Here's Paul Simon debuting The Sound of Silence - with a few words of inspirational intro - in 1965 on Five to Ten, the Pause for Thought of its day: youtu.be/Npuycfvesjc

We also honoured our boss Michael Wakelin, in his 40th year of looking after PFT. Joining in 1986 in the Derek Jameson years, he's presented and produced it - a fine and patient boss, who hugely values this 3mins audio shrine. He's like the ravens in the Tower of London, and must never leave.

Huge thanks TBI Media for having us and looking after this marvellous radio sanctuary, and to the Radio 2 Breakfast Show team for being so welcoming.
Here are some artefacts I stopped by on the way in...

...Here are some selected highlights from my 3/4 century whizzthrough of Pause for Thought + its predecessor Five to Ten, inc. previous voices from Paul Simon to Barbara Cartland:

...and for the shows in the diary (Farnborough, Billericay, Knaphill, Hailsham, Much Wenlock, Kettering, Battle, Andover, Guildford), visit comediansandcarols.com

Cheers Paul!

Cheers Charlie, most kind! It's books like yours that have spurred me on down these rabbit-holes - so thank you.

I must say as well - thanks Alison Hindell for commissioning this drama and taking a chance on us. We're glad of the chance to bring the BBC's first drama back to the mothership this Christmas.

We told Phyllis' tale on ep72 of m'podcast: tiny.cc/twiggpod
Huge thanks to Prof Tim Crook, Dr Andrea Smith, Carina Saner + podcast folks (esp newspaper detective Andrew Barker) for all they've done for Justice for Phyllis!
So: Radio 4, Christmas Eve, 2:15pm. Can't wait. Phyllis has, for 103 years!

This one-off festive historical comedy drama is produced by B7 Media, directed by @helenquigley.bsky.social (who also directed the podcast drama we made on the latest @bbcentury.bsky.social podcast), exec prod is Andrew Mark Sewell, music by Neil Brand, sound design by Eloise Whitmore. All fab.

...and in a marvellous piece of casting, Phyllis' own great-great-granddaughter Flora plays her own great-grandmother, young Anne Twigg (first screen actress to play Anne Boleyn, and first screen actress to carry her own head - but that's not in this drama...)

...Tamsin Greig plays first radio dramatist Phyllis Twigg Rory Kinnear is the BBC's first voice Arthur Burrows, with Amit Shah (Mr Bates vs The Post Office etc), Aja Dodd, Will Harrison Wallace, Haydn Watts, and you may even hear my voice in there somewhere...