lots of other stage schools and I remember going to,
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  I can't remember, I think it was not Italia Conti.
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  It might have been Italia Conti. One school, and basically most of the girls
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  there, and I had to find a girl in this particular role.
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  I saw three girls in a row on each session, and I interviewed them.
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  And they literally all said that they all looked the same.
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  They all had longish hair. They all wanted to be either an actress or a ballet dancer.
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  And what do you want to be? I want to be an actress and a beryl dancer.
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  And then this girl came in, and we were looking for some rebellious young girl, basically.
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  And this girl came in with funky hair.
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  And literally, I could have not asked her to speak, but what she said was fine
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  and everything was all right.
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  I chose her really because I thought she's got attitude.
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  You can tell she's got attitude because she's so unlike any of the others.
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  Can you draw any comparisons between the people? Because you mentioned a number of people.
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  Of the cast of Green Shell, a small percentage of them would have gone on to
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  make acting their career and their profession. And a lot of them may have wanted
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  to, but they may have not just hacked it.
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  Could you identify the sort of DNA of a person that you saw that would make
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  it because of their attitude, their professionalism or their sheer determination?
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  Yeah, I think I could tell the ones that were going to last.
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  And a lot of them would, you know, would inquire what they what I thought they needed to do.
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  And often I made sure, and obviously they had to be tutored,
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  you know, they couldn't not do any work in terms of education.
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  So there were tutors and they had to, we had very strict guidelines,
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  which are still there about the amount of time they should be on set and things like that.
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  Once you get to 16, it's different. They can be full time. Yeah.
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  But I often encourage them and say, you know, it's a very, some ridiculous figure,
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  like 80% of the acting profession are out of work at any one time.
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  You know, it's a very dodgy life, quite frankly.
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  A lot of people go into it with high hopes. And obviously, a lot of it is just
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  lucky old breaks, isn't it? Like anything.
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  But you can tell the ones that might succeed quite a lot, I think so.
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  But I, you know, a lot of them, funnily enough, I got a Jossie's Giants reunion one day.
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  One was, he was now a firefighter. Another one was working in high up in admin, in education.
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  Another was kind of part-time actor, but also ran a carpentry company and things like that.
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  And, you know, some was succeeding, but no one, none of those were,
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  you know, multi-star people in Hollywood or anything like that.
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  Yeah, indeed. Well, look, I'll take another break. I want to come back and talk
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  to you about the changes in TV, the changes in radio.
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  And some of those are good things because we wouldn't be doing what we're doing now if they weren't.
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  But it's changed, I think, very much the whole media industry and TV especially.
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  I just want to get your perspective on the good and the bad, maybe the ugly of that.
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  So today, talking to Ed Pugh, he is the presenter of the Big Radio Alty Breakfast on a Monday morning.
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  Tune in to him from 8 to 10. I have to say, you get an eclectic mix of music
• 17:33
  you get lots of little things that make you think and like all the Radio Alty
• 17:37
  shows and the breakfast shows,
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  8 to 10 every weekday you've got a Radio Alty show live from the Garrick or
• 17:43
  from somebody's house and it's great stuff, I'll be back with Ed in a couple of minutes time
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  You're listening to The Late Late Lunch Show. Back to the Garden Childcare,
• 17:52
  where little explorers grow naturally.
• 17:55
  So, Ed, there has been an explosion, a revolution in media right across the world.
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  And from my basic understanding of it, you know, production costs have come
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  down because they needed to.
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  Technology has changed the way in which things are done.
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  You've got different players now, like Amazon and, you know,
• 18:15
  Sky, but Sky have been here for donkey's years.
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  Different players did you see how tv
• 18:20
  was changing as your career was progressing
• 18:24
  and you were hitting retirement oh yes i
• 18:27
  i think it's it just i was thinking back to my early days with mum and dad and
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  you know we had a bush record player uh one of the choices i've done is is rap
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  manager or Second Piano Concerto that I still love.
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  And it's very popular still by a lot of people's thoughts.
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  And if you think of that now, and here I am, you know, on a daily basis searching
• 18:55
  the internet for bits of music to play on Monday morning, it's just like a complete other world.
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  And as I said earlier, you know, I had a tape recorder and I would record things
• 19:06
  off the radio as a lot of people did.
• 19:08
  And then, of course, you had cassettes. You know, at one stage I had a mini
• 19:12
  display and they thought this was revolutionary. Very posh.
• 19:16
  Digital technology. This is amazing. I spent the whole evening when I first
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  got it, my wife said, are you ever going to come off that? I said,
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  this is just incredible.
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  And seven years later, I've got them all upstairs, my little mini discs,
• 19:32
  not doing anything at all.
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  And it's just rapidly, the pace of change is absolutely incredible.
• 19:40
  I was reading an article by Simon Mayo.
• 19:43
  He said he couldn't believe it. I mean, he's someone who works in radio.
• 19:46
  He said he suddenly realized one day that none of his children had a radio.
• 19:51
  They all had supposedly smart speakers and other ways of listening to it,
• 19:56
  you know, on the phones, basically. It's on the phone.
• 19:59
  Here we are talking on the phone.
• 20:02
  And the world has totally changed. And the way that they make television now
• 20:07
  is so much better in a way than the... I mean, I was talking about Jossie's Diets.
• 20:12
  We used to film on film on a location and then come into a studio when,
• 20:18
  in fact, I remember building a set.
• 20:21
  It was supposed to be a leisure center where they were doing various – they
• 20:26
  were practicing football and doing various things.
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  And we built this huge set. It had been much cheaper for us to actually go to
• 20:34
  a leisure center and build film and all that.
• 20:36
  But for some reason to do with costings, they did it that way.
• 20:40
  And if you look at all those classic, if you look at Bad Dad's Army,
• 20:44
  you know, which still gets repeated, a lot of it is studio with a studio audience.
• 20:48
  A lot of it is on location.
• 20:51
  Nowadays, if you look at any series, most of it will be filmed on location.
• 20:56
  And to be honest, I think it looks better. Yeah, you can tell the difference, can't you?
• 21:02
  The standard is very good. And obviously, the improvements in the quality of
• 21:07
  the pitch is so much better.
• 21:09
  When I was growing up, as probably yourself, it's all black and white then.
• 21:14
  Oh, steady on there, Mr. Pugh. I wasn't quite black and white.
• 21:20
  I'll tell you what I do remember. And my mom tells me she used to put me in
• 21:24
  front of the test card as a baby in a bouncer.
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  And you sort of think, I just looked at that test card for hours.
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  And then that's the sort of thing you do and torture places now you know,
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  and you sort of think goodness how easily entertained were we,
• 21:40
  you know, I remember looking at that test card and actually being scared of
• 21:43
  some of the images in it, you know there was a clown, the clown used to wind
• 21:47
  me up I think actually, but it's just amazing how things have progressed,
• 21:52
  I'm going to come back take a break and come back to Radio Alty and you know,
• 21:56
  your love of radio and what the last number of years because you've been on
• 21:59
  pretty much six years almost,
• 22:02
  I think. Is that right? No?
• 22:04
  How many? I joined June 20th. Where are we? 24th. My goodness.
• 22:11
  My goodness. You're a mere baby of the team, Mr. Pugh. I am a baby.
• 22:16
  You are. Well, there you go. I can't believe that. That was after lockdown then. That's my memory.
• 22:22
  Anyway, today we're talking to the man of the big radio alt-day breakfast, Ed Pugh.
• 22:27
  I'm listening to him on a Monday morning from 8 to 10. We'll be back with Ed.
• 22:30
  But wrapping up about him and VideoAlti at six in a wee minute's time.
• 22:38
  This is the Late Late Lunch Show with Rod Maxwell on Radio Alty.
• 22:45
  So I can't believe it's only been a couple of years. Yeah.
• 22:51
  Wow. And you've clocked up over 100 shows. I'm up to 122 on Monday.
• 23:00
  And I've done various things. We did one 60s revolution with 30s,
• 23:06
  and I've done a few other singer-songwriter and duet shows. Yes, yes. Specials.
• 23:12
  Specials. And, yeah, I should really be able to do more, but I have seven grandchildren.
• 23:20
  I'm not blaming them, but because they're all our dear daughters,
• 23:25
  all live nearby, Mom, Dad, could you?
• 23:29
  And of course we're delighted to do that because they won't be young ones No,
• 23:34
  and they keep you young as well, don't they?
• 23:37
  And they're great fun It's funny because I have to get used to the idea that
• 23:42
  I am retired, I'm retired nearly nine years and I find the term retirement odd
• 23:47
  because I've never been busier in a way and that is the thing, isn't it?
• 23:51
  You often find, where did you have the time to do the things you're doing now when you worked? Yes,
• 23:56
  Yeah, exactly. Tim Vine interviewed Ken Dodd.
• 24:02
  And Ken Dodd was around 90 at the time. And Tim Vine said, do you think you'll
• 24:07
  ever retire, Ken? He said, no, I won't retire.
• 24:10
  He said, age is just a number. He said, the only thing that needs to worry about age is cheese.
• 24:18
  I love that. Cheese and good wine.
• 24:22
  Cheese and good wine. Well, you see, I do totally agree with that philosophy.
• 24:27
  I think the days where you were tired and you stopped and you sat and you watched
• 24:32
  TV or whatever, they are for the past.
• 24:35
  They are for the 70s, early 80s. Now, it's about engaging your mind and yourself
• 24:42
  in other things and getting interested. And I believe in curiosity as a really
• 24:47
  core skill in lots of things.
• 24:49
  And actually, I find it in radio. But it's good for the brain as well,
• 24:53
  because it makes you go and search, Ed.
• 24:55
  Well, exactly. I search on, I won't name the streaming service,
• 24:59
  but, you know, I look on there and I think, oh, that sounds interesting. What's that?
• 25:04
  And as you know, my Monday show, I tried to play, well, across the decades, you know.
• 25:12
  I think originally was it
• 25:14
  yesterday's classics and today's hits and
• 25:18
  forever songs but and in a
• 25:21
  way that is what I do and the thing I put
• 25:24
  into the mix I suppose was a classical selection and a comedy clip I think because
• 25:29
  I'd always had an interest in comedy and I just felt that after nine o'clock
• 25:34
  it was quite nice to attend to probably play the karma classics although you
• 25:40
  You know, played some raucous ones as well.
• 25:43
  And the comedy, actually, out of all the things I have to put together,
• 25:47
  that is the hardest thing.
• 25:50
  Because all the modern comics, as you know, sweat.
• 25:54
  So, you know, the number of times I've sat down and think, oh,
• 25:58
  this is going quite well.
• 25:59
  We've had three minutes and we haven't had a swear word and then it suddenly comes up.
• 26:03
  Now, I could bleep it, I suppose, but I don't think that's very good.
• 26:07
  And so I often rely on the classic.
• 26:10
  I mean, there's Milton Jones and Tim Vine who don't swear, so that's all right.
• 26:15
  But it's trying to find material that, you know, someone can have a bit of a
• 26:21
  laugh to. Do you know, I get caught out with that a lot with new music.
• 26:26
  And often I'm trying to play new music. And if I see an artist and I think,
• 26:29
  yes, I like that, I don't often listen all the way through before my show.
• 26:33
  I play it, you know, on the show.
• 26:35
  And I played one yesterday. And it's a local artist, well, Manchester-based.
• 26:40
  And we're all about, of course, exposure.
• 26:42
  And I'm sure he doesn't need our exposure, but you want to play it.
• 26:45
  And no sooner was I heard a word. I was thinking, what?
• 26:49
  And I had to fade him out. And I'm like, just make it easier for us.
• 26:54
  Just do clean versions. And if you want explicit versions, just make it a wee
• 26:58
  bit easier for us, really.
• 27:00
  Exactly. It would help. I think, well, I played The Last Dinner Party and I hadn't listened to it.
• 27:05
  And I got holed up by Tony Spilsbury.
• 27:10
  We allow this word on air.
• 27:14
  Well, that is one of the signs of the times, isn't it, really?
• 27:18
  And actually it's very hard to know what is allowable sometimes and what's not,
• 27:24
  I do slightly get upset, not upset, but I find that swearing on the way comedians
• 27:34
  do sometimes swear is totally unnecessary.
• 27:37
  And a lot of people laugh at the swear words. You're not actually, anyone can do that.
• 27:43
  I think it was different in the 80s. It was different in the 80s when there was none of that.
• 27:48
  So when Frankie Goes to Hollywood brought in Relax, that was so different.
• 27:53
  It had the shock factor. Now, for me, it doesn't have a shock factor and actually
• 27:58
  it doesn't give you an extra edge, really.
• 28:01
  No, no, I think it's a shame, but there you go.
• 28:04
  Without sounding as if I'm approved at all, you know, we're all known to swear.
• 28:10
  But yeah, yeah, but there you go. Well, look, it's a pleasure to speak to you.
• 28:14
  It's funny how we're a reasonably large team. We're often the team that fluctuates,
• 28:18
  but there's some regulars, but we often don't get together.
• 28:21
  It's great to see you. I love the show as I do all the Monday,
• 28:25
  all the shows across the Radio World, the Big Breakfast slot.
• 28:29
  And I love the fact each one of them has its own take on what a breakfast show
• 28:33
  is and that's what it's about I think Well I started doing a trail that I sometimes
• 28:39
  play which is the radio audio breakfast show different every day because everybody
• 28:44
  has a different take on what breakfast is you know.
• 28:48
  Dennis plays you know probably mostly 60s, 70s, 80s although he had a Foo Fighters
• 28:55
  this morning He did I was walking I heard the foos and I had to think is this
• 29:00
  our Dennis? It was great actually.
• 29:03
  Exactly. And then you know and everyone else Katie Lou on Friday is much more modern you know so I
• 29:10
  go between well I think if I can play by the end of a programme if someone's
• 29:17
  listened to me very kindly you know maybe there's something in there for everyone is quite nice.
• 29:24
  Ed Richards-Pew thank you very much indeed.
• 29:30
  This is the late late lunch show with back to the garden childcare where little
• 29:35
  explorers grow naturally.