Tomorrow Johnnie Walker will present his last edition of Sounds of the Seventies. Last night he presented the last edition of his Rock Show. After 58 years on radio, he is retiring, and it feels truly like an end of an era.
Johnnie Walker was one of the original pirates. Like Tony Blackburn - who is also still broadcasting on Radio 2 - they began their careers on the pirate radio stations, in particular the legendary Radio Caroline, intended to break up the monopoly that the BBC had at the time, ‘And look where we both ended up!’ they joked in a special programme broadcast earlier this year, Battle of the Pirates.
This year Johnnie was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis - scarring of the lungs - a terminal condition that has made it very difficult for him to do his shows. But he made no mention of it on his programme that I was aware of until September, after a listener wrote a beautiful letter to him, asking him when he does go, to send our love to Steve Wright - who passed away in February.
It was a shock. The thought that each edition of Johnnie Walker’s programme might be his last was deeply upsetting.
It was then that I realised how much we take radio presenters and radio itself for granted. For years we have listened to Johnnie Walker. My mother grew up in the seventies, and we both love seventies music. It really is the best decade of music.
And then on 6th October he announced he would be retiring.
‘Now, that leads me to be making a very sad announcement.
The struggles I’ve had with doing the show and trying to sort of keep up a professional standard suitable for Radio 2 has been getting more and more difficult, hence my little jokes about Puffing Billy, so I’ve had to make the decision that I need to bring my career to an end after 58 years.
And so I’ll be doing my last Sounds of the 70s on 27 October, so I’ll make the last three shows as good as I possibly can.’
As good as he possibly can! - when for months he had been suffering but I couldn’t detect a trace of it! His October shows have been excellent as they always have been, with the best selection of music and lovely messages from listeners. I so wanted to write to him, request a song for my mother - but I couldn’t find the words. So I’m writing this instead.
And I think, apart from expressing our sadness for his diagnosis and that he is retiring - I think all listeners want to thank Mr Walker for 58 years of being with us. I say ‘being with us’ because ‘broadcasting’ or ‘presenting’ is a poor word for what the legends do when they ‘present’ a show. Radio is not just about the music - in fact I say it is more about the presenter than the music. You feel that they are talking to you, keeping you company. It’s strange when you think about it, but these people are strangers: Johnnie Walker, Tony Blackburn or the late Steve Wright - all strangers. But you don’t feel that they are. You feel that if you met them in the street you could just start talking to them. It’s unique - you don’t get that with television presenters, singers, actors.
As Liza Tarbuck (herself one of the legends) said on a special programme broadcast in August marking what would have been Steve Wright’s 70th birthday - that you can tell on radio whether someone is genuine or not because it is just the presenter and listener. There’s nowhere to hide. That’s why people say that they feel that presenters are speaking directly to them: that warmth, that genuine quality cannot be faked.
It is this warmth that makes traditional radio. Live radio with DJs who guide you through the music in a way that makes sense, unlike a playlist on shuffle that plays all sorts of random stuff. Live radio with news bulletins, travel updates and hiccups. It feels increasingly under threat by consumerist, on-demand streaming services that while supposedly giving us more choice, do not keep us company the way that radio does. A constant stream of music, ‘curated to your taste’, is cold, restricted. I hardly listen to Spotify anymore; I listen almost entirely to live radio and I don’t miss the element of choice (there are many radio stations to choose from anyway - Radio 2 is our favourite - the nation’s favourite.) You learn so much from the great presenters too: Tony Blackburn describes Paul Gambaccini as the ‘professor of pop’ and Johnnie Walker’s interviews are always interesting, to hear artists such as Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles and James Taylor discussing their life and work.
What deepens our sadness is the fact that Johnnie’s retirement means that Tony Blackburn is the last of the original pirates remaining. He still presents Sounds of the Sixties and the Golden Hour, and Johnnie’s retirement is making me appreciate these even more. Because Tony and Johnnie are the last connection to the old days, the old ways. At a time when everything feels unsettled, radio is a routine, perhaps a bit of a refuge from the chaos. Once the last of the pirates and the legends sail away, we will be quite lost.
But for now we simply say that we’ll miss you, Johnnie. It won’t be the same without you.