BBC Shipping Forecast announcer shares advice for Pulp's Jarvis Cocker

Costello was taken with the timbre of the Pulp frontman (and erstwhile radio broadcaster on 6 Music and Radio 4’s Wireless Nights), saying: “You can just swim in that voice!”

Alles however, had his reservations about Cocker’s slow and low delivery: “He needs to work on the pacing. You do need to get the whole forecast out in 11 minutes.”

Cocker said that reading “The Ships” as it’s known at Radio 4 “might be one of the best moments of my life”. He admitted that, like many, he used to listen while going to sleep, citing that “the repetitive nature” and “the soothing nature of the person who reads it” helped him to drop off.

Costello and Alles later read out a very localised version of the bulletin that referenced Sheffield areas and beloved institutions, including the now defunct Coles department store in which the event was held.

Talking to Radio Times backstage after the event, Costello and Alles reiterated how important timing is to the one Radio 4 programme that remains a fixed point in the schedule – most famously during the Fifth 2011 Ashes Test match in which, with England on the verge of a famous victory, Test Match Special on LW was interrupted by the Shipping Forecast.

Frantic cricket fans returned to the match only to hear that the final Australian wicket had fallen and England had won Down Under for the first time in a quarter of a century – a historic event that had happened while Radio 4 was bringing us the latest maritime weather updates from Fastnet and Lundy.

Costello admitted to the burden that carries: “I feel that weight of responsibility. We have a little announcer’s bible for reference and about a quarter of it is devoted to the language and rhythm of the Shipping Forecast.

“What’s hammered home is first check the date and time of the script you’ve picked up from the printer, because if it went out at the wrong time, you’d have to arrange a rebroadcast. That’s lived in the back of my head ever since.”

Given that timing is paramount for The Ships, it feels strange that you can download the Forecasts as a podcast from BBC Sounds, but Costello explains: “It has a shelf life, because if you miss one it is still valid until the next one is issued.”

And Alles picked up on what Jarvis Cocker said about how he used the Shipping Forecast to get to sleep.

“People do use it as a form of entertainment, whether it’s as poetry, whether it’s to put them to sleep, or just something to bookend their day. A lot of people, the last thing they do before they go to sleep is listen to the Shipping Forecast. This is the end of another day.”

Costello was aware of this, long before she started reading the forecast in 2017. “Thirty years ago my boyfriend of the time couldn’t go to sleep unless he’d listened to the Shipping Forecast.”

It must be strange for him now to hear his old girlfriend’s voice just as he drops off, but reading something on the radio that is so meaningful to so many people – whether mariners, poets, insomniacs, or pop stars — means that the continuity announcers can be recognised just by their voices in the most unlikely of places.

Alles recalled that it happened to him most recently at a book launch in London, “I was just a member of the audience and asked a question of the author, and somebody came up to me afterwards and said, ‘What’s your name?’, ‘Viji Alles’, and he replied, ‘I listened to you announcing from Bangalore in India.’ He’s an Indian national who studied here briefly about 30 years ago, got hooked on Radio 4 and continues to listen.”

Alles never ceases to be amazed when recognised in public. “The first rule of radio is you’re talking to one person not an audience, and when you’re doing the late forecast, you’ll be the only person in that studio, you may be the only person in the whole of Broadcasting House, so when someone comes up and tells you where they listen to you from, it’s quite mind-boggling.”

The Shipping Broadcast airs on BBC Radio 4 and is also available on BBC Sounds.

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