The Postcard
A postcard that was posted in Thomastown. Thomastown is a market town in County Kilkenny in the province of Leinster in the south-east of Ireland.
The card was posted on Friday the 11th. September 1908 to:
Miss F.Wolverston,
253, Sandringham Buildings,
Charing Cross Road,
London.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"I'll be home, I mean in
London Monday night,
D.V., which means Plaze God
(in Irish).
I hope you'll have a good time
Sunday. Will the weather be
too cold? No, of course not,
you can sit familiar - and will, I
suppose, whether it's cold or
not.
Think of the poor dear man
who is wearing blue glasses
since the last time.
J. O. M."
D.V. is the short form of Deo Volente, which is Latin for "God Willing".
Alvar Liddell
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, the 11th. September 1908 marked the birth of Tord Alvar Quan Lidell MBE. He was a BBC radio announcer and newsreader. During the Second World War his distinctive voice became synonymous with the reading of the news.
-- Alvar Liddell - The Early Years
Lidell was born in Wimbledon Park, Surrey, to Swedish parents. His father was a timber importer.
Lidell attended King's College School, Wimbledon and Exeter College, Oxford. As a boy, he studied piano, piccolo, cello and singing, and was a noted actor at Oxford.
-- Alvar Liddel and the BBC
After some brief teaching and singing jobs, he joined the BBC in Birmingham as chief announcer, transferring to London after a year.
He became deputy chief announcer in 1937, and the following year married Nancy Margaret Corfield, a lawyer’s daughter, with whom he had two daughters and a son. One of his daughters also joined the BBC, and ultimately became his boss.
He made some historic broadcasts, including the announcement of Edward VIII’s abdication. On the 3rd. September 1939 he read the ultimatum to Germany from 10 Downing Street then, at 11 a.m. introduced Neville Chamberlain who told the nation that it was at war with Germany.
It was during the Second World War that the BBC named its previously anonymous announcers and newsreaders - to distinguish them from enemy propagandists.
During the war, "Here is the news, and this is Alvar Lidell reading it" became an inadvertent catchphrase.
Announcing the British victory at El Alamein, he said:
"Here is the news, and
cracking good news it
is too!"
In 1943 he served with the RAF as an intelligence officer (for some of the time at Bletchley Park), but returned to the BBC a year later.
In 1946 he was appointed chief announcer of the new BBC Third Programme, where he remained for six years, maintaining the highest standards, particularly over pronunciation and phrasing.
In 1952 the BBC’s news service was reorganised, and he returned as a newsreader, even doing a little television work.
He was appointed an MBE in 1964 and retired in 1969.
In 1979 he published an article about the deteriorating standards of speech at the BBC in The Listener - the BBC immediately set up a panel of experts to report on the matter.
Lidell also worked as a narrator, and recorded 237 volumes of Books for the Blind, including long works such as Anna Karenina.
As a baritone, he gave recitals and recorded with Gerald Moore at the piano. In 1970 Lidell was heard as narrator on the Apple Records recording of The Whale by composer John Tavener.
Recordings of Lidell's news bulletins have been included in many films set in Great Britain during the Second World War, such as the movie 'Battle of Britain' (1969).
-- The Death of Alvar Liddell
Alvar died at Northwood, Middlesex, aged 72 on the 7th. January 1981.