Ed “Stewpot” Stewart, who has died aged 74 following a stroke, became a disc jockey in the days when hosting a BBC Radio 1 show virtually guaranteed both celebrity status and spin-off fame on television. He attracted as many as 17 million listeners with the weekend request programme Junior Choice – also broadcast on Radio 2 – during a 12-year run (1968-79). Stewart will be remembered for his bright and breezy style, ushered in by the jaunty theme tune Morningtown Ride.
He recorded interviews for the show with young patients in hospitals and recalled how his trademark jingle of a chuckling child was born out of such a trip: “This eight-year-old boy who had been pulling at my shirt all day piped up and, with an infectious laugh, said, ‘’Ello, darlin’!’ It was so spontaneous, and I’ve played it ever since because everyone asks to hear him.” Another defining element of Junior Choice during Stewart’s years on it were the novelty singles he championed, many for a new generation, including Max Bygraves’s You’re a Pink Toothbrush, Terry Scott’s My Brother, Clive Dunn’s Grandad, Mandy Miller’s Nellie the Elephant and Benny Hill’s Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West).
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