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I'd been aware if Alistair Cooke's radio program, Letter
From America, for quite a number of years. I had even heard the odd one or 2. His program
usually played on Friday evenings on the BBC's "Home Service" which later became
Radio 4. I can't say that I had ever really been interested in what he had to say until I
moved to America. Like most ex-pats one of the first things I did was to tune in to the
BBC World Service. In my case it was more out of a desperation to hear some proper news
rather than the non news I see on the TV here in New York; the radio was even worse. As I write this this page I've been in the US for a little over 6 years. I'm now married to an American for a little under 4 years and have a 9 month old American daughter. Whilst I still carry a UK passport I consider myself to me an American. Being an American is something that one cannot explain. You either get it or you don't. Almost all of my UK colleagues whom come over to the US return within a few years failing to understand what America and Americans are about. Alistair Cooke 'got' America. He then wrote about it in such a way as to make others understand. He is even credited with making the Americans themselves understand. He wrote many books and even a TV series about American history which resides in every library in America. It seems than many Americans don't 'get' it either. After the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center there were no radio services available in New York (the towers house the transmitters and antennas). The only available news source for some time was out of area services from stations that used transmitter sites in New Jersey and Connecticut. I tuned to the BBC World Service on my short-wave set and listened. I took it with me on my Red Cross duties to Ground Zero and the rest shelters. |
News, news. news. After a while I began to get bored with it. The Red Cross started warning us about the psychological aspects of "total media immersion". It was Sunday lunchtime in New York and I was about to turn off the radio when Cooke's program came on.
Have you heard Letter From America get introduced on the BBC? Considering that it is the worlds longest running speech radio program you'd think they'd build it up a bit. Nope. In the time I have been listening to it I don't think I've ever heard the announcer get excited about it. They have more enthusiasm for a dodgey soap opera called Westway. Cooke's tone of voice somehow made me stop and listen. For the first time in almost a week I found myself able to relax for 10 minutes and shut out my surroundings. That was the day I became an American.
The sole reason I have an XM Satellite Radio in my car is to listen to Cooke. Not long after 9/11 I bought a house and moved about 40 miles west of New York City. Commuting to work every day listening to the crap on the local radio was driving me mad. One day I heard on the BBC a reference their service via the XM Satellite Radio system. Now I'd heard of WorldSpace but knew it was not available in the US. A little digging around and I found it. XM was a newly launched satellite radio service similar to WordSpace. Great! now I can listen to the World Service in my car. $200 later I was on the road with XM installed in my Ford Explorer.
Since that time I have also become interested in DRM. A digital way to transmit short-wave radio stations. Every evening the BBC transmits 30 minutes of news and current affairs and then follows it with 30 minutes of other programming. Sundays is Letter From America!
Seeing as how I need a computer to listen to DRM it wasn't very difficult to get the computer to record the program. This made it easier for me to listen to programs as I now didn't have to be in front of the radio until it suited me. Cooke's program would go out early Sunday evening via Radio Canada's Sackville DRM relay and my computer would record it.
Most of the time I'd load up the file into my MiniDisc player and listen to it in the car on the way to work one morning. Having moved it to my player I deleted the file from the computer. Little did I know that I had accidentally recorded Cooke's last program. The following Sunday my wife and I were just getting out of the car to take the baby for a walk in the park when they announced on the radio that Cooke would not be on today because of ill health. They then announced that he was 95 years old! I didn't think much of it. People get sick all the time. the 95 bit didn't really hit me until later that day. A few days later I heard on the BBCWSNews that Cooke had announced his retirement and that in 57 years of broadcasting he had only ever missed 3 Letters From America.
I had the pleasure of meeting Alistair Cooke in 2003. I was invited to attend a lecture at the UN building on 42nd Street in celebration of the BBC World Service's 70th anniversary given by Kofi Annan. At the party afterwards I was introduced to Cooke whom upon learning that I was a radio ham talked at length about "steam wireless". He was fascinating.
© & ® Mark A Phillips, G7LTT 1995-2004
This page was last updated Tuesday March 09, 2004 13:31 Eastern Standard Time