Radio Request Concert

(DE) “Life is not a radio request concert” is often said when wishes are denied. But in our lives in the 50s and 60s, the weekly radio request concert “You request – we’ll play your favourite tunes”, a programme hosted by Fred Rauch, was part of life.

Listeners had sent greetings to friends or relatives on special occasions or just like that to the Radio Station and could add a musical request to the greeting. These well-wishes were recited by the presenter in such a way that they went to the heart, even if they were not meant for you.

“You request – we’ll play your favourite tunes”

When I hear the word Radio Request Concert, I immediately hear the warm and soothing voice of Fred Rauch on the radio, cosiness settles over my mind, strangely enough, I smell the scent of coffee, I just want to listen and find myself in eager anticipation like before a real concert. A pleasant, peaceful atmosphere, so rarely experienced in our family, rises in my memories. Only the ringing of the doorbell, announcing the arrival of some talkative family member, could bring my grandmother and me out of our cosy mood.

The radio was always playing in the background.

In the kitchen of my grandmother’s apartment, where I spent most of the first eight years of my life, the radio was on all day. At least that’s how I remember it. She loved music, especially operettas, which she always sang along to. Rudolf Schock, Fritz Wunderlich, Mario Lanza, Hermann Prey and the famous Enrico Caruso would blare their songs into our kitchen and grandma would sing along passionately. No question, operetta lyrics were therefore very familiar to me from an early age.

“Always smile and always be happy..."

One title from Franz Lehàr’s operetta “The Land of Smiles” has left a particularly deep impression on me because my grandmother sang it over and over again like a pearl of old wisdom: “Always smile and always be happy, always be content…. smile despite the pain and a thousand sorrows. But how it looks deep in your heart is nobody’s business”. She always raised her index finger and looked at me meaningfully and very wisely. At that time, I had no idea what was going on inside my grandmother’s heart that was nobody’s business. She only spoke about the darker side of her feelings by accident and in passing.

I have to admit that this way of life certainly influenced me, whether it was for my benefit or not remains to be seen.

Radio drama and a name for me

I owe not only a rather dubious attitude to life to the radio but also my extraordinary name. In addition to music, radio plays were very popular in those days when there was still no television. When my mother was pregnant in 1953, she was listening to a radio play in which a female Russian prisoner of war had to endure much suffering until she was led into a happy life by her lover. This Russian woman was called Tanja and the drama fascinated my mother so much that she wanted to give her daughter the name Tanja. Yet, some worldly-wise relative thought he knew that this was only an incomplete name and that it sounded different in Russian, they put a Ti in front of it, so that I was finally to be called Titanja. However, as the Catholic priest did not want to baptise me with this name, which was not a Christian name, they decided to give me two more highly respected Christian names to compensate. So my name, Titanja Anna Maria, is too much to bear in a form that is intended for more modest name bearers.

By the way, I hated my name as a child. I always got questioning looks when it was mentioned. There were never any signs or mugs or anything else with my name on them. I didn’t have a name day either, so I missed out on a lucrative gift-giving occasion. And besides, it seemed a mean thing to name me after a character who had endured a lot of misfortune in life.

Later, when I met people who read books and went to the theatre, it turned out that my oh-so-Russian name actually came from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and belonged to the fooled fairy queen. The model was the fairy queen Titania, wife of the fairy king Oberon, from Celtic and Anglo-Saxon sagas and myths. That reconciled me somewhat.

But, and I must admit this at this point, I unconsciously continued this tradition of looking for a name inspired by mass media. When I was pregnant myself in 1979, the medium of choice was no longer the radio but the television. I lived in West Berlin and loved watching Polish feature films shown on GDR television. One of them featured an impressive hero who was assertive and of good character, but who had not had to endure any great suffering. My son is named after him.

Home Cinema: Television

At the end of the 1950s and in the course of the 1960s, television slowly replaced the radio in terms of importance for daily entertainment and information. While the many regional and national radio stations broadcasted almost permanently and there was a radio set in almost every household, television sets were still very sparse in the early 1950s and programming was limited to a few hours a day.

Only a few households in our neighbourhood had a television set. But a widowed woman with two almost grown-up sons, whom I called Aunt Fest, shared her luxury with us. On Saturday afternoons, we children would hang around outside her front door so as not to miss the moment when she came home. “May we watch Lassie?” we asked politely pro forma, for she very rarely refused us. Before we were allowed to leave home to watch Lassie, the adults insisted that we washed our hands and faces, wore clean shoes, which we then had to take off anyway, so that there was no danger of soiling our neighbour’s tiny living room. Only the mother of a long skinny boy always provided her son with a stack of buttered sandwiches so that he could calm himself down with food during the exciting series. If he kept up this habit and given the fact that already for decades exciting TV series can be watched for several hours a day, he might still be long today, but not anymore thin.

Small programme with big impact

When I think back to the early years of television viewing, the key differences from today are that there were certain broadcast times. Outside these broadcasting times, you could only watch the test picture. It was therefore not possible to spend the whole day in front of the TV. On the other hand, you had to wait for certain programmes at certain times.

For us, the programme magazine “Hör zu!” or “HÖRZU” was therefore consulted several times a day. After all, one had to know when to work towards getting an invitation from one’s neighbour to “watch TV”. Later, when we had a TV set ourselves, the programme determined the times at which we ate. In any case, it had to be before the news, so that my mother or grandmother had cleared the table and washed the dishes by the time the news programme began and the whole family could gather in front of the TV. We tried to get rid of any visitors. Watching television together was more of a daily family ritual.

Only the children’s programmes in the afternoon were not compulsory for adults. And after the “Tagesschau” it was a curfew for me as a child. Except on Saturdays, when I was allowed to stay up late and watch films. My goodness, that was exciting and I looked forward to it all week.

We kids loved “Lassie” (1954), “Fury” (1958) and later “Bonanza” (the 60s) and “Flipper” (1966) in the afternoon programme.

Today it strikes me that little girls didn’t play a big role in all these series. There were books for us girls in which girls were the main protagonists, but TV series? At least I don’t remember any. The boys and men in the popular series were of course no identification figures, but as a little girl, you could at most adore them and dote on them. And that’s what I did extensively. But something about these guys with their best animal friends seems to have crept into my heart. When I recently heard on the radio, at the tender age of 67, the question of what one would prefer in the case of an unexpected gift, by a fairy, either to understand the language of animals or that of all people, my spontaneous thought was: the language of animals. Only after my mind had taken a breath did I wistfully change my decision.

Another big difference to today’s television was the small selection of programmes and broadcasts at that time. The choice was very limited. There were a few children’s programmes from 5 p.m. onwards, sometimes educational reports, documentaries and news bulletins. After the main news programme on ARD (the first TV programme) at 8 p.m., “Die Tagesschau”, the evening programmes began.

Quiz or street sweepers - Kulenkampff or Durbridge

The adults, including my grandmother, loved the quiz programme “Einer wird gewinnen” with Hans-Joachim Kulenkampff. It started in 1964 and because she still didn’t have a television set, she was invited by her neighbour to watch it together. Days before, there was talk everywhere about this upcoming television event and the date was rigorously blocked. But quiz shows were and are not my thing, I love drama. That’s why I was always quite frustrated when there was a show on Saturday night instead of a feature film or, even better, a thriller.

I prefered the Francis Durbridge multi-part series like “The Scarf”, which became a street sweeper. However, at the time when these exciting films were shown, children had long since gone to bed. You had to listen at the door or look through the keyhole or somehow get the adults to leave the living room door ajar.

Since more and more households had a television set in the mid-1960s – black and white, mind you – and for a long time there were essentially only two public broadcasters (ARD and, from 1963, ZDF), everyone watched the same programmes. Hence the street sweeping effect. There was only one broadcast. Those who missed it could not seriously participate the next day. And unlike today, the tension of such a programme gripped almost the entire nation.

Did you see that too?

Not only in our family but also at the workplace, at school or while chatting or anywhere else, it was discussed who the killer was. In our family, the fear of missing out led us to link a trip to the toilet that could not be postponed with the urgent request that the others pay attention and bring you up to date as quickly as possible when you returned. There were no commercial breaks that could be used as pee breaks.

Only “Der Tatort”, a criminal series on Sunday evenings, still fulfils this communication function to some extent.

In my memory, it seems as if certain programmes such as quizzes, crime shows, dance tournaments (from 1961) or “Aktenzeichen XY ungelöst” (from 1967) were community experiences in Germany, although people mainly sat in front of their television sets within their own four walls. People talked about it in everyday life, because the probability that this programme had also been seen by others was very high.

Diversity versus commonality

Today, so much commonality can no longer be assumed and the influence of TV on the rhythm of the evening or afternoon practically no longer exists.

I don’t miss anything anymore, because I go to the streaming services via the Internet and choose what interests me, at a convenient time. When it comes to multi-part series, today they are called mini-series, I prefer to watch one after the other. That can take several hours and get quite late.

Since I live alone and can watch TV from my dining table, I like to choose documentaries and reports or educational programmes for dinner. These usually last 30 to 40 minutes, are interesting and informative. This way I don’t have a conversation partner sitting at my dining table, but I do have an admittedly one-sided but interesting conversation.

The format of television is more practical than a newspaper. That’s why I read the newspaper online on my laptop in the morning for breakfast and also in between when something current interests me.

For me, television and the internet have merged and open up a huge world of information and entertainment, independent of time and place and depending on my mood.

In this respect, life is a request programme after all. Today, this would be called “customised”. I no longer look forward to a special film, a highlight of the day or the week. Hundreds of programmes are accessible to me at any time, thanks to Netflix and Amazon, among others.

But this tailoring also means being alone when watching, and not just as a single person.

Within my family and circle of friends, TV shows hardly play a role in conversations anymore, as we hardly ever watch the same programmes, films and series at the same time. Therefore, there are no more street sweepers, which I find a pity. There was something about cringing together.

So we sit in front of our devices much more often than before, but alone, and consume and consume and consume. There are no limits, no time restrictions and no limited supply. If I’m stuck on a series until 2 a.m., I curse this freedom and make an effort over the next few days to only spend my time in front of the screen in homoeopathic doses. Now, unlike in the past, it is my responsibility how much my everyday life is influenced by this medium.

Underground or high level - the choice is yours!

It is also my decision what level of entertainment I bring into my living room. Several private broadcast programmes give me high blood pressure from being so embarrassed for others. People expose their homes, their wishes and dreams, their failures, their feelings to the public. And this to me, who grew up with the wisdom of the “Land of Smiles”.

Other channels such as “ARTE” fascinate me with sophisticated films and after such a TV evening I don’t feel I have wasted my time.

Talk shows and satire are very popular among my friends and are often talked about. But I can’t bring myself to watch these programmes because I get upset all alone in front of the TV when questions are nonsensical and answers outright off-topic. I would need the opportunity to address my comments directly to a person who is present. I therefore do not put myself through this unsatisfactory situation. I then find it difficult to fall asleep afterwards from all the biting thoughts.

What I indulge in is media for relaxation and switching off, preferably with “light entertainment”. Sometimes the films are very badly acted, the story is simplistic to the point of absurdity and the characters are unbelievable to the point of being ridiculous. Then I sit on my sofa smiling and enjoying myself as I did when I was a child and devoured my grandmother’s novels about doctors and nobility. Something always sticks. (TA)