Family Favourites with Cliff Michelmore

Jan 21, 2016, 06:43 PM

Mention the long-running Sunday lunchtime show Family Favourites and inevitably the names of Cliff Michelmore and Jean Metcalfe come up. Jean co-presented the programme for about 20 years but Cliff's association was much briefer, just over a year. Cliff hosted the Germany end of the programme, from the studios of the British Forces Network in Hamburg, during 1948 and 1949. Such was the on-air rapport between him and Jean that when he was over in London he looked her up at Broadcasting House. "You must be Jean", he said, to which she replied "You must be Cliff". About a year later, by which time Cliff had left the BFN and was working freelance for the BBC, they married. No recordings exist of any Family Favourites programmes from the 1940s or 1950s but this is Cliff presenting a revival edition of the show for BBC Radio 2 on Christmas Eve 1984.