My first memories are from about 3 or 4 years ago, stumbling on the MB, bumping into french-franck, bryn and some others, completely ignorant about classical, and the MB educated me.

Feeling very sad that it could not happen after the 19th.#

Also, a big thanks to the Jazzers who have taught me a lot.

I simply can't remember. My mother listened to the Third Programme from its beginning in the mid-1940s, when I was a small child, so it was always there. She used to say what a wonderful thing the programme was. We listened to the Light Programme (Radio 2, more or less) sometimes, and to the Home Service (Radio 4) a lot. The wireless was very influential in people's lives when there was virtually no television. I have vague memories of first hearing Kathleen Ferrier and Peter Pears in those very early days.

Mid Sixties, I was but a child.

My uncle, pipe, slippers, cat on lap, sitting in an armchair next to his (prestigious at the time) Phillips Radiogram. He was constantly adjusting the knob so pianissimo, fortissimo and everything between were delivered at the same volume.

Whenever anyone sang, or any 20th Century piece came on the knob was turned down to nothing for a few minutes until it was over.

E

You are amazing Milly that you found classical music by yourself. I see so many children that want to be like everyone else and are beyond any help as far as I can see. I think that people have natural aptitude and natural desire to listen to something profound or something stupid.
Bravo, Milly.

Thank you t-p.  It was actually ballet lessons that started me off.  I started ballet at 3 and I loved the music.  The pianist we had at the school - I didn't realise then but do now - was absolutely superb!  She should have been a concert pianist, in fact she may well have previously been one.  In the end, I didn't know which I preferred the ballet or the music.  Somehow they became fused into one.  She could play absolutely anything.   Our exercises were to Chopin, John Field, Delibes, Liszt - she was amazing.  I have her to thank for the artistic passion she aroused in me from such a tender age.  I did a solo once as a teenager to Clair de Lune and my stage-fright vanished as soon as the spotlight went on me and the music started.  I became totally lost in my own little world and didn't care or even think about anyone else watching. 

1970
http://www.for3.org/third/history1.html

I suddenly got the idea in the second form when our music teacher played us the slow movement of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto.  I must have been 13, and it would have been 1967 or 68.  I instantly became addicted to Radio 3 (was it still the Third Programme then, I forget).

On summer evenings I used to hang around on the footpath that ran behind our house with a transistor radio clamped to my ear.  Stockhausen and some early music (maybe Dufay or Ockeghem) stick in my mind as things I listened to there.

The organ and its music soon sparked my interest, too.  I listened avidly to a programme that I think was called "Organ Gallery".  Each programme visited a major organ in the UK - usually a cathedral.  The programme comprosed some music played on the organ, as well as a discussion between the presenter and the organist at the console, with the organist demonstrating the more ravishing stops.

One night a week, the final programme before shutdown at 23.30 was a programme of organ music.  I particularly remember it broadcasting all the Rheinberger sonatas.