On this date in 1938, Michael Terence “Terry” Wogan was born in Limerick, Ireland. When he retired from his BBC Radio morning program “Wake Up to Wogan” in 2009, he had about 8 million listeners, making it the most popular radio broadcast in Europe. He had started his career in 1963 with Radio Éireann, the Irish national broadcaster. He was educated by Salesian nuns in primary school and later at Crescent College and Belvedere College, both Jesuit schools.
In 1966, when his daughter Vanessa died at 3 weeks of age, his wife sought refuge in Catholicism but the tragedy cemented his nonbelief, Wogan said in 2005. He called losing his faith at age 17 a relief. Interviewed by New Internationalist magazine on Aug. 1, 2004, he said, “There were hundreds of churches, all these missionaries breathing fire and brimstone, telling you how easy it was to sin, how you’d be in hell. We were brainwashed into believing.”
Wogan branched out from strictly radio work to television game and interview shows. He was also the voice of the Eurovision Song Contest for many years and was involved with and hosted the Children in Need telethon since its inception in 1980. He acquired dual British citizenship in 2005, the same year he was knighted. “There was no one better at being a friend behind the microphone than Sir Terry,” said fellow broadcaster Simon Mayo. Wogan said the two most important attributes a person could have were kindness and family. He and his wife Helen Joyce had four children. He also wrote a column in The Sunday Telegraph for many years and wrote several books, including the autobiographies Is It Me? and Mustn’t Grumble.
When he died of cancer at age 77, The Telegraph’s obituary said he was “the most popular and best-loved broadcaster in Britain for more than three decades, confecting a middlebrow, old-fashioned brand of gentle Irish whimsy that barely concealed his forthright and often antagonistic views about the BBC and the people who run it.” (D. 2016)
PHOTO: Wogan at the 2015 Cheltenham Literature Festival; Julie Anne Johnson photo under CC 2.0.
