Down Your Way

Down Your Way was a BBC radio series which ran from 29 December 1946 to 1992, originally on the Home Service, later on BBC Radio 4, usually being broadcast on Sunday afternoons. It visited towns around the United Kingdom, spoke to residents and played their choice of music. It has sometimes been described as having portrayed an increasingly outmoded and rose-tinted view of Britain,[citation needed]concentrating on market towns with pre-industrial roots and ignoring industrial towns and New Towns, but it vividly evoked the local and regional distinctiveness as it roved around the United Kingdom.

It was initially hosted by Stewart MacPherson but in 1947 Richard Dimbleby took over its presentation until 1955, then Franklin Engelmann until his death in 1972 when Brian Johnston took over until 1987. In 1975, despite then being the second most popular programme on radio, it was taken off the air as an 'economy measure'. It was subsequently reinstated, after a storm of popular protest.

From 1987 until its demise in 1992 it had a different celebrity host every week, who would visit a place of significance in their own lives – effectively turning it into 'Down My Way' and blending it into the then-emerging celebrity culture.

Its well-remembered signature tune was called "Horseguards, Whitehall"

In the 1980s the show was satirised on the Kenny Everett Television Show as "Up Your Way", a saccharine television version presented by "Verity Treacle". In 1984, it was parodied by Radio Active as "Round Your Parts".

Links To Peel
Peel hosted two shows of Down Your Way in 1988.

The first show broadcast on 31st January had him guiding listeners around his local village Combs, Suffolk, including a pub where the strongest man in East Anglia lives and the lady who taught Margaret Thatcher chemistry. Peel himself also drinks at the pub.

The second show broadcast on 7th February had him visiting Wirral Peninsula near his birthplace and talks to local people, including visiting Liverpool Botanic Gardens, an RSPB bird reserve and a shrimp shop in Merseyside.