A WORTHY CAPTAIN

PETER KING marks BBC presenter Petroc Trelawny's move from dawn to twilight

Day breaks on a brighter note in the company of Petroc Trelawny. For the last fourteen years the presenter of BBC Radio 3's weekday Breakfast show has been a voice of calm, reassuring his listeners that - whatever the chaos elsewhere - there is still something right with the world.

When he introduces Bach before seven you are reminded that there continue to be corners where eternal verities burn brightly. The effect is like listening to the chimes of Big Ben or seeing Jack Warner as the understanding bobby in the long-running BBC television series, Dixon of Dock Green, signing on with his trademark catchphrase, 'Evening all'.

For Trelawny's regular listeners, the news that he is set to hang up his early-morning boots and switch to the late-afternoon programme, In tune, in April 2025, as Breakfast is uprooted to Salford, will come as a disappointment. Many will fear that dawn will be the poorer.

The presenter's name is a tribute to two of Cornwall's finest - an imprisoned local hero, Trelawny, who famously features in The song of the western men, and the fifth-century Petroc, who ministered throughout Dumnonia and has been labelled the 'captain of Cornish saints'.

BBC Presenter Petroc Trelawny was born in
Worcester, UK in 1971. Photo © 2020 BBC

The broadcaster's style is convivial and urbane. He reminds you of those eighteenth and nineteenth century novelists, Fielding and Thackeray, who have time for asides as they draw their armchairs closer to crackling fires, inviting the reader - their companion and their equal - to join them on their leisurely journey. There is something democratic, too, about the daily top temperatures contest in which the Davids such as Lytchett Matravers in Dorset and Mablethorpe in Lincolnshire jostle for position with the odds-on favourite and regular winner, the Goliath of London.

Trelawny relishes going on the road with the show, dropping in on Yorkshire jewels, including the Aysgarth Falls in Wensleydale and the ruins of the mighty Jervaulx Abbey, and travelling lough-to-lough across Northern Ireland or coast-to-coast through the Scottish Highlands.

There are anecdotes, as well, about his personal journeys. Today he is in his 'tiny broom cupboard' of a studio at Broadcasting House after returning from a stint at the studio at Phoenix Wharf in Truro. Casting his mind over the drive allows him to indulge his twin talking points of meteorology and motoring as he explains how heavy rain was beating down until he crossed the border into Somerset - and how the sun miraculously came out at that point. 'Somerset can have that effect,' he wryly observes. It is no coincidence that the title of his recently published memoir reflects the enthusiasm for travel: Trelawny's Cornwall: a journey through western lands.

In a fireside chat there is always room for an aside. This can take the form of a guessing game to find a suitable name for a group of recorder players - and listeners take the bite. One suggests that in a primary school a suitable term could be a 'cacophony of recorders'. Other offerings include a 'trill' and a 'flutter' until clever members of the audience come up with the correct word: 'a consort'.

There are also the asides that pave the way for links. A 'lovely picture' in The Guardian is an open invitation to pore over the judging day at the British Pie Awards, which has taken place in the home of the pork pie, Melton Mowbray. This, naturally, leads back to the next track, with the comment that Arnold Bax expresses firm views on pies in his song, O, dame, get up and bake your pies. The pie discussion naturally triggers the inevitable listener feedback.

Days earmarked for celebrations and anniversaries are also starting points for links. International Bagpipe Day neatly takes us to Haydn mimicking them in the fourth movement of his Symphony No 104 in D. The anniversary of Alexander Graham Bell making the first successful test of a telephone leads us into music inspired by the invention: Gian Carlo Menotti's comic opera, The Telephone.

A link can also provide a chance to declaim - and Trelawny is never one to pass up such an opportunity. An introduction to the first movement of Haydn's string quartet in D, Lark, is the opening for quoting a few lines from Shakespeare's Cymbeline. Not content with uttering the first line of the song, 'Hark, hark! The lark at heaven's gate sings', the presenter - graciously requesting the listeners' forbearance - goes on to complete the rendition with all eight remaining lines of the song. A simple dot, dot, dot after the opening words is not good enough for him: he always goes the extra mile.

A Latin title, such as Judith Ward's In manus tuas, is the jumping off point not simply for providing the English version, 'Into your hands', but also the rest of Psalm 31 verse five, just for good measure.

The Aladdin's cave of languages represented by the world's composers and performers - as well as British place names - gives Trelawny endless opportunities to flaunt his showpiece sounds. The Welsh conductor, Grant Llewellyn, and the concert pianist, Llyr Williams, provide a chance to demonstrate a mastery of the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative (the sound of 'll'). The same treatment is meted out for Llanilar in Ceredigion.

The uvular 'r' in French names is another trigger for gargling prowess. If the French composer, Clemence de Grandval, is on the playlist, you know a salivary treat awaits. Ravel is also a gift for showboating - if Trelawny remembers to take a run-up first. Sometimes the initial mention gets the full treatment - and then a throwaway reference to the same name a few minutes later merits no more than the standard English 'r' sound. However, he never forgets the 'y' in Auvergne.

In terms of vowel sounds, he steers clear of kerbstone diphthongs - particularly with his distinctive 'o' - and he would be a strong contender to win the lunch, dinner and chocolates promised to Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady when she reforms her pronunciation of those five telltale sounds. He also enjoys dwelling on certain syllables and dilating the vowels for stage effect. In addition, from time to time he reminds his foreign listeners - the English - of the correct way to pronounce the first syllable of Truro.

In his sunrise slot the second Petroc has been a worthy captain of the early morning airwaves, a commanding presence in the style of his saintly forerunner. The Breakfast host offers a companionable and cheering antidote to the twenty-four-hour news babble. He has become an institution, a still centre in the turning world and the perfect foil for darker times. Dawn's loss is twilight's gain.

There are more articles here about BBC Radio 3.

The background image on this page has been derived from a 2023 photo by Natasha Patnaik of the view looking out to sea from the Minack Theatre in Cornwall, UK.

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