"As talent spotters go, the anonymous BBC man who first auditioned Jimmy Young ranks with the music label scout who rejected the Beatles. 'Mr Young,' declared the man from the Beeb, 'has no future in broadcasting.' That was 1945. Forty years later, Young was the corporation's most senior radio presenter, the mainstay of mid-mornings on Radio 2, and famously Margaret Thatcher's favourite interviewer – she appeared on his show 14 times. He was still making occasional broadcasts in his 90s. That voice, authoritative yet chummy, warm but no-nonsense, became the sound of the BBC itself. His death yesterday, aged 95, breaks a link to the era of the Light Programme and the days before pirate radio. He wasn't really a 'Jimmy': the son of a miner in Cinderford, Gloucestershire, he was christened Leslie Ronald. An only child, he nearly died from bronchitis, double pneumonia and pleurisy. As a boy, he was a keen sportsman who excelled at rugby and boxing, but his love for music was always stronger and at grammar school in nearby Coleford, he dreamed of being a singer. He had professional voice coaching lessons, and his mother taught him piano. But two catastrophes interrupted his career: his parents divorced, and war broke out. Within hours of Neville Chamberlain's announcement on September 3, he had tried to enlist at an army barracks opposite his home. With typical self-deprecating humour, he later claimed that he only volunteered because the smell of dinner from the canteen enticed him. In fact, he was turned away after he admitted he wasn't yet 18 years old. Undeterred, he walked to the nearest RAF base and tried again, this time adding a few weeks to his age. He was posted to India, and he spent four years there, two of them in Karachi (now part of Pakistan) where he joined both the concert party and the dance band." http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3914870/Gentleman-Jim-radio-king-housewives-favourite-interviewed-PM-Jimmy-Young-turned-radio-saved-suicide-psychic.html#ixzz4PNVqrzhW
