East Devon Luncheon Club enjoys stand-in speaker at Sidmouth's Victoria Hotel

The East Devon Luncheon Club hosted a last-minute speaker at Sidmouth's Victoria Hotel recently after the planned speaker was unable to attend.

Barry Johnston, son of cricket commentator Brian Johnston, stood in at short notice to speak to the club.

He had addressed the group two years prior, speaking on his father's career, just before lockdown and said he was 'delighted' to be back in Sidmouth.

This time, he spoke about his own career in music, radio and book editing in a talk entitled 'The Other Side of the Microphone'.

His experiences included being lead singer and guitarist with the pop group Design in the 1970s, and being signed as a song writer to the Beatles company Apple Publishing when he was 18.

He appeared in more than 50 TV shows with Design alongside Morecombe and Wise, The Two Ronnies, Tommy Cooper and Benny Hill.

He later became the manager for The New Seekers and then in the 1980s moved to Los Angeles where he enrolled at the Broadcasting School in Hollywood and after graduating presented the breakfast show on a radio station in California.

After returning to the UK in 1985, he worked for the BBC on Radio Sussex and Radio 5 as a presenter on their Sunday breakfast show.

He spent many years editing and producing audiobooks for the BBC for celebrities such as Sir Michael Parkinson, Alan Titchmarsh, Tony Benn and many others.

Barry has also edited and written several books about his father and cricket. He is about to publish an updated version of "The Wit of Cricket".

Chairman of East Devon Luncheon Club Simon Card said: "We were delighted to welcome Barry and his wife back to Sidmouth and much enjoyed his many funny and interesting stories, members and their guests enjoyed the talk greatly. They all really appreciated his light-hearted dialogue after such a challenging time in lockdown."

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