''Down Your Way'' was a

BBC radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering ...

series which ran from 29 December 1946 to 1992, originally on the

Home Service Home Service is a British folk rock group, formed in late 1980 from a nucleus of musicians who had been playing in Ashley Hutchings' Albion Band. Their career is generally agreed to have peaked with the album ''Alright Jack'', and has had an ...

, later on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

, usually being broadcast on Sunday afternoons. It visited towns and villages around the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, spoke to residents and played their choice of

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

. It was initially hosted by

Stewart MacPherson (Charles) Stewart Macpherson (29 March 1865 – 27 March 1941) was an English musician of Scottish descent. He was born in Liverpool, and studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He was a student of the composer Walter Cecil Macfarren. I ...

, who presented the first twelve shows, but in 1947, after brief hosting spells by

Lionel Gamlin Lionel James Gamlin (30 April 1903 – 16 October 1967)Lionel Gamlin at IMDb
Retrieved 29 October 2012. ...

and

Wynford Vaughan-Thomas Lewis John Wynford Vaughan-Thomas (né Thomas) (15 August 1908 – 4 February 1987) was a Welsh newspaper journalist and radio and television broadcaster. In later life he took the name Vaughan-Thomas after his father. Early life and educat ...

Richard Dimbleby Frederick Richard Dimbleby (25 May 1913 – 22 December 1965) was an English journalist and broadcaster, who became the BBC's first war correspondent, and then its leading TV news commentator. As host of the long-running current affairs ...

took over its presentation until 1955, then

Franklin Engelmann Henry Franklin Engelmann (4 March 1908 – 2 March 1972) was a radio personality popular in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly as the host of ''Down Your Way'' and ''Gardeners' Question Time''. Life and career Franklin Engelmann was bor ...

until his death in 1972 when Brian Johnston took over until 1987. In 1975, despite then being the second most popular programme on radio, it was taken off the air as an 'economy measure'. It was subsequently reinstated, after a storm of popular protest. From 1987 until its demise in 1992 it had a different celebrity host every week, who would visit a place of significance in their own liveseffectively turning it into 'Down My Way' and blending it into the then-emerging

celebrity culture Celebrity culture is a high-volume exposure to celebrities' personal lives on a global scale. It is inherently tied to consumer interests where celebrities transform their fame to become product brands. Whereas a culture can usually be physically ...

. Its well-remembered signature tune was "Horse Guards,

Whitehall Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London. The road forms the first part of the A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea. It is the main thoroughfare running south from Trafalgar Square towards Parliament Sq ...

" by

Haydn Wood Haydn Wood (25 March 1882 – 11 March 1959) was a 20th-century English composer and concert violinist, best known for his 200 or so ballad style songs, including the popular ''Roses of Picardy''. Life Haydn Wood was born in the West Riding ...

. In the early 1980s the show was satirised on ''

The Kenny Everett Television Show ''The Kenny Everett Television Show'' is a comedy sketch show broadcast on BBC1 from 1981 to 1988. It was presented by its main performer Kenny Everett, who wrote the material with Barry Cryer and Ray Cameron. Later in 1986 they were joined by ...

'' as "Up Your Way", a saccharine television version presented by "Verity Treacle". In 1984, it was parodied by '' Radio Active'' as "Round Your Parts".

References

External links

''Down Your Way''
at whirligig-tv.co.uk BBC Home Service programmes Cultural geography BBC Radio 4 programmes {{BBC-radio-stub