There’s an interesting new resource from the BBC … the BBC Genome project.
It contains the listings information (TV and radio) which the BBC printed in Radio Times between 1923 and 2009 … and you can search the site for BBC programmes, people, dates and specific Radio Times editions.
That means you can find when a particular programme was broadcast, who appeared in a particular episode of your favourite comedy series and even what was being broadcast the minute you were born.
Now this latter I find sort of scary. Having been born in another century and on a different planet — ie. before we had 24 hour, wall-to-wall TV — I was totally unsure what I’d find being broadcast when I appeared.

I know I was born at lunchtime, about 12.50 according to my mother. And of course I now the date and place (University College Hospital in London’s Gower Street). But back in 1951 this was not just before the days of 24 hour TV but at a time when there were only three radio stations and one TV channel. TV (now BBC1) and the Third Programme (now BBC Radio 3) broadcast almost exclusively in the evenings with just the occasional TV programme during the day (see later).
That left me with entering the world to either Workers’ Playtime on the Home Service (now BBC Radio 4) or Hullo There! on the Light Programme (now BBC Radio 2) which featured comedian Arthur Askey.
OMG! I remember hearing Workers’ Playtime when I was a bit older. It was awful and condescending. But then so was everything in those days. As an example, the afternoon I was born TV screened a programme called Designed for Women which included “John Gloag reviews some recent books” and “Round the Shops, Margot Lovell reports on what she thinks will interest you in the shops this week”. Can’t you just hear those awful Fanny Craddock-style presenters?
Thank heavens we live in another age and in a greater light!
What about you? What was being broadcast when you appeared in the world?