Sir Terry Wogan, one of our nations treasures!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artists/5cd84120-2e06-41e5-939f-07b925c57ca5
Wogan, the son of a grocery store manager in Limerick, was educated Crescent College, a Jesuit school, from the age of eight. He experienced a strongly religious upbringing, later commenting that “There were hundreds of churches, all these missions breathing fire and brimstone, telling you how easy it was to sin, how you’d be in hell. We were brainwashed into believing.” Despite this, he has often expressed his fondness for the city of his birth, commenting on one occasion that “Limerick never left me, whatever it is, my identity is Limerick.”
At the age of 15, after his father was promoted to general manager, Wogan moved to Dublin with his family. While living in Dublin, he attended Crescent College’s sister school, Belvedere College. He participated in amateur dramatics and discovered a love of rock and roll. After leaving Belvedere in 1956, Wogan had a brief career in the banking profession, joining the Royal Bank of Ireland.[6] While in his twenties, he later joined the national broadcaster of Ireland, RTÉ (Raidió TeilifÃs Éireann) as a newsreader and announcer, after seeing an advert in a newspaper advertising announcer positions. He later revealed on BBC television show Would I Lie to You? that during his time at RTÉ, he would play pranks on his colleagues by burning their scripts while they were live on air.
On 25 April 1965, Wogan married Helen Joyce. They have had four children:
Wogan conducted interviews and presented documentary features during his first two years at Raidió TeilifÃs Éireann, before moving to the light entertainment department as a disc jockey and host of TV quiz and variety shows such as Jackpot, a top rated quiz show on RTÉ in the 1960s. When the show was dropped by RTÉ TV in 1967, Wogan approached the BBC for extra work. He began working for BBC Radio, initially ‘down the line’ from London, first broadcasting on the Light Programme on Tuesday 27 September 1966. On the inauguration of BBC Radio 1, he presented the Tuesday edition of Late Night Extra for two years, commuting weekly from Dublin to London. After covering Jimmy Young’s mid-morning show throughout July 1969, he was offered a regular afternoon slot from 3 to 5 pm This was officially on BBC Radio 1, but lack of funding meant that it was also broadcast on BBC Radio 2.
In April 1972, he took over the breakfast show on BBC Radio 2, swapping places with John Dunn, who briefly hosted the afternoon show. By this time, Radio 1 and Radio 2 had diverged sufficiently to allow separate programming, and Wogan enjoyed unprecedented popularity, achieving audiences of up to 7.6 million. His seemingly ubiquitous presence across the media meant that he frequently became the butt of jokes by comedians of the time, among them The Goodies and The Barron Knights. Wogan was eminently capable of self-parody too, releasing a vocal version of the song “The Floral Dance” during this time, by popular request from listeners who enjoyed hearing him sing over the instrumental hit by the Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band. His version reached number 21 in the UK Singles Chart. A follow-up single, entitled “Me and the Elephant”, and an eponymous album were also released, but did not chart.
In December 1984, Wogan left his breakfast show to pursue a full-time career in television. He was replaced on radio by Ken Bruce, followed shortly afterwards by Derek Jameson and finally Brian Hayes..
In 2005 Wogan acquired British citizenship in addition to his Irish nationality and was thus entitled to use the title “Sir” in front of his name when he was awarded a knighthood in the same year. He died from cancer, at his home in Taplow, Buckinghamshire, on 31 January 2016, aged 77.
