Petroc Trelawny has narrated this article for you to listen to.
The cherry blossom was at its finest as I made my last early morning trip through Regent’s Park to Broadcasting House to present Radio 3’s Breakfast. When hire-bikes arrived in London, the planners were thoughtful enough to install a docking station outside my flat. I have used the heavy cycles for my commute ever since. Over the past 14 years I have become accustomed to the regular faces on my route: the man in an elegant dressing gown, surveying the morning scene while waiting for his dog to pee; the jogger who for some reason processes backwards along the pavement (whatever the supposed health benefits of his technique, I’ve always wondered how he avoids colliding with one of the elderly lampposts, some of which date back to the reign of George IV). The dedicated speed-cyclists of the 545 Racing Club – named after the time their peloton departs – acted as a marker on my morning schedule: if they were already gathered outside Denys Lasdun’s gloriously stark Royal College of Physicians, I knew I was running late. Whether I was cycling under moonlight on an icy January morning, in June when the sun was already dazzling, in autumn when I would slip-slide on the leaf mulch, my voyage through one of London’s great public gardens never failed to set me up for the day. I hope my colleague Tom McKinney will find similar inspiration during the journey from his home in the Peak District to the BBC’s studios at Salford, from where Radio 3 will now launch the new day.
BBC Television’s first home was Alexandra Palace in north London. For five decades its once magnificent Victorian theatre was used as a storeroom for sets and props. It then lay empty for 35 years until an ambitious restoration project brought it back to life.
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