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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

Allira Mon 09-Mar-26 16:29:35

shysal

Yes, we listened every Sunday morning. The radio volume was turned down if the Beverley Sisters came on as my mother hated them!
Am I right in thinking Children's Favourites was also on on Sundays, presented by Archie Andrews - a ventriloquist's dummy?

Educating Archie.
Ventroliquist Peter Brough with his dummy Archie Andrews and featuring Julie Andrews and Tony Hancock.

It was very popular and no-one thought it the least bit strange to have a radio programme starring a ventriloquist' s dummy!

Warmglovesandsocks Mon 09-Mar-26 16:31:06

I remember Sargent Bilko, The Phil Silvers Show. It was a bit too fast firing with the gags for me!

Allira Mon 09-Mar-26 16:32:32

Glenfinnan

Great memories… always listened with my Mum .. while we had a cup of camp coffee!!!

Camp Coffee!

Wasn't there a picture of a Scottish man and an Indian man, both in full regalia, on the label?

Barbadosbelle Mon 09-Mar-26 16:36:13

.

Same here. I know all the words to sll the Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Perry Como Andy Williams songs (and more) just from hearing my mother singing along after Mass on Sundays as she prepared lunch.

Lovely songs. Everyone told a story. And you could hear all the words too.

Later that night I'd be listening under the bedcothes to Radio Caroline and the Top20! Late 60's. I was about 12 and loved the mellow voices of Tony Blackburn and Simon Dee.

Memories!
.

sundowngirl Mon 09-Mar-26 16:37:08

Chardy

RAF Akrotiri used to get mentioned occasionally on Two Way Family Favourites. It's only this year that I've learned how it's spelt! I used to think it was Aqua-teeri

Me too 😀

WithNobsOnIt Mon 09-Mar-26 16:38:14

Music for all our troops, navy and RAF all over the world.

BFPO British Forces Posted Overseas. Always seemed by lots of requests for bases in Cyprus. I see the base at Akrotiri is still important and being used in the present problems in Dubai etc.

Yes l remember it well when l was about 7 or 8 in the early sixties.
My father loved it and my mother hated it. She couldn't stand Vera Lynn.

Mum was usually in the kitchen on Sunday morning getting our Sunday Roast Dinner sorted. We would then go around and see out Gran every Sunday.

I remember some of the record requests that were big at the time such as

76 Trombones Edmund Hockeridge

There's a whole in my bucket, Dear Lisa, Dear All Lisa

Oh Soldier,Soldier won't you marry me.

Scottish Soldier. Andy Stewart

And various Mario Lanza, Alma Cogan, Kay Sisters songs.

Lovely childhood and family memories.

😻🇬🇧👍💂🧑‍✈️🛳️
Xxx

Allira Mon 09-Mar-26 16:46:37

You could send an airmail letter addressed BFPO+a number and know it would be delivered, wherever in the world and to RN ships at sea too.
British Forces Post Office

Warmglovesandsocks Mon 09-Mar-26 16:52:28

I’ve loved this thread. Does anyone remember sitting round the wireless, either Thursday or Friday night listening to The Day of the Triffids. I used to go to the corner shop and buy chocolate coated digestive biscuits and my brother and I would eat them with a glass of milk, absolutely terrified!

Chulachuli Mon 09-Mar-26 17:08:28

A wonderful programme which we regularly listened to during Sunday lunch. When my husband got posted to Hong Kong we met the lovely June Armstrong Wright, who presented that end, when we joined the local amdram group. She was a very talented lady.

Sue500 Mon 09-Mar-26 17:21:34

Yes it was a staple part of Sunday in our house while I was growing up.

polomint Mon 09-Mar-26 17:38:43

I thought camp coffee was exotic due to the label of a soldier and an Indian serving his coffee. The coffee was actual chicory which I would not like now however

Cath9 Mon 09-Mar-26 18:32:43

The other side of the world used to feel so far away in those days. It took so much longer to fly to Australia etc.
I always thought the song, ‘Hands, hands across the sea’ was always a warming song

HelterSkelter1 Mon 09-Mar-26 18:34:52

I know all the words to Rawhide still from Children's Choice.
"Keep them dogies moving". Didn't have any idea what a dogie was!

Edmundo Ross. And Manuel and the Music from the Mountains.

What I would do for a Sunday afternoon with Mum and Dad.

polomint Mon 09-Mar-26 18:39:25

Clint Eastwood as rusty in rawhide I think and then there was cheyenne( don't know the spelling) with Clint walker and wagon train. I loved the cowboys, they don't make them the same nowadays

Iam64 Mon 09-Mar-26 18:47:42

I probably fell a bit in love with Clint in Rawhide. It peaked in The Man Withkut a Name and Dirty Harry
Yes, I know ……

HelterSkelter1 Mon 09-Mar-26 19:13:28

Not Rusty but Rowdy Yates. And Gil .Favor was his boss. I can see them both now.

Smileforawhile Mon 09-Mar-26 20:20:54

I loved it Two Way Family Favourites together with the smell of our roast dinner cooking.

pennyg Mon 09-Mar-26 22:08:42

Just thinking about this programme and I can smell Bisto and roasting beef; it was always my job to lay the table, and I can remember being told off for dancing round the table with knives in my hand; I loved the songs like the one about the mouse who lived in a windmill, and one called 'Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer' (or similar).
Also remember thinking how mysterious all those strange BFPO addresses sounded - almost like a code!

polomint Mon 09-Mar-26 22:22:22

I stand corrected*helterskelter1*. Rowdy Yates it was indeed. Somehow I got my mums wee dog rusty mixed up with rowdy haha

Allira Mon 09-Mar-26 22:23:46

I loved the songs like the one about the mouse who lived in a windmill, and one called 'Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer' (or similar).
Also remember thinking how mysterious all those strange BFPO addresses sounded - almost like a code!^

I can still sing those songs.
And "You're a pink toothbrush, I'm a blue toothbrush"

The BFPO numbers were indeed a postcode 😀

Lahlah65 Mon 09-Mar-26 23:19:11

We were only talking with friends about two-way family favourites at the weekend, and about Junior Choice. For years I thought I had misheard a line in a children’s song about ‘cigarette trees’. But I became so intrigued that I googled it - I wasn’t wrong! It was Big Rock Candy Mountain by Burl Ives.

Like others, I have very happy memories of hearing the radio in the kitchen while my mum was cooking Sunday lunch. We all had chores to do on Sundays and would be singing along to the songs.

Once I became a teenager, I would get together with my friends to listen to the chart show in the afternoon, clustered round a transistor radio to see what was going to be number one that week.

GoldenAge Tue 10-Mar-26 00:40:59

Two-way Family Favourites - oh yes, where on earth was RAF Akrotiri I thought to my 7-year old self. It sparked my interest in geography and travel and I did eventually find Akrotiri on that beautiful island of Cyprus.

travelsafar Tue 10-Mar-26 06:58:21

Ahh wonderful memories in this post. My mum always had the radio on and it was the background to my growing up. I remember most of these shows plus Mrs Dale's diary, the Archers and Workers playtime.

HelterSkelter1 Tue 10-Mar-26 19:36:02

Polomint there is a range of rugged leather handbags/tote bags called Rowdy bags. If I didn't have far too many bags...collected over the years... I would be so tempted to buy one.

JamesandJon33 Wed 11-Mar-26 03:44:25

I loved Gil Favour as a fourteen year old does. A poster of him above my bed.