Please Note... Insights with Ian

Ian Skelly is a BBC Radio 3 broadcaster whose wide-ranging career has also encompassed reporting, live presenting and speech writing for the Prince of Wales to name but a few. In this amazing interview, we learn so much about his own personal music tastes, and his invaluable knowledge and advice surrounding a successful career in broadcasting.

J: What degree did you study and was it always your intention to get into broadcasting?

I: I wanted to work on the radio when I was six! Trouble is, I lived in the outback of West Lancashire where everyone was expected to get a “proper job.” Broadcasting was an alien world to people there in the 1970s and early 80s. Besides, at the time there weren’t many radio stations about - four national ones and a handful of “local” stations mainly in the big cities. The best I could do in my teens was get involved with Hospital Radio which at least taught me it’s not as easy as it sounds to spin on a dime on a live microphone and make it all sound entertaining. And talking to people in hospital certainly taught me never to assume someone listens to your show every day. I only hope I didn't make them feel more ill than they were already! All the same, I had great fun making a pretty wacky Saturday evening show. Eventually I brought in a school friend who went on to be a very successful actor and animation voiceover (Oscar nominated). I played pop music and learnt to be a radio DJ and we wrote sketches together which we recorded before the show went out. I did about two voices in each sketch and he did hundreds. Years later we discovered that the staff in the mortuary used to time their tea break so they could listen to the show. Maybe that says something about my style. I was first popular in a morgue…

I struggled to find a way into radio when there were no radio stations within 60 miles of where I lived. I did quite a bit of acting when I was still living at home and in the end auditioned for drama school and to my utter surprise got offered a place. I decided to turn it down in the end, having realised that I would be a terrible actor, so it was back to square one. To begin with I made very long rides on a very unreliable motor bike to and from the nearest radio station where I diligently made the tea and messed up sports programmes. I still have no idea about sport! The presenter of that show was my first mentor. Alas, he died a few years ago but I hear him every day. His voice makes all the announcements on most of the platforms on the London Underground system as well as just about every railway station in the land. It’s him telling you to “mind the gap”.

I eventually went to Birmingham and studied a degree in Linguistics with a side helping of journalism, radio, film-making and photography. I chose Birmingham not because of the course but because the university was near to a very big BBC centre called Pebble Mill and I quickly learnt how to get past security and once again made myself very useful making the tea and, coincidentally, messing up their sports shows. Sports radio is a great training ground because it’s very live and you have to be very fast technically, but fortunately for all concerned I managed to move away from the football results and by the time I finished my degree I was a full time BBC freelance news reporter in Birmingham and Leicester and very quickly in Nottingham too. I hardly spent any time being a student!

Birmingham was a wonderful time for me. Simon Rattle had recently become the very young Music Director of the CBSO so I was there as he began his meteoric rise to fame. I would go to their concerts two or three times a week. Symphony Hall had yet to be built and they played in the Town Hall in Birmingham where Elgar and Mendelssohn had both premiered their music. I’d sit in the choir stalls behind the orchestra so you were practically in the brass section and could see Simon and the other conductors as the orchestra saw them. I got to know his style and also the orchestra, as he honed it and expanded its rep. It was a fantastic musical education. Funnily enough I met Simon last year during the lockdown BBC Proms. I presented his concert with the LSO on Radio 3. I was the only member of the audience in an empty Royal Albert Hall, and it was great reminiscing with him about those days. They were pretty heady for him too.

I earned my degree with a final dissertation on whether or not the BBC should continue to fund a radio station like Radio 3 and serve classical music as it still does. My conclusion was most definitely yes. It’s a perfect example of public service broadcasting that no commercial organisation would dare do, and 30 years on I haven’t changed my view.

J: I remember you once telling me that you don’t get to choose your own playlist. If it was completely up to you, what would your ideal programme consist of?

I: I do have some say in what we play. Sometimes there is a great debate, but the team of Radio 3 producers are brilliant experts. A lot of them trained as musicians; they were either professionals for a while or, having studied music, worked in the recording industry, so they really know their stuff – and most of the people playing the stuff! In fact, I don't think there is anywhere else in the BBC where the quota per head of staff with Masters and PhDs is higher, so I feel pretty humbled by their knowledge.

I have always had a pretty wide taste in music. I am, for example, the sole champion of Bob Dylan in my household, and of Wagner for that matter, who was my first great love. When all my contemporaries at school were getting into punk, I was immersed in the Ring of the Nibelungs and I still love his music. I came to Mahler late but love it just as much now. I find it incredible that a composer can make every single bar of music in a symphony that lasts over an hour absolutely compelling. I adore Ravel for his powers of orchestration, Shostakovich for his drama and darkness. I like quite a lot of Britten and Sibelius and quite a lot of Vaughan Williams. I love the genius of Bach, the showmanship and brilliance of his contemporary, Handel, and that other direct contemporary whom I always think of as the jazzman among the three, Domenico Scarlatti. And I adore early sacred choral music: Josquin, Victoria and the two great composers of the English Renaissance, Byrd and Tallis. I could go on really. The great thing about being on Radio 3 every day is that the doors keep being blown open by new discoveries. For example, I recently came across the music of Dobrinka Tobakova. I invited her onto my programme and I am now an unashamed champion of her music. Her cello concerto is stunning.

J: We know you best from your BBC Radio 3 shows, but I know you have a huge skill set! Could you tell my readers more about your eclectic career and how it all fits together?

I: Well, radio is at the heart of it all. As I say, I began as a news reporter for the BBC in the Midlands and ended up presenting daily news shows every morning at the crack of dawn on various BBC stations, but after ten years of interviewing politicians day in day out I wanted to pursue what I was most interested in: classical music. When I first came to London to see how I could do that, I spent a couple of years training broadcasters and journalists for the BBC at their own training unit which took me all over the country and right round the world to many of the BBC’s bureaus. I met and worked with some amazing broadcasters and learnt a lot from them. I think they learnt something from me. I was watching an edition of the BBC ten o’clock news the other night and I suddenly realised I’d trained nearly every reporter who popped up on screen, whether they were in Beijing or Washington.

I spent time as a TV reporter but didn't like it. Too many people involved in making something which on radio is so simple. I have made lots of films though. I love photography and filmmaking. But I suppose you also want to know about the other hat I have found myself wearing, alongside a man who one day will probably wear a rather sparkly one!

I met the Prince of Wales a good 20 years ago, at a friend’s funeral of all places. My friend was a painter and the Prince collected his paintings and was very fond of him. So much so that he turned up unexpectedly at the funeral in a very rural part of England and after the service we immediately fell to talking about the paintings, about art in general and a whole range of other things that we had similar views on – from farming to religion. It was quite a conversation. The next thing I knew I was invited to Highgrove to see the paintings and wander round the garden with him. I remember we spent a very long time in his bathroom where one of my friend’s best paintings hangs. I tried very hard to persuade the Prince to let me borrow it.

At some point after that I happened to mention to him on the phone one day that I thought his speeches could be a lot more focused and effective if they were written for the ear rather than for the eye. Speech is very different to the written word, in its structure and in its use of language, and it was clear that whoever was writing his speeches was a writer not a speaker. Working in radio all these years, I probably know more about writing for the ear than I do about writing for the eye. And that was that. The chains were attached and I was locked in, to become what I suppose once upon a time would have been called a Scribe! Since then I’ve helped him write some of his biggest speeches and some very big lectures and goodness knows how many hundreds of video messages. The UN has been bored by me; every country in the Commonwealth; big climate change conferences and, indeed, the nation at large. I wrote one big speech he had to give in New York and when he came back he called me to tell me that, apparently I made Meryl Streep cry. She was in the audience. I suspect not many people can say that! Maybe I could have been an actor after all. I had great fun as his script advisor, i.e. writer, on a big television documentary made by a Hollywood director for one of the national American networks and we also wrote a big book together called Harmony which remains his testament. It’s not about music, it charts all he has tried to do and why, and is all based on the premise that Nature operates in a harmonic way – “harmony” coming from the ancient Greek word meaning “to join things up.” His argument being that Nature is a joined up and completely interdependent, interconnected system and that we, in our infinite wisdom have succeeded in comprehensively breaking those connections in every field of human activity and on a global scale. As a result we are facing total catastrophe. It’s been a sobering experience getting so close to the facts, seeing so much of the evidence and seeing how hard it is for those who have the solutions and the right approach to get traction. It’s also been fascinating to work so closely with such a remarkably energetic and focused individual who is far from the dreamer he is often portrayed as being. He is incredibly well read and never ceases to surprise me with his ideas, remaining so far ahead of his time. I remember, for instance, a good 15 years ago helping him put together a speech warning of the dangers of plastics in the sea. Nobody was talking about it then. Only now has it suddenly become “an issue.” He is currently concerned about plans to start mining on the Moon and I bet you haven’t heard anything about the shortages of phosphorous we are facing here on Earth. That will be the big issue of the next fifty years. It’s really big but no one will listen at the moment, even though nothing can grow without it. He’s already on the case. He’s also passionate about music. Really passionate. Especially Wagner. Every time I talk with him on the phone there’s usually a Rhine maiden wailing away in the background or the gods are crashing to their doom!

J: Finally, any top tips or advice for anyone looking to get into a career in radio presenting?

I: Don’t! I jest.

Like all professions, it is a “profession”. There is craft involved, being a branch of show biz, and it’s not for the faint hearted, so you really need to want to do it, rather than thinking it’s fun and easy. Listen to the best and work out why you like what they do. Listen to those you can’t stand and work out why they drive you away!

The oldest adage in the book when it comes to live broadcasting is “just be yourself,” which is harder to do when you are in a studio with engineers and formidable producers on the other side of the glass and there may be a couple of million people listening. It’s also hard being relaxed and natural when you have to get some waffling academic or bishop or prime minister to get to the point in the next 60 seconds.

I’d say being yourself amounts to being authentic to yourself. Don't put on a voice or assume a character. When the going gets tough you won’t be able to keep up that façade. Also, have something real to say rather than be bland; take risks or you end up playing safe and safe radio is BORING radio. Always try to do something surprising from time to time that might persuade your listener to stay listening for a few minutes more, or maybe even come back tomorrow. And remember that there is only one listener, but that such a person really is there. I hear so many radio presenters who aren’t talking to anyone. In my experience it makes all the difference if you can talk to that one person convinced that it’s someone you know and who knows you. You can so easily be intimidated by just one complaint. It’s very easy to see an email or a tweet from someone who clearly loathes what you do and quickly convince yourself that everyone feels the same. You have to hold firm to the belief that the vast majority of those who have bothered to tune in can at least put up with you. Some may even like what you do, like those people all those years ago lying around in that morgue. They loved me!

J: Ian, thank you so much for these wonderful insights into your amazing career which I am sure that my readers will find as inspiring as I have!