Colin Berry, companionable Radio 2 presenter entrusted with its first overnight broadcast

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20-04-2025

Colin Berry, who has died aged 79, was a familiar voice for almost four decades on BBC Radio 2, both as the host of programmes such as Night Ride and You and the Night and the Music, and in time as the station's longest-serving newsreader.
A veteran of Radio Caroline, Berry had briefly written links for Radio 1 before joining Radio 2 in 1973, after some of its announcers had moved to the new commercial radio stations such as Capital.
Like many of the other presenters, he took on duties that included news reading and introducing programmes, as well as presenting late night and early morning shows. This remained the pattern of much of the rest of his career.
Berry also hosted, from 1976 until 1978, The Early Show – succeeding Simon Bates – as well as The Late Show and Band Parade, and regularly filled in for Terry Wogan, David Hamilton and Jimmy Young.
When, in 1979, the station became the first in Britain to broadcast for 24 hours, it was Berry who was its first overnight host, presenting items that included a cookery slot and a what's on guide. He had a wide knowledge of popular music, having fond memories of the Light Programmes he had heard as a boy.
Switching between the soothing, unforced tones of a presenter, and then the authoritative ones of a newsreader, Berry was skilled at creating the necessary intimate connection with the listener.
For 25 years, from 1977 until 2002 (except in 1980 and 1998), Berry was Britain's voice of the Eurovision contest, announcing the results of the jury's vote to the other watching nations. He was also Wogan's deputy in the event the line went down during the competition.
Berry was seen on TV shows such as Top of the Pops and Blankety Blank, and hosted programmes for BFBS. He became a freelance presenter in 2006 and continued to read the news on Radio 2 until 2012.
The younger of two brothers, Colin Derrick Berry was born on January 29 1946 at Brocket Hall, the stately home near Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire.
Some 8,338 'Brocket babies' were delivered there in the decade from 1939 after the City of London Maternity Hospital evacuated from the capital (wisely as it proved since its buildings were bombed in 1940). The family subsequently lived at Kenton, north-east London.
His father, Cecil, was a director of Allied Suppliers, the buying arm of what was then Home and Colonial Stores, one of Britain's largest chains of grocers. Its subsidiaries included Lipton's, while Cecil Berry was particularly associated with another, Pearks Dairies.
He hoped that Colin would follow in his footsteps, but since he was a boy, Colin had been fascinated by the wireless. He enjoyed recording his own mock programme reels at home.
Accordingly, after leaving Wembley Grammar School, he began to make his way in the media, at first scheduling advertising slots for Granada and then Westward Television.
In 1964, he started to do the same at Caroline House, the Mayfair headquarters of the floating pirate station, Radio Caroline. Part of his remit was to organise the transport of records to the ship from Holland via tender, and on one occasion he was given the chance to sit in for a newsreader aboard when they were ill.
Bitten by the broadcasting bug, Berry continued to make regular appearances on the station, for a time sharing a cabin he remembered as rather small with Dave Lee Travis. A bout of especially rough weather, combined with the effects of the Marine Broadcasting Act of 1967, put paid, however, to his enthusiasm for such nautical work.
For the next few years, he acquired experience instead as a presenter with BBC Radio Medway, and as a television continuity reader for HTV. After leaving Radio 2, he returned to these roots, hosting a Saturday night show broadcast on BBC Three Counties Radio (and often heard more widely) from 2004 until 2019. The pandemic ultimately forced his retirement, as did a diagnosis of Lewy Body Dementia.
He met his wife Sandra (née Barker) at the Valiant Trooper, a pub close to the BBC's Charlotte Street studios. They were married in 1981, and she cared for him in his final illness. She survives him together with their son and daughter.
Colin Berry, born January 29 1946, died April 16 2025
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