Tom Crowe

Tom Crowe (5 July 1922 – 6 December 2010)[1] was an announcer on BBC Radio 3.

For the Australian rules footballer, see Tom Crowe (footballer).

Raised in County Clare, Ireland and educated at St Columba's College, near Dublin, his studies for a degree at Trinity College, Dublin, where he read French and German Literature, were interrupted by joining the British Army and serving in the Irish Guards between 1944 and 1948.[2] He first joined the BBC's Third Programme in 1952, but left in 1960.[1]

After writing the biography of the Arabist Owen Tweedy Gathering Moss (1967), he returned to the Corporation around the time of its publication.[3] During the 1970s he became one of the most familiar voices on Radio 3, and "an accident-prone but haughtily unflappable persona"[1] evolved. Hans Keller recalled Crowe's "inspired" opening of the network in June 1971 with the words: "Good morning to you. It's seven O'clock I'm afraid".[3] On another occasion, when the Greenwich Time Signal was accidentally heard over The Hebrides overture (aka, Fingal's Cave) he commented: "I do hope the Mendelssohn didn’t spoil your enjoyment of the pips".[2]

Crowe retired from the BBC in 1982. Later he worked for the South African Broadcasting Corporation where he presented a classical music programme for three months each year.[2] He died at his home in Pickering, North Yorkshire where he lived with his second wife, Elizabeth Cooper.[2]

References
  1. Obituary: Tom Crowe, Daily Telegraph, 3 January 2011
  2. "Tom Crowe". The Times. London. 9 February 2011. Retrieved 1 January 2017. (subscription required)
  3. Humphrey Carpenter The Envy of the World: Fifty Years of the BBC Third Programme and Radio 3, London: Phoenix, 1997 [1996], p.274
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