Peelie

[Martin Wheatley]

Stuart McHugh wrote

 >this is a bit vague but I read somewhere a couple of weeks ago that
 >it's widely believed that the guy who does 'Letter From America' for
 >the BBC is the oldest broadcaster in the world. However this isn't
 >true, there is someone older than him (in which case they must be in
 >their 90's). I'm sure the other broadcaster is a DJ in a weekly music
 >show.

We have to distinguish between the oldest  and the one who has been
broadcasting longest - not necessarily the same thing

The 'Letter From America' guy is Alistair Cooke and he has quite likely been
doing it longest but he is not a dj of course.    The 90 year old is Alan 
Keith
who does '100 Best Tunes' on Radio 2 which Google tells me started in 1959
(probably after David Jacobs and Brian Matthew started with the BBC).  Like a
number of the early djs he was previously an actor - it's like Radio 3 
continuity
announcers now - they were originally  hired to read a script between records
Before they brought in all the pirate djs at the start of Radio1 and 2 
there was
just the Light Programme (along with the Home Service (later Radio 4) and the
Third Programme (later Radio 3)
The main Light Programme djs I remember were Brian Matthew, David Jacobs,
Pete Murray, Sam Costa and Jack Jackson and Alan Freeman

martinw