The first radio documentary I heard Ray Gosling do was a series about an overland trip, 'on the road to new zealand', it came out in the late seventies. I think I was expecting a whispering reverential right-on Bob Harris commentary, what we got was very different, very challenging. Ray has this voice, once you've heard it you never forget it, a voice as unique as say John Ebden who used to do regular programmes 'From the BBC Sound Archives'. You could listen to their voices reading the telephone book. Google tells me that Ray Gosling made over a thousand radio documentaries, he is, I believe our greatest living broadcaster, not just my view, ask Andy Kershaw. Has the BBC has preserved all or some of these programmes, how would one go about finding out which ones are left? Are there inventories somewhere that we can get hold of? Are there teams of people digitising all this stuff and what remit are they working too? Sorry if this has been covered before. While I'm on the subject, Arthur Lowe and Ian Lavendar in Parsley Sidings another national treasure that needs bringing back to the surface from which ever dust coated shelf it has been sitting on these past 35 years.
There is a British Library Sound Archive, 71 entries for Ray Gosling, nothing for Parsley Sidings, it's not exactly listen again, very 1994 ish. Tell me I have unrealistic expectations and I'll happily agree.
