Tony Walker, the beloved BBC radio broadcaster, began his career in the 1960s with a revolutionary approach to music and happiness. His warm and empathetic style resonated with listeners for over five decades, making him a true icon. But Walker's life was also marked by rebellion and self-destruction, as he fought against the rules and battled personal demons.
made his BBC broadcasting debut, in some ways have a dated air, also boasting shows featuring \u201Kenny Everett and his granny phone\u201d and \u201Emperor Rosko\u201s Midday spin\u201d. However the entry at 2pm for Walker – \u201The Saturday afternoon listening revolution with music and happiness for all to share\u201d – pretty much applied for the next 55 years of his working life.
Radio 2 broadcast on 27 October last year – but all his most successful shows filled afternoon airtime and the formula of \u201cmusic and happiness\u201d remained constant. Walker was a notably warm broadcaster, with spiritual beliefs that brought to his broadcasting persona a kindness and empathy rare in an egotistical and ambitious business, leading many listeners to follow him across the five and a half decades of his BBC career. That word \u201crevolution\u201d in the description of his first show for the corporation has a definite 1960s inflection, but Walker always retained a rebellious streak. He leftin the 1970s after complaining about having to play the Bay City Rollers; he was sacked from a station for expressing satisfaction at Baroness Thatcher\u201s resignation; and on another occasion he was suspended after a red-top newspaper photographed him taking cocaine. Even the radio name of someone born Peter Dingley was a borderline copyright infringement which resulted in the ad-free BBC subliminally advertising a Scottish whisky every time the DJ\u2019s name jingle was played.\u201cI hated playing by the rules,\u201d he admitted in his well-written and psychologically honest 2007 autobiography, in which he also lamented \u201ca stupid tendency to self-destruct\u201d. As a teenager, he took a summer job to raise money to buy a cassette recorder. Already a would-be DJ, he taped songs fromand then ad-libbed introductions to them, imagining his bedroom wall as a studio window. But in a moment of angry depression, he later hurled his precious purchase to the concrete path outside – the first of many self-inflicted breaks to his broadcastin
RADIO BROADCASTING TONY WALKER BBC MUSIC
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