Annie Nightingale, pioneering British DJ, has died aged 83

Annie Nightingale, who became the first female disc jockey on BBC Radio 1 in 1970 and remained a popular personality there until her final show late last year, died at her home in London on January 11. She was 83.

Her family announced the death in a statement, but did not give a cause.

“This is the woman who changed the face and sound of British TV and radio broadcasting forever,” Annie Mac, long-time BBC Radio DJ, wrote on Instagram after Ms Nightingale's death.

Ms. Nightingale became known in music circles in the 1960s as a columnist in British newspapers. And she was a familiar face to stars such as the Beatles, whom she interviewed at the Brighton Hippodrome in 1964.

“Because Derek Taylor liked her, she was welcome at Apple,” the Beatles historian said Mark Lewisohn said in an email, referring to the Beatles' press officer and the company they founded in 1968.

In 1967 she applied as a DJ at BBC Radio 1, the pop music outlet that had just been created in response to the rise of popular offshore pirate stations.

But she came up against the channel's sexist hiring policies. She was told that the all-male DJ lineup represented “husband substitutes” for the housewives listening, and that a woman's voice would lack the authority of a man's.

“It came as a huge shock” Ms Nightingale told The Independent in 2015. “I was almost amused. What do you mean by 'no women'? Why not?”

But in October 1969 the BBC offered her a trial period. Before her first performance, she told The Manchester Evening News: “I'm sure a lot of girls would become great DJs if they were given the chance.”

The following year she was hired for a weekday record review show, 'What's New', and two years later became host of an evening progressive rock show, 'Sounds of the 70s'. Later in the decade she became host of a Sunday afternoon request show and a music interview program. Last year she hosted several other shows.

“From day one I chose the records I wanted to play and I've stuck with them ever since,” she said in her autobiography: “Hey Hello Hello: five decades of pop culture from Britain's first female DJ.” (2020). “I preferred the evenings, where I didn't have to introduce playlist songs I didn't like. That would have been like lying to me.”

Anne Avril Nightingale was born on April 1, 1940 in the Osterley district of London. Her father, Basil, worked in the family's wallpaper business. Her mother, Celia, was a foot doctor. As a girl, Anne listened to children's programs on her father's radio and discovered that she could tune in to distant cities.

“I still feel like when you broadcast, you don't know where it's going and it might reach space somewhere, and I'm still completely in love with that,” she said in a 2018 interview.

After graduating from Lady Eleanor Holles School, she studied journalism at Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster) in London. She began her journalism career soon afterwards, first as a reporter for The Brighton and Hove Gazette and then at The Argus, in Brighton, where she wrote a music column called Spin With Me. She later wrote a music column for a national tabloid, The Daily Sketch.

In 1964, she collaborated with the pop group The Hollies on a book, 'How to Run a Beat Group.'

She found a certain television fame on it BBC's “Juke Box Judge”, where she was part of a guest panel assessing new record reviews, and as presenter of 'That's For Me', a record request program on ITV, and the Rediffusion network's quiz show, 'Sing a Song of Sixpence', both in 1965.

But she was best known for her time at BBC Radio 1, which started with some difficult moments due to her inexperience – such as the time there was eight seconds of dead airtime when she accidentally pressed an 'off' switch while a record was playing.

“What I found difficult in those early days was being technically bad,” she told The Western Daily Press of Bristol in 1979. “Every time I made a mistake, I thought they would all say, 'Oh yeah, female driver!'”

She remained the only female DJ on BBC Radio 1 for 12 years – the “token woman”, she said. In 2010, when she was well halfway through her 41st year there, Guinness World Records named her for having had the longest career ever for a female DJ (that record has since been surpassed twice, by Peruvian broadcaster Maruja Venegas Salinas and Mary McCoy, a DJ in Texas.)

“It wasn't until the 1990s and the 'girlification' of Radio 1 with the likes of Sara Cox, Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball that Nightingale's exceptionality became her longevity and impact, rather than her gender alone,” says Lucy Robinson, a professor at the university. of Sussex, and Dr. Jeannine Baker, who was at Macquarie University at the time, wrote on the BBC website.

Ms. Nightingale's success went beyond radio. In 1978 she was appointed presenter of the BBC's live music television show “The old gray whistle test”, where she focused on new wave music.

After John Lennon was murdered on December 8, 1980, Ms. Nightingale and members of the “Whistle Test” staff tried to gather people to talk about him. During the programme, a producer appeared in the studio and said to Mrs Nightingale: “Paul is on the phone and he wants to speak to you.”

“I had no idea who he meant,” she recalled on the podcast “I am the Eggpod” in 2018. It was Paul McCartney.

“He wanted to thank you on behalf of Linda and himself and Yoko and George and Ringo,” she said. “And that's what really touched me.” She added: “I got on camera again and it's live and I was like, okay, you're the messenger. And he said, 'You know what it was like.'

Mrs. Nightingale's survivors include a son, Alex, and a daughter, Lucy, whose name was partly inspired by the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.” Her marriages to Gordon Thomas, a writer, and Binky Baker, an actor, ended in divorce.

Throughout her career, Ms Nightingale was a champion of new music – from progressive rock to acid house and grime.

She described her deep-seated connection to new music when interviewed on t in 2020The popular BBC Radio 4 program 'Desert Island Discs'

“It's a thrill, it's definitely so exciting,” she said. “I actually get a physical sensation. I get shivers down my legs when I hear something that will be very successful.”