Green Con was where the main World Service English language network was put on air. The announcer sat on this side, and the Studio Manager sat on the other side of the glass on the right (now a TV studio) with an identical desk and they put live studios on air and played out pre-recorded programmes on tape. I used to love doing Green con. I was being paid to listen to the radio, something I did anyway. Then they got rid of the SM and the announcers played tapes and CDs and digital things themselves. And then they got rid of the announcers and it was all automated, just like the Human League predicted in 1980 in their song WXJL Tonight.
All the networks had colours, and when they ran out of colours they had ‘bars’ added, so there was ‘brown’ (Arabic) and ‘brown bars’ (I forget what that was). Green was English. They then ran out of colours again and went for textures, so there was ‘velvet bars’. (I may have made that last one up.)
I saw this one coming… I was once the SM sitting on the other side of the glass playing the programme tapes. The announcer was sat here. It was the John Peel Show, the last record was ‘Voodoo Chile’ by Jimi Hendrix. The announcer in question wasn’t quite au fait with any kind of music post-Mozart, and as I suspected he would he do, he back-announced the programme with the immortal words “that was Mr Jimi Hendrix, with Voodoo Chilly.”
Once the pips (GTS – Greenwich Time Signal) failed to appear and the announcer – I think it was Michael Powles – improvised by hitting the lamp with his pen in time with the pips. Genius.
It was Lawrence Reeve Jones. Lilli fired off too early and he cancelled it… ..and the pips too. So in the 5″ silence, he grabbed the angle poise and whacked it once, exactly on the hour.
I know. I was there!