Sheila Tracy

Sheila Tracy's broadcasting career spanned five decades starting in 1961 as a BBC TV announcer. Her first radio show was on the Light Programme's Late Choice in early 1963. She joined Radio 4 in October 1973 as a staff announcer and became the network's first female newsreader (albeit briefly and with a certain amount of subterfuge) the following July. In the sound montage you'll hear Sheila speaking on Woman's Hour about that first bulletin. In 1977 she moved over to Radio 2 as a newsreader and announcer working on a number of music shows including The Late Show, The Early Show and You and the Night and the Music. She's best known for the overnight Trucker's Hour and the long-running Big Band Special which she presented from 1979 to 2001. You'll hear clips from all these Radio 2 shows in this AudioBoom post. Sheila later joined Saga Radio and PrimeTime Radio and more recently presented her Swingtime show on The Wireless and Pure Jazz Radio in New York. She died in September 2014 aged 80.