| abstract
| - Peel's respect for Alan Dell (1924-1995) was based on Dell's broadcasting style, which placed the music, rather than his own personality, at the centre of the programme. Of course, this was also Peel's aim and therefore Dell's self-effacing manner and economy with words appealed to him. Dell was born in South Africa and began broadcasting at the South African Broadcasting Corporation in 1943. His long career at the BBC began in the mid-1950s and took in a variety of programmes, many of them with an easy listening format. He presented Pick of the Pops in its first incarnation as a show reviewing new releases, in the pre-Alan Freeman era before it became a chart show. He was also a regular presenter of late-night shows on both the BBC and Radio Luxembourg, but was most associated with The Dance Band Days. The music of the British dance bands of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s was unfashionable with younger listeners in the 1960s, despite (or because of) its popularity with a loyal, older audience, but gradually this situation began to change. Already in 1970 Richard Neville was writing in Oz of how some disillusioned ex-hippies had grown weary of the mediocrity of "underground rock" and were turning to LPs of The Golden Age of the British Dance Bands as an alternative. Later, the TV drama series written by Dennis Potter, Pennies from Heaven (1978), used actors miming to British dance band songs as part of the drama, provoking further reissue albums of the music it had featured. These were bought by younger viewers as well as by older dance band fans. Although Alan Dell died in 1995, both the dance band music and the other forms of pre-rock'n'roll pop played on his programmes found a home on John Peel's shows, via the Peelenium and Pig's Big 78. In the twenty-first century, a general curiosity about the past has succeeded the purist attitude of earlier blues, folk or jazz specialists. Peel, with his wide experience of broadcasting and his broad musical tastes, was able to introduce old music of many kinds to his listeners, alongside the new and unfamiliar. It is likely that he had first heard some of these vintage records on Alan Dell's programmes.
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