THE BIRD HAS FLOWN
PETER KING says farewell to his favourite BBC Radio 3 'Saturday Breakfast' host, Elizabeth Alker
I miss Elizabeth Alker. The bright and breezy voice of BBC Radio 3's Saturday Breakfast had been bringing a taste of northern cheer to the start of the weekend for five years. Then, one morning in early October 2024, I discovered that the bird had flown.
Elizabeth Alker on publicity for BBC Radio 3's Saturday Breakfast
The BBC's puff for the full-English show with a Gallic twist served up from Salford had described the programme as a mélange. It embraced classical music, folk, unclassified tracks, found sounds and the 'world famous' croissant corner, which provided a double dose of chanson until it, too, was suddenly gone. And every week one listener, a certain Dean Rowell, could always be relied on to chip in somewhere with his inevitable morceau.
The Rochdale-born show host, who once joked in an interview with the Sunday Express that she had completely sold out because she was now living in West Yorkshire and was married to a Yorkshireman, is proud of her Lancastrian roots. She is also passionate more generally, as she told the Church Times, about what is happening in the north.
Yet this poster girl for all things female and northern has whipped up a barrage of barbed assaults from male members of the do-her-down brigade. Maybe this is because they have never been further north than Watford Gap or because they regard anyone who uses a short 'a' vowel as a member of the working class.
Michael Tanner had this to say in The Spectator:
... the absolute depths are plumbed by ... Elizabeth Alker, who has introduced a wholly new level of infuriation.
He went on:
... if you are unlucky enough to catch her talking about her choices you will hear the tones that stupid adults use when they address small children… No, worse is there none ... I defy the BBC to find anyone more tasteless and insufferable.
In a post on the social networking site for the over fifties, Gransnet, about irritating radio and television voices, a Radio 3 listener in France slammed the presenter's 'very annoying voice' and cited her pronunciation of 'Wadio Free'. The carper continued:
One would think that Radio 3 would at least employ someone who could pronounce the programme correctly.
A piece by Michael Henderson in The Critic about a patron of high culture being sought to run the classical radio station referred to the search that was on for a successor to the then controller.
Commenting in a publication that declares itself to be Britain's most civilized magazine, he wrote:
Whoever takes on the job could perform one essential service within minutes of taking office, and get rid of 'Northern Drift', the witless entertainment hosted by Alker, which comes from the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge.
For him, high culture and Hebden Bridge apparently could never mix, particularly in such a lowly Yorkshire location - albeit a nationally recognized music venue - and Elizabeth Alker has said that there is a class-based element to some of the sniping.
She explained to one interviewer:
Everyone in the public eye gets trolled, but one listener told me, 'Working class accents don't belong on Radio 3.'
Watch and listen — Elizabeth Alker talks about appreciating classical music
(extracted from The Sacred podcast) © 2024 Theos / Elizabeth Oldfield
One contribution to the debate in 2022 came from an Eric in response to a piece in Slippedisc - allegedly 'the world's most-read cultural website' - about Classic FM and BBC Radio 3 reportedly suffering massive audience losses. He went so far as to suggest that the presenter was actually hampered by some kind of handicap. He wrote:
It's not Elizabeth Alker's accent which is the problem, it's her borderline speech defect. Why would you hire someone who sounds like they're about to lisp as a radio presenter, especially one so woefully ignorant?
At the end of a third quarter when BBC Radio 3 presenters have been crowing about the latest Radio Joint Audience Research results I feel obliged to stand up to the serried ranks of detractors. For me, Elizabeth Alker has been breathing a refreshing bounce into the station's revitalized performance.
Elizabeth Alker working for BBC Radio 3
Echoing the Lake poet's lament for the loss of Lucy, I feel compelled to say, pace Wordsworth, who famously clung to his Cumbrian accent,
Elizabeth, she is gone and, oh,
the Saturday morning difference to me!
(And Dean Rowell, no doubt, would agree.)
Copyright © 30 October 2024
Peter King,
Cambridgeshire UK