Sonorous Voices

talking about Garrision Keillor earlier has reminded me of the various voices used for narrating things over the last few decades. I just looked up who used to narrate the BBC Horizon programmes and the first entry on the result list was ... Garrison Keillor. He didn't narrate it but what a co-incidence. I also came up with lots about Alan Turing but our websense filters the sites out because of Gay-Lesbian Issues. This is disgusting bearing in mind that one of the buildings on our site is called "The Turing Building". I will protest strongly. I have now found the name of the guy I was after. He is Paul Vaughan and he used to narrate the Horizon program for the BBC. He now does occasional stuff for Radio 4 and some TV adverts. I think he plays the clarinet as well but that is just me digging stuff out of the deep down and dusty basement of my brain (a lot of a-literary alliteration - or is it assonance - 'Getting the rhyme wrong' according to Rita). I have another name to find out. The guy who did the narration for 'The Undersea World of Jaques Cousteau' (or 'Jakwees Cousteau' as I used to call him when I was quite young). I don't think the web will help me on this one. Cousteau did some of the voice-over himself but there was a British guy who did the other bits (Rod Serling from the Twilight Zone did the American versions). Oh no. I am swamped by a number of different narrators - Orson Welles, Haydyn Gwynne - I will never know. Actually, the guy I am thinking of also did 'The World About Us'. That was a fantastic program; it was on BBC2 on Sunday nights and they did programs about anything natural. The theme music was good as well. The only one I can remember really well was one about Carnivorous plants - Pitchers, Sun-dews and Venus Fly-traps. When I was about ten, it used to be a highlight of Sunday evenings. I hated Sunday evenings; they conjour up all sorts of terrible visions mostly just because I knew I had to go to school. I have a recurring image of Sun shining down through Gaps in clouds, the sort of religious image that my headmasters used to beat - not literally - into us. I hate that image, not because of what it stood for but what it always reminded me of. My primary school was a traditional red-brick thing and though it was not Church-of-England, it was quite religious. I assume that is not allowed these days in non Church schools which is a pity in one way. My feelings on the existence of Church-State links are quite fuzzy. However, Mr. Tony should certainly NOT be able to chose Bishops.