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Does anyone remember two way family favourites?

(129 Posts)
polomint Sat 07-Mar-26 16:26:58

Jean metcalf and cliff michelmore on a sunday morning playing song requests for British forces abroad. I used to love listening to it. Pat boone was a favourite request for the song " I'll be home my darling". Beverly sisters, alma cogan, Vera Lynn among many others

Grannydaisy1 Sat 07-Mar-26 18:00:16

thorntrees I used to love down your way. Great memories of simpler times

JamesandJon33 Sat 07-Mar-26 18:09:03

Absolutely. Followed by I think Billy Cotton Band Show, Life with the Lyon’s ans Educating Archie. Loved them all.

pably15 Sat 07-Mar-26 18:13:00

yes I remember , I listened to it every sunday, I remember too Aden mentioned often, my next door nieghbour's daughter's boyfriend was stationed there...

Liaise Sat 07-Mar-26 18:22:35

Houseswife’s Choice was the one I remember. It was on every morning. My cousin wrote in and requested a song to be played for her mother and mine who were sisters. We never heard anymore about it.

HelterSkelter1 Sat 07-Mar-26 18:26:03

Oh yes The Clitheroe Kid. And the Navy Lark...left hand down a bit.

Very simple times. My mother was a nurse so quite often wouldn't have been there on sundays. But my grandmother must have cooked the lunch or maybe my father did.

The radio was a large "radiogram" on which we could play 78s. I had a transistor radio when I was 14. In a small leather case and a strap so I could hang in on my bicycle handlebars.

Can you imagine a 14 year old today loving her little radio!!!

Iam64 Sat 07-Mar-26 18:26:54

Yes, ery happy memories of Sunday lunch being prepared. My grandfathers served in ww1, my parents and uncles ww2. So service families felt real to us,

It also predated our Dansette record player, so brought music into our home, very welcome

Seem very innocent days on reflection

Visgir1 Sat 07-Mar-26 18:30:22

That's a blast from the past. Yes I too Moth62..... Remember it was on during Sunday lunch.
Followed by comedy shows, like the Navy Lark, Round the Horn (not sure I understood that one!) Clitheroe Kid I loved that, I had no idea it was a grown man at the time.
Lovely innocent times.

Lizzie44 Sat 07-Mar-26 18:34:02

This brings back such happy memories of my Dad. I can see him now sitting in his armchair, puffing away on his pipe. He loved listening to the wireless and enjoyed the music programmes (Friday Night is Music Night) and the comedy programmes. He had a great sense of humour and I can hear him chortling away. He died at the age of 70 from cancer of the oesophagus - most likely the result of the pipe smoking.

HelterSkelter1 Sat 07-Mar-26 18:53:02

I have just read on Wikipedia about the lives of Cliff Michelmore and Jean Metcalfe the presenters of Family Favourites. So interesting. They didn't meet in person until they had been working on the show for 6 months. He in Hamburg. She in London. He said he fell in love on first hearing!!

sharon103 Sat 07-Mar-26 19:13:15

Yes I do remember listening to it while we had our Sunday dinner. I wouldn't have been that old but I know I liked it.
I remember Sing Something Simple as well.
I remember watching the Billy Cotton Band show on the tele. I can still picture him now.
What's My Line on the tele.
I used to love kneeling on a chair and putting my ear right up to the wireless and listen to the songs. One of those old brown ones what was in the middle of the sideboard. A couple that sticks in my mind is, There's a Hole in My Bucket and the little mouse on the stair song.
Lovely days.

FriedGreenTomatoes2 Sat 07-Mar-26 19:55:53

I remember that radio programme. Mum always tuned in she loved the music.

And I also remember her ironing our school uniforms on a Sunday evening, Robin starch for our school blouses (I think it was an aerosol spray by then) whilst listening to ‘Sing Something Simple’.

Happy days.

Moth62 Sat 07-Mar-26 20:02:25

Sunday mornings listening to the Archers as my mum cleaned out and remade the fire. (I can remember the scandal when Jennifer Archer told her mother she was having a baby. Took months to find out who the father was!) I can also picture me sitting on the wooden draining board with my feet in the sink (a Belfast sink, as they call them now) getting washed before bedtime on a Sunday evening listening to Sing Something Simple and my mum joining in and singing along.

pinkprincess Sat 07-Mar-26 20:13:48

Thankyou all for these lovely memories of Sunday afternoons in my childhood.
I can smell the Sunday roast and the lovely Yorkshire puddings that my mother took pride in making.
it brings tears yo my eyes now.

Allira Sat 07-Mar-26 20:29:12

Yes, I have fond memories of those times too, coming home from Sunday School or church then listening to Family Favourites, later Two Way Family Favourites, Germany and the UK.

'With a Song in My Heart'

With a song in my heart
I behold your adorable face.
Just a song at the start,
but it soon is a hymn to your grace.
When the music swells
I’m touching your hand;
It tells that you’re standing near,
and at the sound of your voice
Heaven opens its portals to me.
Can I help but rejoice
that a song such as ours came to be?
But I always knew
I would live life through
With a song in my heart for you.

Redcar Sat 07-Mar-26 20:45:44

Yes I remember it, mum cooking Sunday roast dinner. Then the Billy cotton bandshow.
After tea my brother and I used to go into my grandpa’s sitting room (we lived with them) to listen to Journey into Space! Happy days!

sodapop Sat 07-Mar-26 20:50:03

I listened with my parents every Sunday, loved the radio shows of the era.
Shysal only in UK would you have a ventriloquist on the radio grin

Greyduster Sat 07-Mar-26 21:03:14

I loved two way family favourites; Take it From Here; Life with the Lyons; Ted Ray in Ray’s a Laugh; and Meet the Huggetts with Jack Warner who went on to be Dixon of Dock Green.

Greyduster Sat 07-Mar-26 21:05:55

Lizzie44, Friday Night is Music Night has made a recent comeback on Radio 3.

Deedaa Sat 07-Mar-26 21:18:53

We listened every Sunday. There were always some requests for Classics, The 1812, and The Ride Of The Valkyrie were the most popular. Other favourites were Take It From Here, Much Binding In The Marsh, The Goons of course, and Journey Into Space and Dick Barton Special Agent. For some reason I had to listen to the last two sitting under the table and hidden by the table cloth.

merlotgran Sat 07-Mar-26 21:23:17

We always cheered when we heard Aden mentioned on Family Favourites as we had just returned from there. It was a programme we never missed and as a teenager I would turn up the radio whenever something a little more modern, like The Beatles, was played. My jobs were to lay the table, whip the cream for apple pie and help with the washing up.

Sunday Evenings were spent in front of the TV. The Saint and Sunday Night at the London Palladium were our favourites.

Allira Sat 07-Mar-26 21:29:21

My jobs were to lay the table, whip the cream for apple pie and help with the washing up.

Mine was to make the white sauce which always accompanied the cauliflower. As well as laying the table (after helping to rearrange the sitting room to accommodate the table and chairs).

Usedtobeblonde Sat 07-Mar-26 21:38:10

I used to pick the leaves and make the mint sauce which went with the lamb when we had it and I sharpened the carving knife on the back doorstop.
I still have that knife nearly 75 years later with the middle of blade worn down to about half an inch and the ivory coloured handle stained a light brown colour.
Of course it hasn’t been used for many years.

keepingquiet Sat 07-Mar-26 21:38:32

Wow- reading these makes me smell the Sunday dinner! For years I always associated the Archer's theme tune with the smell of bacon frying when we got back from church (in those days we weren't allowed to eat before Mass!).

I remember two-way family favourites and the Clitheroe kid while washing all the greasy dishes after Sunday dinner.
Round the horn though was rather smutty- I remember switching off because they were discussing pubic hair, not a topic for a teenager who had just eaten a Sunday dinner!

Jane43 Sat 07-Mar-26 21:39:29

polomint

Aden and Gibraltar were mentioned frequently but I can't remember what places were mentioned in the Far East, maybe Singapore

Cyprus was mentioned, my brother was stationed there during his three years in the army.

polomint Sat 07-Mar-26 22:01:56

When i was unwell and had the day off school, I used to listen to "workers playtime" and : listen with mother". We lived in a tenement building in the 1950s with a bed recess set into the wall in our living room and that's where my bed was. Mum would be doing the housework with the " wireless" on as we called it then. Journey into space we all loved and sat enthralled.