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Peter Drummond-Hay (born 29 July 1943), known professionally as Pete Drummond, is a British
voice artist
Voice acting is the art of performing voice-overs to present a character or provide information to an audience. Performers are called voice actors/actresses, voice artists, dubbing artists, voice talent, voice-over artists, or voice-over talent ...
and former
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
and
pirate radio
Pirate radio or a pirate radio station is a radio station that broadcasts without a valid license.
In some cases, radio stations are considered legal where the signal is transmitted, but illegal where the signals are received—especially w ...
disc jockey
A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include Radio personality, radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music f ...
and announcer.
Biography
Early years and pirate radio
He was born in
Bangor,
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
. His parents were Geoffrey Francis Drummond-Hay and Margaret Felon, married in 1936. His father fought in World War 1.
As a child he lived in
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
and
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, before attending
Millfield School
Millfield is a public school (English independent day and boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) located in Street, Somerset, England. It was founded in 1935.
Millfield is a registered charity and is the largest co-educational boarding scho ...
alongside later
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...
colleague
Tony Blackburn
Anthony Kenneth Blackburn (born 29 January 1943) is an English disc jockey, singer and TV presenter. He first achieved fame broadcasting on the pirate stations Radio Caroline and Radio London in the 1960s, before joining the BBC, on the BBC L ...
. He trained as an actor and toured the US, where he realised that, following the "
British Invasion
The British Invasion was a cultural phenomenon of the mid-1960s, when rock and pop music acts from the United Kingdom and other aspects of British culture became popular in the United States and significant to the rising "counterculture" on b ...
", English accents were in demand on radio stations. He worked as an announcer in
Wichita and
Topeka, Kansas
Topeka ( ; Kansa language, Kansa: ; iow, Dópikˀe, script=Latn or ) is the Capital (political), capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the County seat, seat of Shawnee County, Kansas, Shawnee County. It is along the Kansas River in the ...
, before returning to Britain in 1966. He then joined the staff of
pirate
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...
station
Radio London, where he had his own shows during the station's final months on air. His nickname was “Dum Dum” and the music he adopted as his theme tune was the 1966 track "Marble Breaks, Iron Bends" recorded on
Fontana
Fontana may refer to:
Places
Italy
*Fontana Liri, comune in the Province of Frosinone
*Fontanafredda, comune in the Province of Pordenone
*Fontanarosa, comune in the Province of Avellino
*Francavilla Fontana, comune in the Province of Brindisi
* ...
records by Peter Fenton. Each of his shows ended with a piece of advice saying “Smile, it makes everyone else wonder what you've been up to.” The station closed at 3pm on Monday, 14 August 1967.
[ The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame: Pete Drummond]
Retrieved 5 November 2013
BBC Radio 1 years
He joined Radio 1 from its start in September 1967, and, as someone who was seen as both ''
avant garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or 'vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical De ...
'' and reliable, was used as one of the early presenters of ''
Top Gear
Top Gear may refer to:
* "Top gear", the highest gear available in a vehicle's manual transmission
Television
* ''Top Gear'' (1977 TV series), a British motoring magazine programme
* ''Top Gear'' (2002 TV series), a relaunched version of the or ...
'', along with
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey (DJ) and radio presenter. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly fr ...
who later took over the programme. In 1977 the BBC chose him to present a series of 11 radio programmes, scripted by Pete Frame and John Tobler, called ''Summer of '67'' which concentrated on the music and sounds ten years previous. Between September 1978 and March 1981 he presented the BBC2 rock programme called
Rock Goes to College
''Rock Goes to College'' (RGTC) was a BBC series that ran between 1978 and 1981 on British television. A variety of up-coming rock oriented bands were showcased live from small venues and broadcast simultaneously on television and radio during ...
which featured bands playing at university campuses.
Drummond continued presenting radio and occasionally TV programmes for the BBC until the early 1990s, often featuring
progressive rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...
music on programmes such as ''
Disco 2'', ''
Sounds of the Seventies
''Sounds of the 70s'' is the name of BBC radio programme, currently broadcast on Sundays by BBC Radio 2, with the ''Sounds of the Seventies'' name also having been used by BBC Television for a number of themed music compilations, now repeated ...
'' and ''Sight and Sound In Concert'' (a BBC initiative to provide simultaneous pictures on BBC2 television and stereo radio broadcasts on BBC Radio 1, as stereo television broadcasts and receivers did not exist at the time).
[ David Symonds, "One-Der Boys....", ''The Independent'', 27 September 1992]
Retrieved 5 November 2013
He also worked for the
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...
and
Radio Luxembourg
Radio Luxembourg was a multilingual commercial broadcaster in Luxembourg. It is known in most non-English languages as RTL (for Radio Television Luxembourg).
The English-language service of Radio Luxembourg began in 1933 as one of the earlies ...
.
Pete Drummond at Allmusic.com
Retrieved 5 November 2013 He left the BBC in 1991. On 11 July 1997 he attended, along with other DJs, the launch of the BBC documentary ''The Radio One Story'', which commemorated the 30th anniversary of the radio station.
Voice-over experience
After leaving the BBC, he became a leading voice-over performer in Britain, his voice often appearing in advertisements and film trailers.[ In 2004 he was the voice over for the TV movie about ]Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...
called ''Charging for Alexander''. On 29 April 2011 Drummond did the voice commentary for the Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton
The wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton took place on Friday, 29 April 2011 at Westminster Abbey in London, England. The groom was second in the line of succession to the British throne. The couple had been in a relationship since ...
on the live broadcast made by the Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...
.
Personal life
Drummond married Carolyn Macdonald in 1966; they divorced in 1972. He married Celia Humphris (1950-2021), the singer with the Trees
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are u ...
folk band, on 26 August 1972 at Kensington Register Office. They divorced in 1995; in later life Celia Drummond-Ford became an automated announcer on the British railway network. She died in France, aged 70, on 11 January 2021. Drummond married Julie Margaret White in 2002.[ Peter Drummond-Hay, ''ThePeerage.com'']
Retrieved 3 December 2021 His sister Alison Drummond-Hay was born in 1946 and died from leukaemia
Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...
in France, aged 63, in 2009. He has two children, a daughter born 1966 from his first marriage, and a son born 1974 from his second marriage.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Drummond, Pete
1943 births
Living people
BBC Radio 1 presenters
Offshore radio broadcasters
People educated at Millfield
People from Bangor, Gwynedd
Radio Luxembourg (English) presenters