Education
Born in Liverpool, he attended Waterloo Grammar School, and harboured ambitions to be a British Broadcasting Corporation announcer from an early age.
Born in Liverpool, he attended Waterloo Grammar School, and harboured ambitions to be a British Broadcasting Corporation announcer from an early age.
Early On leaving school, his first job was at Liverpool docks, and he was subsequently a technician and actor with repertory companies in Oldham, Sidmouth and Swansea. Broadcasting He started broadcasting during the 1960s as a continuity announcer with Granada Television, later moving to ATV in Birmingham and eventually the British Broadcasting Corporation in Manchester and London. From 1980 to 1988 he hosted the early morning show on British Broadcasting Corporation Radio 2, developing an idiosyncratic broadcasting style which relied on a highly individual, gentle and sophisticated wit and repartee.
As he explained in his autobiography:
My theory, if I ever had one, was that this show, broadcast at such a crazy time, could only be successful if it were based on one assumption: that nobody in his or her right mind would choose to be up at such an awful hour.
If we both had to be awake so early, I thought, let"s agree one thing: that it"s you and me against the world. I determined to be cheerful but in a grumpy sort of way, with none of the enforced jollity so beloved of Radio 4.
The regular exchange of banter established between Moore and Terry Wogan as the former handed over to the latter"s breakfast show became an established element of Radio 2"s morning schedule. Moore"s show brought him a dedicated following of listeners, evidenced in 1986 and 1987 by the turn-out of thousands of early morning joggers for the two "Bog-eyed Jog" events held in sporting stadia across the United Kingdom in aid of Children in Need.
In association with these events, he released two records: "O" My Father Had A Rabbit" spent seven weeks in the United Kingdom Singles Chart in 1986, reaching number 24.
While the follow-up, "Bog Eyed Jog", did not do so well, peaking at number 61. His early morning show on British Broadcasting Corporation Radio 2 resounded with meaningful music, and fantastic word-pictures, for example, regular updates on the goings-on of the "Boggitts on the Clough", and the early morning appearances of "Dickie Mint", "whoever he was". A heavy smoker, Moore was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1987, and he died two years later at the age of 47.
At the British Broadcasting Corporation he worked as an announcer on radio and television, providing voice-overs for a number of popular shows such as Come Dancing, Mission World and the radio commentary for the Eurovision Song Contest, also presenting the Eurovision Song Contest Previews in 1987. In 1989 he posthumously won the Outstanding Personal Contribution to Radio award from the Broadcasting Press Guild.
