Barry Alldis (5 December 1930 – 21 November 1982) was an Australian presenter on British radio, most notably on the English service of

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 ...

. Alldis' contribution to UK radio is commemorated in the

Radio Academy The Radio Academy is a registered charity dedicated to "the encouragement, recognition and promotion of excellence in UK broadcasting and audio production". It was formed in 1983 and is run via a board of trustees, with a chair and a deputy chair ...

's Hall of Fame.

Broadcasting career

Barry Alldis, born in

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, Australia, gained a music scholarship at Sydney University, becoming an accomplished pianist and trumpeter. He soon became involved in local radio, first as an announcer on Radio 2TM Tamworth and then as a disc-jockey on station 4BH in Brisbane. Alldis moved to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

in 1955, first taking a series of odd jobs including that of nightclub pianist. In 1956 he became one of the small team of "resident announcers" at

's studios in

Luxembourg City Luxembourg ( lb, Lëtzebuerg; french: Luxembourg; german: Luxemburg), also known as Luxembourg City ( lb, Stad Lëtzebuerg, link=no or ; french: Ville de Luxembourg, link=no; german: Stadt Luxemburg, link=no or ), is the capital city of the Gr ...

, broadcasting primarily to Britain and Ireland, although the station, boasting one of the most powerful transmitters in the world, was also heard across

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...

. Radio Luxembourg's resident English team had to cover all the continuity announcing—of which there was a lot, since many of the sponsored programmes (pre-recorded in London, though this was never explained to the listeners) lasted only 15 minutes—as well as presenting several hours of live programmes per day themselves, largely based on playing records of popular music to fill up all the time not sold as sponsored programming, in practice usually the early evening plus the late evening through to the small hours of the morning. Alldis acquired the knack of somehow always sounding enthusiastic both about all the products he was required to "plug" in the spot commercials and about the record requests from listeners flooding into the station every day. Quickly promoted to Chief Announcer, he stayed in Luxembourg (where he married a local girl) for 10 years, and built up a considerable following throughout Europe: for many listeners in that era, Alldis ''was'' Radio Luxembourg. In 1966 he moved to London to work as a freelance disc-jockey and newsreader/continuity announcer, initially mostly for the

BBC Light Programme The BBC Light Programme was a national radio station which broadcast chiefly mainstream light entertainment and light music from 1945 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 1. It opened on 29 July 1945, taking over the ...

and, after their launch in September 1967, for both the pop music station

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, ...

and the "middle-of-the-road" station BBC Radio 2. (In fact the distinction between the two outputs was blurred for the first several years because they were merged for substantial periods of each day including for Alldis' Thursday edition of ''Late Night Extra''.) In 1975 Alldis went back to Luxembourg and returned to the radio station where he had made his name. He quickly became one of the radio station's biggest audience draws once again, returning to Sunday evenings with the Top 20. He remained on air until his death in 1982 at the age of 52.

Programmes

Alldis presented many popular music programmes. He was best known for the weekly ''Top Twenty Show'' on Radio Luxembourg, which he anchored from 1958 until 1966. At the BBC he hosted numerous disc-based shows at different periods, including ''Monday, Monday'', ''Newly Pressed'', ''Swingalong'', ''Late Night Extra'', ''Album Time'' and ''The Early Show''.

Catchphrases

* "Your DJ, B.A." * "Whether at home or on the highway, thanks for tuning my way"

Other achievements

*Alldis was an occasional contributor to the weekly London paper '' New Musical Express''. He also wrote popular songs, some of which were performed on the BBC. *On a couple of occasions in 1961/62 he was the "Guest DJ" on ABC TV's ''Thank Your Lucky Stars''. *He acted a role as "The compere" of a music concert—more or less playing himself—in Pinewood Studios' film thriller ''

Blind Corner ''Blind Corner'' (U.S. ''Man in the Dark'') is a 1964 British thriller film directed by Lance Comfort and starring William Sylvester and Barbara Shelley. It also features popular singer of the time Ronnie Carroll playing himself. The film ...

'' (1963).

References

External links

Barry Alldis page on the ''Radio Rewind'' website
(includes two audio clips and a photograph)
"Your Station of the Stars" article on the ''Transdiffusion'' website
(includes another picture of Barry Alldis)

(more pictures)

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20041027225225/http://www.geocities.com/thehotw/AirLegAlldis.htm Aircheck Legends: Barry Alldis pagebr> Dick Offringa's Radio Luxembourg page
(includes a very rare 21-second video clip of Barry Alldis at work in the Luxembourg studio in 1964) {{DEFAULTSORT:Alldis, Barry Australian radio personalities British radio personalities British radio DJs 1930 births 1982 deaths British radio people Radio Luxembourg (English) presenters BBC Radio 2 presenters 20th-century British musicians