John Peel and Home Truths
Like many other avid radio listeners, I was really sad to hear that John Peel had died. Many people haveârightlyâfocused on the loss to the music world because he was such an eclectic and enthusiastic champion of new music. However, I’ll also really miss his Radio 4 programme, Home Truths.
Home Truths tends to divide opinion; you either love it passionately or hate it. It’s certainly hard to describe to someone who hasn’t heard it. It deals with ‘family life’ if you take the very broadest definition of both ‘family’ and ‘life’, and ranges massively in tone between very serious, tragic matters and utterly trivial and silly ones. As such it seems to mirror John Peel’s eclectic music selections; just as he didn’t see any problem in playing a death thrash metal track followed by a Delta blues track from the 1940s, he happily mixed interviews with people on very profound and serious matters with assorted mad correspondence from his listeners. It all worked somehow because he was the one threading it all together.
In a typical programmeâthough there really wasn’t such a thingâyou might hear John interviewing a woman who had self-harmed for most of her life and was trying to explain it to her children, or a family who had only just survived being blown up by a terrorist bomb, sandwiched between correspondence on the correct Latin translation of the lyrics of “How much is that doggie in the window?”, or family euphemisms for having sex1. Listening to Home Truths frequently meant swinging wildly between feeling very moved and howling out loud with laughter.
John Peel was also an extraordinary interviewer. In fact, his talent was that he didn’t really interview at all; he just talked to people and listened to what they had to say. There was no sense of him ‘steering’ the conversation that you often get with other interviewers. Indeed, he would often veer things slightly off-course himself, because he would chip in with his own anecdote, empathising with what they were saying. If the person was relating something dangerous or unwise that they had done, he could be gently disapproving, like an uncle who loves you but still likes to tell you what you should do.
Other people have acted as stand-ins for John Peel on the show from time to timeâthe most recent being David Stafford, who covered for Peel when he went to Peru. However good they are at their job, it just isn’t the same without him. His sensitivity in interviews and his dry links between the pieces made the show. Also, listeners knew that if there was one person who would enjoy the love song they had written to their garage2, it was John Peel.
1 My favourite was ‘looking at Lundy’. There was quite an explanation involved with that one…
2 Yes, really. I still sing it in my head sometimes, as it was hilarious and catchy. Immortal rhymes like, “Me and my garage/It’s better than my marriage/From your concrete floor/To your up-and-over door”, and “You look smashing/In your new lead flashing” don’t grow on trees, you know.
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He was also one of those rare broadcasters with an instinctive understanding of the intimate nature of his medium (Alastair Cooke was another). As a result of this, and his kindness, honesty, disarming modesty, and wonderfully lugubrious wit, I felt he was not just a voice, but a friend too. What a shame he's gone.----- I first heard the news when I got home from work, and turned on the radio when they were doing an extended piece on him, at first I thought it was just some kind of documentary, then with a sinking feeling I realised it was a eulogy.
From things he said on Home Truths it was apparent that he was very much a family man, which for me made him seem a more rounded character, and added to the sadness of his death.
by Keith @ 30/10/2004 9:11 am • Permalink •
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I missed the news being in Paris at the time, caught something on Radio 2 yesterday lunchtime which I wasn't sure at first was real or satirical. As a DJ he was great â such a shame that that it's Home Truths that will continue as his legacy.
When there was the big Radio 4 re-org back in the late 90s, Home Truths was the new arrival which turned me on to Sounds of the Sixties on Radio 2 of a Saturday morning. It is the Dark Side of the Warholian future, your compulsory fifteen minutes of fame, and nigh-zero budget radio filler â why not just play something from the archives instead? (I know, that's BBC7, now.)
by steve @ 31/10/2004 12:11 pm • Permalink •
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ThoughtBadger: I listened to Home Truths on Saturday, in which they paid tribute to him, and played some clips from previous shows. Many of the people who appeared on the programme said exactly what you did; he was kind, warm, listened with great interest to what you had to say, and instantly put you at your ease. In one case, this seems to have been by the cunning plan of turning up in the studio clutching a toothbrush and toothpaste tube, and having a big blob of toothpaste on his jumper, which he then proceeded to ineffectually rub off. You can't feel intimidated by someone with toothpaste on their jumper.
Keith: Yes, that was my first thought tooâhis poor family will miss him massively. He was fond of making out that his children regarded him as some kind of ancient, grumpy irrelevance, but I suspect that this was very far from the truth.
steve: I think we'll have to disagree on that frontâand since when has having a tiny budget been a bad thing? At least it's new material, and if you hate it, at least they haven't spent much of your money on it
by bsag @ 01/11/2004 8:12 pm • Permalink •
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7927 ya know eredclips
by debt consolidation @ 10/11/2004 9:12 am • Permalink •
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