The Caretakers' Forum

It's another sad end to a service I remember listening to as a boy. The Shipping Forecast on 31st March will be the last ever transmitted on Long Wave. Long Wave was used due to the long distance the radio signal travelled and could reach ships with a transistor radio anywhere around UK waters.

Ships obviously use more modern equipment to get updates on the weather these days. There will be a few broadcasts of the Shipping Forecast continuing from the BBC on other platforms, but I can't really see the point.

Can you recall all the Shipping Forecast regions off by heart?


I will miss the theme tune though, it was a fantasticality atmospheric and very apt piece of music not heard often these days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFdas-kMF74

I couldn't name all the areas but as a kid I used to lie in bed with my transistor radio seatching for different channels from around the world just to listen to the different languages but the shipping forecast was always listened to even though i didn't understand it with all the strange names of the areas. The one i used to listen for was Tyne obviously but it is just another memory that is priceless in my mind

I was given an old mains valve radio when I was around 9 ish, I listened to many pirate stations on it. As a very young teen I realised that connecting a long piece of wire to the radio and dangling it out of my bedroom window I could get even better reception. I did eventually get a small transistor radio that was more portable and convenient, although the sound was nowhere near as deep or rich as that old valve radio.
I occasionally tuned into the shipping forecast, the only names I remember is Dogger and perhaps Viking