Bob Danvers-Walker

{{short description|British radio, television and newsreel announcer}} {{EngvarB|date=December 2017}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2024}} {{More citations needed|date=April 2024}} {{Infobox person | name = Bob Danvers-Walker | image = Bob-Danvers-Walker-voice--007.jpg | alt =  | caption = | birth_name = Cyril Frederick Danvers-Walker | birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1906|10|11}} | birth_place = Cheam, Surrey, England | death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1990|05|17|1906|10|11}} | death_place = Oxford, Oxfordshire, England | spouse = {{marriage|Vera Nita White|1933}} | nationality = | other_names = | occupation = Radio, television and newsreel presenter | years_active = | known_for = Voice of Pathé News<ref name="Narrators">{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxiPTxF742Q |title=6 Amazing Narrators British Pathé |date=19 January 2017|publisher=British Pathé |access-date=12 August 2024 |via=YouTube}}</ref> | notable_works = }}

'''Cyril Frederick "Bob" Danvers-Walker''' (11 October 1906{{spaced ndash}}17 May 1990) was a British radio and newsreel announcer best known as the voice of Pathé News cinema newsreels during the Second World War and for many years afterward.

His voice was described as "clear, fruity and rich, with just the suggestion of raffishness".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Andrews |first1=Deborah |last2=Turner |first2=Roland |title=The Annual Obituary 1990 |publisher=St. James Press |location=Chicago / London |date=1991 |page=282}}</ref> Kenneth Branagh has stated that he was consciously imitating Danvers-Walker's "perky tone" in a spoof "newsreel" segment in his 2000 film ''Love's Labour's Lost''.<ref>{{cite web |last=Gantz |first=Jeffrey |title=Kenneth Branagh gets an A-plus for his Labour's |url=http://72.166.46.24/archives/2000/documents/00523891.htm |url-status=dead |work=The Phoenix Archives |date=15 June 2000 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930184428/http://72.166.46.24/archives/2000/documents/00523891.htm |archive-date=30 September 2007}}</ref>

==Biography== {{More citations needed section|date=April 2024}} Born in Belmont near Cheam, Surrey, Danvers-Walker was the son of William Charles Danvers-Walker, an Australian, who married in 1901 Lilian Danvers, daughter of Frederic Charles Danvers.<ref>{{cite book|editor-first=Frederick Arthur |editor-last=Crisp |title=Visitation of England and Wales |volume=19 |url=https://archive.org/details/visitationofengl19howa/page/6/mode/1up |year=1917 |page=6 |publisher=Privately printed |location=London}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|editor-first=Frederick Arthur |editor-last=Crisp |title=Visitation of England and Wales |volume=9 |url=https://archive.org/details/visitationofengl09howa/page/n244/mode/1up|year=1903|page=v |publisher=Privately printed |location=London}}</ref> He used the surname '''Walker''' to the 1950s. He spent much of his childhood in Tasmania and began his radio career in Melbourne, in 1925, moving on briefly to 2FC in Sydney, in 1932, before returning to the United Kingdom the same year.<ref name="ODNB">{{cite ODNB|id=70379|first=Anne Pimlott|last=Baker|title=Walker, Cyril Frederick Danvers- (1906–1990)}}</ref>

From 1932 to 1939, Walker worked as a presenter for the International Broadcasting Company (IBC) network of commercial radio stations broadcasting in English to Britain from the continent.<ref name="ODNB"/> He became Chief Announcer at Radio Normandy. He also helped the IBC to set up radio stations at Toulouse, Paris, Lyon, Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia, but Radio Normandy was always the company's flagship station,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/sound-journal/Street19991.html|title = School of Arts}}</ref> and Danvers-Walker was heard regularly over its airwaves until the station was closed down at the start of the Second World War in 1939.{{CN|date=April 2024}}

Danvers-Walker wanted to join the BBC as soon as the war started, but was prevented by a BBC rule against employing anyone who had worked on commercial radio. This rule was quietly dropped in 1943, and from then on he was deployed on a variety of morale-boosting wartime BBC radio shows, including ''Round and About'' and ''London Calling Europe''.{{CN|date=August 2024}} He was the commentator for the British Pathé newsreel, a job he held continuously from 1940 to 1970.<ref name="Narrators"/>

Bob Danvers-Walker also worked freelance for many radio and television outlets. He was the announcer on the "rebel" version of the comedy programme ''Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh'' on Radio Luxembourg when the show was in temporary exile from the BBC (1950–51), and for the science-fiction series ''Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future'' on the same station (1951–55). He took part in the "stunt" programme ''People are Funny'' on Luxembourg, recorded around the UK and presented by Peter Martyn.{{CN|date=April 2024}}

The arrival of ITV (commercial television) in 1955 brought new opportunities,{{Citation needed|date=April 2026}} including as the announcer on Michael Miles' game show ''Take Your Pick!''<ref name="Telegraphobit" /> (1955–68) and its successor programme, ''Wheel of Fortune'' (1969–71). At BBC Radio, Danvers-Walker was one of the regular presenters of ''Housewives' Choice'' throughout the 1950s, and contributed to many other programmes, including in the 1960s ''Holiday Hour'' and ''Countryside''. For BBC Television{{Citation needed|date=April 2026}} he featured regularly in ''Saturday Night Out''.<ref name="Telegraphobit" /> He also appeared in a number of feature films, often as himself.{{CN|date=April 2024}}

In 1985 and 1986, he appeared in the documentary ''Around The World In Seven Minutes And Four Times On Saturday'', which was broadcast on BBC Two.<ref name="Around the World in Seven Minutes and Four Times on Saturday RT">{{cite web|title=Radio Times Listing|date=31 December 1985 |url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/4317c04804c14284a961a7820cc8cd3c|accessdate=14 August 2022}}</ref><ref name="Around the World in Seven Minutes and Four Times on Saturday repeat RT">{{cite web|title=Radio Times Listing|date=23 August 1986 |url=http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/05baf536a55e4317b8b26606c5c12ad1|accessdate=10 May 2016}}</ref>

Danvers-Walker died of cancer in the Churchill Hospital, Oxford, England, on 17 May 1990, and was survived by his wife Vera Nita White, whom he had married in 1933; they had a son and a daughter.<ref name="ODNB"/> On an audio clip from Radio Normandy, his colleague Roy Plomley is heard referring to him as "Bob Walker", but he was described as "C. Danvers-Walker" in the station's programme schedules printed in ''Radio Pictorial'' on (for example) 3 May 1935.<ref>{{Cite web |date=5 April 2007 |title=Sponsored English Radio in Europe - 1 |url=http://www.sterlingtimes.org/radio_sponsorship.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070405192429/http://www.sterlingtimes.org/radio_sponsorship.htm |archive-date=5 April 2007 |access-date= |website=}}</ref> Conversely, a 1962 Pathé News Issue Sheet lists him as "R. Walker".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bufvc.ac.uk/databases/newsreels/learnmore/docs/PN62-103.pdf |title=CONTENTS OF PATHÉ NEWS No.62-103 |access-date=23 April 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927100616/http://www.bufvc.ac.uk/databases/newsreels/learnmore/docs/PN62-103.pdf |archive-date=27 September 2007}}</ref>

==Honours== Danvers-Walker was named ''The World's Most Durable Commentator'' in the Guinness Book of Records.<ref name="Telegraphobit">{{Cite news |date=18 May 1990 |title=Bob Danvers-Walker |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-telegraph-bob-danvers-walker/196503408/ |access-date=28 April 2026 |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |department=OBITUARIES |page=21 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

==Sources== *Sean Street, [http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/sound-journal/Street19991.html "Radio For Sale: Sponsored Programming in British Radio during the 1930s"], Bournemouth University, 1999 *George Nobbs, "The Wireless Stars", Norwich, 1972, SBN 903 61900 8

==External links== *[http://radio.normandie.free.fr/ (website in French and English) L'Histoire de Radio Normandie] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20070509203035/http://www.paulplu.demon.co.uk/radio/sound.htm Paul's Radio Museum] (includes a 1930s recording from Radio Normandy presented by Roy Plomley in which "Bob Walker" puts in an appearance) *[http://www.britishpathe.com/ British Pathe News] (archive of hundreds of newsreel items, many of them commentated by Bob Danvers-Walker) *[https://web.archive.org/web/20161220070438/http://www.sterlingtimes.co.uk/radio_sponsorship.htm Sponsored English Radio in Europe] (from the ''Sterling Times'' website) *[https://web.archive.org/web/20071112044529/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/individual/72627?view=credit Bob Danvers-Walker filmography at the British Film Institute] *[http://www.208.justsayweb.de/208/208o/photos/208-dwalker.html A picture of Bob Danvers-Walker, probably in the 1950s] (on a Radio Luxembourg fan website)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Danvers-Walker, Bob}} Category:British radio personalities Category:1906 births Category:1990 deaths Category:People educated at Launceston Church Grammar School Category:People from Surrey (before 1965)