John Snagge
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John Derrick Mordaunt Snagge OBE (8 May 1904 – 25 March 1996) was a long-time British newsreader and commentator on BBC Radio. He was educated at Winchester College, a boys' independent school in Winchester, Hampshire, in southern England.
He joined the BBC in 1924 after graduating from Pembroke College, Oxford, taking up the position of assistant director at Stoke-on-Trent's new local radio station. He broadcast his first sports commentary (of a Hull City versus Stoke City football match) in January 1927, after the BBC obtained the rights to cover major sporting events.
In 1928, Snagge was transferred to London to work as one of the BBC's main announcers alongside Stuart Hibberd. From 1931 until 1980, he commentated on the annual Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race. He provided commentary for the coronation of King George VI in 1937 and again in 1953 for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
At the start of World War II, Snagge was made the BBC's presentation director and delivered important radio announcements as the war unfolded. By the time of the D-Day landings in 1944, he was presenting the magazine programme War Report which featured regular news from the beaches of Normandy.
In the early 1950s, Snagge played a role in negotiations that led to the radio comedy series The Goon Show being commissioned by the BBC. He was also the subject of many running gags during the show, and provided many self-parodying announcements, usually recorded. He was a defender of the show against many efforts to cancel it, even to staking his career on it. Later, in the 1970s, he echoed his wartime role by appearing as the newsreader in the radio version of Dad's Army.
On 5 July 1954, John Snagge read the first BBC television news bulletin.
Snagge retired in 1965, but continued to provide commentaries for the Boat Race until 1980. Around this time he also appeared on Noel Edmonds' Radio 1 show on Sunday mornings, a role subsequently taken up by Brian Perkins.
During the 1949 University Boat Race Snagges' voice filled with excitement and he reported: "I can't see who's in the lead but it's either Oxford or Cambridge".
John Snagge died in 1996, aged 91.
[edit] External links
- John Snagge at the Radio Academy's Hall of Fame.
- John Snagge announcing the D Day landings, June 6, 1944
- John Snagge announcing the death of King George VI, February 6, 1952
