Talk:Wilfred Pickles

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Untitled[edit]

"... and to all in the North, good neet"

I'm amazed that Pickles was actually allowed to say this. Has a recording of this announcement been uploaded anywhere?

Even now, BBC announcers (local and national) do not speak with strong regional accents, and regional dialect words are definitely not permitted. I find it surprising that Pickles could get away with it prior to World War II, when the BBC expected its presenters to use Received Pronunciation and to speak the King's English. 217.155.20.163 12:50, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was always told the reason they used Pickles on the national radio service during the war was precisely because of his regional accent. In the event of an invasion, German forces taking over BBC transmitters would probably not be able to imitate Pickles' dialect properly when broadcasting propaganda. Pickles could thus have been used by British forces as a trusted voice on any transmitters they still controlled. It may even explain why he was allowed onto the radio before the war, as a safeguard against propaganda. I don't have any source to verify all this, but that's what we were taught at school, and it does make sense given that an invasion seemed imminent in the early 1940s and the BBC was very involved in the war effort at all levels.--85.77.244.181 (talk) 22:42, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have read exactly the same story, almost certainly on the BBC website and well worth a mention. We need to find a source. JRPG (talk) 11:26, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have found an article in 2002 issue of The Scotsman. There are few BBC Home Service news programmes available here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00fw73y/clips Unfortunately, I am outside the UK now. I would be grateful if anyone would be so kind as to listen to these programmes and find if there are any read by Pickles. VisualPaul (talk) 17:41, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The first clip is John Pringle, the BMA's press officer. There is no introduction. As you can see from the description the second clip is Stuart Hibberd. The third, with John Wayne, is an unidentified non-Northerner. The "Anglo-Soviet Agreement" announcer is Alvar Lidell. The Birth of HRH Prince Charles announcer is John Snagge. The Cuba Crisis reporter is John Crawley. the announcement of the Royal Betrothal is by Ronald Fletcher. The Buchenwald Concentration Camp reporter is Edward Ward. All the others are self-explanatory or unidentified, but none sound like Pickles. Why were you expecting one there? Martinevans123 (talk) 17:53, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Publicity[edit]

A note of minor consequence but telling of Wikipedia's influence I think. This article has just (10th Jan 2008, 10:30am) been been read out live on BBC Radio Gloucestershire. The presenter (John Rockley, a conspicuous northern presenter on a southern BBC station) caveated the information as "according to the Inter-web". 87.112.84.14 (talk) 10:30, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Ask Pickles" TV series[edit]

There was a 1948 board-game centred on Pickles: [1]. And later a BBC TV show which ran 1954-56: [2], where "Members of the public fulfill their wildest dreams". It was an obvious pre-cursor to such shows as Jim'll Fix It. The publicity blurb for Pickle's show ran: "It doesn't matter how old you are, you can still make your own special dream come true if you get in touch with Wilfred Pickles. Maybe you want to feed a lion or pat a giraffe on the tiny top of his head; or perhaps you'd rather see the lovely lights of London reflected on the Thames, or ride pillion on a motor bike. Maybe you want to meet a film star or you might even want to have a fight-all right! Just ask Wilfred Pickles. He'll try to fix it for you."

Pickles' earlier radio series "Have A Go" had over 20 million listeners a week and a mailbag of around 5,000 letters. Contestants could earn £1/19/11d by sharing "their intimate secrets". Martinevans123 (talk) 17:46, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Have added a little, with the quote. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:35, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Peter and the Wolf[edit]

Pickles was the narrator for at least one recording, in 1952, of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. e.g. [3]. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:07, 8 August 2013 (UTC) Full version is on YouTube: [4][reply]

Hard to believe that this is anything other than a standard RP accent. No "good neets" here? Martinevans123 (talk) 23:04, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Have a Go[edit]

There's a recording of "Have a Go" from 1961 uploaded to YouTube and recently linked to from the Have a Go article.[5] And, indeed, right at the end he says "Good neet"! Thincat (talk) 18:26, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]