An Evening with Johnners Read Online Free PDF

with my microphone and one of their men and they’d try to get me the Golden Arrow. So there I was, and when the studio said, ‘Where are you this Saturday night, Brian?’ I said, ‘I’m lying between the lines outside Victoria Station. We were going to get the Golden Arrow but I’ve just heard that it’s late and we’ve got an electric train instead.’
    The whole ground shook and I described how the lights from the train were coming towards us. Then the driver blew his horn, because he knew I was there, and the train went over me. It was really such a noise; you wouldn’t believe how loud it was. I was having to shout into my microphone.
    After it went over me, there were the stars above (we used to do it at night, of course) and I said, ‘Well, that’s what it’s like lying under a train. Back to the studio.’
    ‘Now we can leave,’ I said to the man with me, but he said, ‘No, you mustn’t. The Golden Arrow is coming in a couple of minutes and there’s a live rail, and with your microphone lead you might trip up. Let’s keep still.’
    And the Golden Arrow did come over us and the reason it was lucky we weren’t on the air is because when it went over us someone was washing their hands – at least, I hope they were! Dreadful! I was absolutely soused.

    O ne story, which you may have heard, was famous. Wynford Vaughan-Thomas was doing the commentary for television when the Queen Mother was launching the Ark Royal at Birkenhead. Before it started the producer said, ‘Look, I’ve got three cameras. When we start the broadcast, the first camera will show the Queen Mother breaking the champagne bottle and saying, “God bless all who sail in her.” Don’t talk during that.
    ‘The next one will show the Marine Band playing, the bunting and the crowd cheering. Don’t talk during that. Number three camera will show the chocks coming away and the Ark Royal gliding very, very slowly down the slipway. Don’t talk during that. But when it reaches the water at the bottom, then go into your commentary.’
    It went perfectly. They had a lovely shot of the Queen Mother, then they had the band playing and the bunting, and the chocks coming away. But while the Ark Royal was gliding down, the producer happened to look back at his number one camera and he saw the most lovely picture of the Queen Mother waving, as she does.
    Forgetting what he had told Wynford, he pressed a button and brought up on the screens at home a close-up of the Queen Mother just, unfortunately, as the Ark Royal hit the water.
    But Wynford was watching the ship and not his television monitor, so he said, ‘There she is, the huge vast bulk of her,’ … and there was the Queen Mother!
    She loved it, of course.

    O n the Mondays of a Test match at Lord’s, the Queen always comes in the afternoon. It normally rains and there’s hardly anybody there, but the teams are presented to her during the tea interval.
    Robert Hudson was doing the commentary when the New Zealanders were being presented to the Queen and he said, ‘It’s a great occasion for these Commonwealth teams. It’s a moment they will always forget!’

    W ho am I to talk? At the royal wedding of the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana, I was on Queen Anne’s statue just in front of St Paul’s Cathedral. She was called Brandy Annie, I was told, because she was a bit keen on the grog.
    So I had a marvellous view standing there, because allthe coaches and carriages drew up about six feet below me. I could see the Queen, with a rug over her knees, being helped out and so on.
    I looked over my shoulder and said, ‘I can see Lady Diana coming up Ludgate Hill, in her coach with her two escorts. The coach will come below me here, a page will open the door and she will be greeted by her father, Earl Spencer. Then they will walk up the steps together, into the pavilion … I mean, cathedral!’

    T here are some very good stories about dear old John Snagge. In 1939 John was deputed to go