Derek McCulloch
Born
Derek Ivor Breashur McCulloch

(1897-11-18)18 November 1897
Plymouth, Devon, England
Died1 June 1967(1967-06-01) (aged 69)
Haywards Heath, West Sussex, England
Occupation(s)BBC Radio producer and presenter
Head of children's broadcasting for the BBC
SpouseEileen Barry (1931–1967, his death)
AwardsOBE, 1964

Derek Ivor Breashur McCulloch OBE (18 November 1897 – 1 June 1967) was a BBC Radio producer and presenter. He became known as "Uncle Mac" on Children's Hour and Children's Favourites. He was the head of children's broadcasting for the BBC from 1933 until 1951.[1][2]

Early life

McCulloch was born in Plymouth, Devon, the youngest child of (William) Lionel Breashur McCulloch and his wife, Bertha Russell. The First World War interrupted his education at Croydon High School, and he enlisted in 1915 in the Public Schools Battalion of the 16th Middlesex Regiment at the age of 17. He was wounded at the Battle of the Somme in July 1916 within 20 yards of the German front line. He was then shot by an enemy stretcher party and lost his right eye. During three days and nights in a shell hole, he incurred further injuries from shrapnel. He crawled back to his own lines. He served until 1921 with the infantry, where he was commissioned into the Green Howards, and in the Royal Flying Corps as an equipment officer, including a spell on HMS Valiant.

After the war, he travelled in Europe and South America. He was working for Central Argentine Railway when his health deteriorated, and he returned to England where a bullet was extracted from his lung.[3]

Career

BBC

McCulloch joined the BBC in 1926 as an announcer. He was the commentator on the first radio broadcast of the FA Cup Final in 1927.[4] His health worsened while working for the Belfast station in 1929 but a job was found for him in Children's Hour. By 1931, he became second-in-command of the programme and took charge of it in 1933.[2]

The programme included talks, plays, music and drama serials. He was appointed head of children's broadcasting in 1933, serving in that position until 1951.[1] He regarded the department as a microcosm of all broadcasting, stating: "Nothing but the best is good enough for children ... our wish is to stimulate their imaginations, direct their reading, encourage their various interests, widen their outlook and inculcate the Christian virtues of love of God and their neighbours."[5][2] In 1938 he lost a leg as the result of a road accident, and thereafter remained in constant pain.[3]

One of the favourite segments of Children's Hour was Sydney George Hulme Beaman's Toytown playlets, in which McCulloch played the central role of Larry the Lamb. In 1939, the audience for Children's Hour reached four million. His sign-off line, "Goodnight children, everywhere," became more poignant after the evacuation of many children from their homes at the start of the Second World War. He resigned from the BBC in 1950 due to ill health,[4] and to become the children's editor for the News Chronicle. However, he continued to chair Nature Parliament, which ran roughly every month on Children's Hour.[6]

In 1954, McCulloch returned to the BBC to present a music request programme for children, Children's Favourites, on Saturday mornings.[1] By 1964, the audience for the daily Children's Hour had decreased to 24,000, in favour of television. Despite questions in Parliament, the programme was dropped. The following year, he ceased to present the Saturday show.[2] After his retirement, it was hosted by Leslie Crowther and it became Junior Choice, hosted by Ed Stewart, when the BBC Light Programme was replaced by Radio 1 and Radio 2 in 1967.[7]

Writing

McCulloch wrote the book Every Child's Pilgrim's Progress in 1956, a simplified version of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, which in McCulloch's words was one of the "greatest stories ever written". He also wrote two children's stories, Cornish Adventure (1941) and Cornish Mystery (1950), and gave his name to a series of Ladybird children's books in the 1950s.[3]

Personal life and death

McCulloch was the subject of the BBC television programme This Is Your Life in February 1964.[8]

He married Eileen Hilda Barry, a BBC secretary, on 13 June 1931. They had two daughters. He was awarded an OBE in 1964, and died at St Francis Hospital, Haywards Heath on 1 June 1967, aged 69. McCulloch was cremated at Bramley, Surrey.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Strinati, D. Come on Down?: The Politics of Popular Media Culture in Post-War Britain, Psychology Press, 1992, pp. 153, 157.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Walden, Jeff (23 September 2004). "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, McCulloch, Derek Ivor Breashur [performing name Uncle Mac]". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/53647. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. Retrieved 27 July 2021. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. 1 2 3 Mckenzie, Jim. Biography by Jim Mackenzie at The Wee Web Archived 15 February 2006 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 30 October 2012
  4. 1 2 The Radio Academy: Derek McCulloch Archived 19 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 30 October 2012
  5. ↑ BBC Quarterly 1948.
  6. ↑ "BBC Genome". 21 March 1965. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
  7. ↑ "Richard Havers". Retrieved 29 December 2014.
  8. ↑ Potter, Dennis (14 February 1964). "Favourite Uncle". Daily Herald. p. 7. Retrieved 11 May 2022.

Further reading

  • Children's Hour
  • Cahalan, Paul; Jonathan Owen (28 October 2012). "Bitter infighting sweeps the BBC". The Independent. Archived from the original on 28 October 2012. Retrieved 28 October 2012.
  • Hartley, Ian. Goodnight Children Everywhere: History of Children's Broadcasting. Midas Books, 1983. ISBN 0-85936-201-9
  • Walden, Jeff. "Derek McCulloch", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. September 2004.
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