Today's 50th birthday
Is fifty the new forty? Or even the new thirty? Anyway we're facing it. Collectively. The Today programme will have been broadcasting for half a century this October - on the 28th to be precise.
But rather than bask in the glow of a golden anniversary we thought we'd share our celebrations with those who share our birthday. We're inviting those who are also turning fifty on 28 October to get in touch. And, should the birthday mood take them, to blog their memories and contribute to an online scrapbook of the Today Generation.
Gradually over the next few months we hope to build up a picture of what today's fifty-year-olds have seen, and how the country has changed as they've grown.
Some have already started blogging - it's all very much in the spirit of Web 2.0, so they write and post pictures and video as much as they want, and then we showcase the best bits on our website and eventually, in October, on air.
At the moment the main focus is on childhood during the 60s and the first news events they remember - the earliest seems to be the very cold winter of 1962-63 - just like the floods, the weather made the news and lodged in the memory of five-year-olds.
More members of the Today generation - born on 28 October 1957 - are very welcome to join in. There are contact details here on our website if you'd like to get in touch.
But just as anyone does when they reach a significant birthday, we've been looking back, contemplating the highs and lows and how we've evolved and "grown". When we found out some of our colleagues in telly wanted to make a programme about us, we felt we were being treated like royalty - only better, we hope, in the light of recent events.
But our blushes of humility were replaced with those of shame when we realised we couldn't look back on our achievements as comprehensively as we'd have liked because we didn't have the tapes. It's an old 91Èȱ¬ problem, due sometimes to over-diligent spring cleaning, sometimes to careless filing. Whatever happened, we haven't got a recording of that first programme from 28 October 1957. It feels a bit like finding your mum has thrown away your first lock of hair, or your dad didn't bother to stick the first photo of you in the family album, but we're bearing up and no fingers are being pointed.
Instead we're asking around to see if anyone else has a recording of that very first programme. There's always a chance a radio enthusiast was taping new output back in 1957, and if anyone did we'd love to hear from them. We know was interviewed and one of the correspondents, Reg Turnill, who made a report for that first ever edition has contacted us to say he has a copy of his script. So we're piecing it together slowly, like bit of pot in an archaeological dig. If you have any fragments of the first ever Today programme, do get in touch.
Comments
Happy birthday! Today remains one of the few serious sources of news when everyone else is dumbing down, and for that you should be very proud.
Just one thing though, please try to resist the creeping dumbing down at the edges: "showcase" is not a verb. "Show" would do perfectly well.
I'm a Today addict. But why does it attract so many pedantic (but incorrect) people trying to preserve in formaldehyde their own version of English? Language changes over time.
In any case, Adam, "Showcase" has a perfectly respectable history as a verb. It's included as such in my Chambers dictionary. Although you may not like the useage, it's a concise and expressive way of conveying a specific meaning: to present, display or demonstrate something as if it were an exhibit. It's the right word here; "Show" would not encapsulate the meaning intended.
Must Sarah Montague be so confrontational? Since she returned to the programnme she can scarcely let an interviewee get out words before she interrupts.
She appears to have a list of prepared questions which she is determined to put.
Apart from short changing the listener it is simply rude.
Sorry, John, but I stand by my earlier comment. Try using the word "show" in that sentence instead of "showcase". You'll find it has exactly the same meaning.
Happy birthday....... Thank you for the wonderful service....