Desmond Carrington

Desmond Carrington (born 23 May 1926)^[1] is a British actor and broadcaster, best known for his weekly evening show, The Music Goes Round, on BBC Radio 2. His show went out on Sundays for 23 years from 1981 to 2004, when it moved to Tuesdays – then to Fridays, until his final broadcast on 28 October 2016. He was born in Bromley, Kent and lives in Perthshire.

Career

Carrington's first professional stage appearance was in 1942, when he played Cockney schoolboy Roberts in James Hilton's play Goodbye, Mr. Chips at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, opposite Noel Johnson, as Mr. Chips – Johnson was the radio voice of Dick Barton.^[2] Carrington was conscripted into the army a year later. At the end of World War II, he joined a British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) radio station in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).^[3]

He returned to the UK a few years later and worked as a radio producer as well as acting on TV, where he became known for his role as Dr. Anderson in Emergency – Ward 10. He also starred in two of the thirteen A Case For Dr. Morelle radio shows, in 1957, with Cecil Parker as the lead, and appeared as Uncle Jim in the Children's Film Foundation film Calamity the Cow (1967), which starred a young Phil Collins. With Spencer Hale, Carrington presented Movie Go Round on the BBC Light Programme (now Radio 2) on Sunday afternoons in the 1950s.^[4]

In 1981, he started a radio show on BBC Radio 2 entitled 'All Time Greats', which was broadcast for two hours every Sunday from 1pm. Although initially broadcast from a BBC studio, his first live broadcast from his home in Perthshire was on August 31, 1997. In 2004, it was moved to an hourly slot on a Tuesday evening, and a few years later to a Friday night. The show was called 'The Music Goes Round' with a usual weekly theme of music, an occasional special 50's night and musical nights. He introduces every show with the greeting "Evening all, from home in Perthshire" and then always ends his show with "Bye just now!" and "...of course, thank you for having us [the "us" emphasised] at your place" not forgetting a reference to his cat, "Golden Paws" Sam.^[1][3]

He was awarded the Gold Badge of Merit in 1989 by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors,^[5] and he was voted British Radio Personality of the Year in 1991.^[4]

On his show on 30 September 2016, Carrington confirmed his intention to hang up his headphones after three decades on the airwaves and presented his last show on 28 October 2016^[3] He opened his last show with the same song that had opened the programme in 1981 - "Up, Up and Away" by the Johnny Mann Singers and closed it with Mel Tormé's "That's All". He thanked listeners, without whom, he said "the whole thing would have been quite pointless". Carrington was praised by BBC Director General Tony Hall who said:

^[6]

References