Profile of John Snagge on Famous Like Me

John Derrick Mordaunt Snagge OBE (8 May 1904-25 March 1996) was a well-known British newsreader and commentator, with a long career on BBC Radio.

He joined the BBC in 1924 after graduating from Pembroke College, Oxford, and took up the position of Assistant Director at the newly-founded local radio station in Stoke-on-Trent. In 1927, the BBC obtained the rights to cover major sporting events under its Royal Charter, and Snagge broadcast his first sports commentary (of a Hull City versus Stoke City football match) in January of that year.

He was transferred to London in 1928 and worked as one of the BBC's main announcers alongside Stuart Hibberd. From 1931 until 1980 he commentated on the annual Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race. He gave a commentary in 1937 for the coronation of King George VI, and again in 1953 when Queen Elizabeth II was crowned.

At the start of World War II he was made Presentation Director of the BBC, and he delivered many important radio announcements during the course of that war. Towards the end of the war, Snagge presented the magazine programme War Report, which featured regular news updates from the beaches of Normandy.

He was head of Radio Announcement at the time The Goon Show was commissioned, and played a key role in behind the scenes negotiations. As a consequence, he made frequent (usually pre-recorded) guest appearances on that programme. He also starred as the Newsreader in the radio version of Dad's Army, in an echo of his real-life wartime role.

Snagge retired in 1965, but his annual Boat Race commentaries continued until 1980. In the late 1970s and very early 1980s he also appeared on Noel Edmonds' Sunday morning show on BBC Radio 1, a role in which he would be succeeded by Brian Perkins. He died in 1996, aged 91.

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