meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Best of the Spectator

Book Club, from the archives: Annie Nightingale

Best of the Spectator

The Spectator

News Commentary, News, Daily News, Society & Culture

4.4785 Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2024

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Broadcaster and Radio DJ Annie Nightingale passed away earlier this year. In memory of her, please enjoy this episode of the Book Club podcast, from the archives, in which she joined Sam Leith in 2020 to talk about the publication of her book Hey Hi Hello.  

Annie Nightingale was Britain’s first female DJ, an occasional Spectator contributor, and the longest serving presenter of Radio One. Annie spoke to Sam about the Beatles’ secrets, BBC sexism, getting into rave culture, the John Peel she knew - and how while most people never get past the music they love in their teens, she’s never lost her drive to hear tunes she’s never heard before.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

You can get three months of The Spectator for just £15 and a free bottle of Proreauze

0:04.8

champagne if you go to spectator.com.uk for slash jingle. This offer is UK only and subject to

0:11.0

availability. Hello and welcome to the Book Club podcast. I'm Sam Leith, literary editor for The Spectator.

0:23.2

And this year, in honour of the death of the late Annie Nightingale, we're delving into the archives

0:28.5

to revive our 2020 interview with her on the launch of her book, Hey, Hi, Hello, when Annie talks

0:35.8

for me about her five decades at the front line of pop culture.

0:40.3

And this week, I'm very excited to be joined by Annie Nightingale,

0:44.1

who is the first female DJ in Britain, the longest serving employee of Radio One.

0:51.3

She is MBE, CBE, BBC. She's the queen of it all. And her new book is called

0:58.6

Hey, Hi, Hello, which has, I think, the friendliest title of any book we've yet had on this

1:03.9

podcast. Annie, tell me what you were trying to do with this memoir in particular, because it

1:09.1

sort of goes through the story of your life

1:11.5

but you've written about your life before what's this one doing that's different that's expanding

1:17.4

it right well yeah i've written autobiography before this is not an autobiography this is about 50 years

1:26.6

of pop culture and the thread is it starts in 1970 when I began with

1:31.8

Radio 1 so that's where it starts and then right up to now up to Billy Ilish in 2020

1:39.9

so there's a lot of material interviews and with people I've met along the way. And a lot of them

1:47.1

have never been printed before or ever appeared outside of bits of it appeared on, you know,

1:53.9

I might have appeared on radio or TV. So there's a lot of material to put in, to tell the story

1:59.0

over that. So, you know, the first interview, Mark Boland.

2:03.2

And then, you know, it kind of travels through the music as the music's progressed over the years.

2:10.8

But there's some other, my adventures as well. So things like I was in LA when the riots happened in 1992 and that was

...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -47 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Spectator, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Spectator and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.