Letter from America

The sound of that distinctive mid Atlantic drawl, even though he was born in Salford, Lancashire,  announced 30 minutes of intellectual, balanced, informative, whimsical, satirical and political commentary that became a regular part of my first decade on the planet.

I first heard the broadcasts of Alistair Cooke in his Letters from America through the crackly old radiogram in the old family home but to someone of my young years I can only say that I had no idea whatsoever about what he was talking about.

The first line of his broadcast was one that I could understand in that it set the theme for his style of reporting but after that I was completely lost but just went along with it as it made me look intelligent and thoughtful.

Now some 40 years on I am beginning to comprehend the magnitude of the historical times in which Alistair Cooke lived and worked.

In context during his sphere of activity from 1946 to 2004 any news of great events of world significance took some time to reach the public domain which is in such direct contrast to the current era when the Twitter Feed and BBC 24 react instantaneously to an upload by an eye witness, an innocent bystander or a perpetrator. Further back in time it was a case of having to catch up on the news through a Pathe News feature accompanying a movie whilst sat in the cheap seats in the local picture house. Imagine the delay in not knowing about such things as the Battle of Trafalgar until the church bells peeled out over your city or town or the smoke rose from a distant beacon.

The correspondents of the Cooke era did seem, to me, to have a certain personality and social standing mixing it quite easily but respectfully with Royalty, Statesmen and what were considered to be proper global celebrity superstars. They were well spoken and affable, very cultured and suave. They also looked very, very old although even though at the time I was pretending to be engrossed in Letter from America Alistair Cooke was still very much in his prime in his mid sixties. The status he held as a bit of an institution himself gave the impression that he had been around for much, much longer.

What can I recall about the broadcasts?

I do  seem to remember that they were on a sunday although my privileged and secure upbringing in a loving family seemed to be a perpetual sunday. If indeed the case the radio will have been on in the family kitchen whilst Mother prepared the big roast dinner. I usually hung around on the pretence of helping with chores but actually to be first of the five of us kids to pick at the wonderfully crispy chicken skin or sneak away and devour the crispiest of the roast potatoes. A treacle sponge pudding started from a sticky sweet mix was a real treat if you got to eat it off a spoon scraped around the inside of the big ceramic mixing bowl.

That ritual of food preparation coincided with a golden age of broadcasting including such classics as The Navy Lark and The Clitheroe Kid which, in the practicality of timings meant that Alistair Cooke must have been on just about in the middle of the comedy shows.

I have managed to listen recently to just a few of the massive archive of output by the man. There is, behind the ramblings, digressions and whimsical anecdotes an actual structure to his offerings which I now realise represented a style well ahead of his time.

The subject matter was always interesting and captivating, particularly in its portrayal of the real lives of real Americans which could otherwise have been disappointing on the basis that my comprehension of Stateside life was founded on the TV shows of cops, maverick private detectives, soldiers of fortune, secret agents, the 6 million dollar man and of course cowboys. Saying that, the complex wanderings and verbal dexterity of Mr Cooke had me lost and confused just about every time but as a 10 year old it was not a matter of life and death.

I can appreciate what he was talking about now in my 50th year because I have accumulated through experience a broader understanding of world events and human behaviour.

Of course I have the great benefit afforded by the combination of hindsight and the mixed messages conveyed by the History Channel and Wikipedia.

This March 30th is the tenth anniversary of the death of Alistair Cooke. I have missed him mainly because of his calm delivery and wonderful tone of voice. He was perfectly suited to his time and he remains, in my mind, an unsullied legend of the airwaves. In another lifetime his talents may have seen him hosting a chat show or a late night political debate or even worse taking up that graveyard shift on a sunday morning sat on a bright red sofa reviewing the newspapers.