Madam, - With all the heat generated by the end of Rattlebag on RTÉ Radio 1, another loss seems to have gone virtually unrecorded. After many years of soothing at least some section of the nation to sleep, Val Joyce's Late Date is also to be scrapped.
Val began his radio days in the nursery of the Irish Hospitals' Sweepstake programme with Ian Priestly Mitchell and Bart Bastable and it was there that he developed his twin passions, music and horseracing. In those days there was a small group of broadcasters - Val, Larry Gogan, Brendan Balfe, Mike Murphy and Terry Wogan - who presented whatever programme was assigned to them, which could be Pop Call on Wednesday and an orchestral concert on Friday. We didn't have specialists in those days; we didn't know we needed them.
The programme with which Val was most identified was the Saturday's sports programme Airs and Races.
Then, with producer Kevin Hough, he developed Ireland's Choice with Val Joyce for the new Radio 2, a programme that linked presenters in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Belfast every Sunday morning.
When I assigned him to Late Date it was in the knowledge that he would bring to it the widest spectrum of music but also that it would suit his body clock (Val had never been an early riser). Late Date developed into one of the most extraordinary programmes on any radio station that I know. His combination of opera, operetta, musicals, orchestral music, MOR and pop, presented in a laid-back, almost dreamlike style, and the accompanying nuggets of information, both apposite and arcane, became required listening for many of my generation.
In its way Late Date was a more valuable resource for the music community than "arts" programmes because Val did not engage in discussion, speculation or criticism. He simply told us what was on. Night after night for all those years he has promoted the National Concert Hall, Opera Ireland, Wexford Opera and thousands of other events all around the country. Every concert would get a mention and every new record release a play. He even turned his lack of empathy with modern electronic technology to his advantage and each night the programme became an epic struggle between the forces of good (Val) and bad (the equipment).
Most radio and television presenters are copies; indeed some are very good copies. Val Joyce is an original and I am proud and lucky to have worked with him for over 30 years. I hope his huge reservoir of knowledge and experience is not going to be lost.
Is it possible that we are never again to know what Saint's Day it is?
- Yours, etc,
CATHAL MacCABE, Woodpark, Dublin 16.