08. WHATEVER WILL THE NEIGHBOURS THINK

Although it was not against the law, my mother was not too happy about me listening to pro­grammes -in Dutch or otherwise- from the USSR. Her displeasure grew ex­ponentially how­ever when I re­ceived a letter from Russia and the postman decided to deliver it to the wrong address, a bit further up the road. “Whatever will the neighbours think”, she sighed disapprovingly. My mother, having seen the Gestapo at close quarters during the war, felt sure that our family must now be under the watchful eye of whatever equivalent organisation was bound to be in existence in Belgium… I, on the other hand, was delighted having received a commemorative pin and a letter (on cheap rice paper) singing the praises of Gherman Titov. On the 6th of August 1961 he had become the second man in space. In the event it proved that my early flirtation with Russian radio did not summon the secret police to our house, much to the relief of my mother. 

Radio Moscow be­gan broadcasting to The Netherlands and Flanders as far back as 1930. During the height of the Cold War Russia was on the air in 65 languages, including three half hour programmes in Dutch every evening. The station had one of the best known interval signals. Moscow could be picked up easily in shortwave and -from transmitters in East Germany or the Baltic states- also on medium wave. Transmissions in Dutch and many other languages were discontinued in 1994, when the roubles ran out, some time after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

More of AJ's radio- and other anecdotes.

05. GETTING TO GRIPS WITH BBC ENGLISH

On New Year’s day 1961, I saw my meagre savings gratefully topped up by my grandmother. That meant that on the second of January I could go radio hunting in Bruges clutching a 500 franc note (just over £4 at the time), being the sum of my worldly possessions. My quest for a new, inexpensive and cheap to run portable radio of the transistor persuasion was soon met with success. I returned home with a small hand-held radio, an ear-to-ear smile and 5 francs to spare.

The new transistor radio fulfilled all my expectations. It was small, loud, clear and cost hardly anything to run. Apart from that, it managed to capture far away stations that had failed to register on the Tesla. An added bonus, which I only discovered after I got home, was the fact that the set even had ‘Shortwave’! 

Whilst studying in my room I also started listening to ‘English by Radio’ from the BBC. Every day I tuned in to programmes for beginners and intermediate learners. The lessons were broadcast on 648 (where now Caroline lurks :) and 1296 kHz, the loudest channels on the Medium Wave at the time. I sent off £ 2.5 to an address in Brussels and subsequently obtained a year’s subscription to a weekly magazine, which included the texts of the dictation exercises that had been broadcast the previous week. That was a great help for a budding learner of English. After many spelling trials and tribulations I got quite good at it. In fact I had turned learning English into a hobby. Thanks to the BBC my knowledge of the language increased in leaps and bounds. I didn’t have the faintest idea then, that at some time in the future I would become a stringer for one of the BBC stations. I’m sure that would never have happened if it had not been for that small transistor radio. 

More of AJ's radio- and other anecdotes.