BBC South Today's Sally Taylor revisits her radio roots with a one-hour special on BBC Radio Solent to mark the 30th anniversary of The Old Grey Whistle Test

FOR BBC South Today presenter Sally Taylor, it comes as a welcome relief to be able to finish listening to David Knopfler, Mark King and Billy Bragg without being sent to bed.

"When I was 16, The Old Grey Whistle Test was always on late at night and I wasn't allowed to stay up to watch it, my dad wouldn't let me.

"But now I'm meeting all these people who were on it," explains Taylor.

The Old Grey Whistle Test was born on September 21 1971, on BBC2, presented by 'Whispering' Bob Harris.

"It followed on from a series of late night arts programmes.

"Suddenly they came to the conclusion that maybe there was a place for slightly different music programmes as an alternative to Top of the Pops.

"There was a whole load of album music out there - singer-songwriter stuff.

"So that's how The Old Grey Whistle Test came about, and to get on it you had to have an album out - it wasn't based on singles sales.

"It had a very different feel to Top of the Pops and therefore had a totally different audience," Taylor remembers fondly.

In spite of her dad's curfew, Taylor got to see enough of The Test to realise it was her kind of thing.

"In 1971 I was 16 and I was very much into the sort of music that was being played on The Old Grey Whistle Test.

"I wasn't into the pop charts at that time and I would go and see all sorts of different bands who'd never featured on Top of the Pops.

"So my interest is a nostalgic one in the sense that it's been great for me to look at all this archive material - and also a great chance to meet some people who were on it back then, which was fantastic," she says.

The radio programme - and its allied TV features - investigates the musicians and artistes in the BBC Radio Solent and BBC TV South patch.

"I met some of the people who were involved with it or played on it and live down here or have a connection with the south.

"We see what they're doing now - that's just my personal nosy bit really - and what their memories of it are," says Taylor.

The presenter met Dire Straits legend David Knopfler at his Hampshire home, the Island's own Mark King of the hit 80s band Level 42, as well as Billy Bragg who is now settled in Dorset and Rick Wakeman, born and bred in Portsmouth.

Also featured are presenter Annie Nightingale who took over from Bob in 1978, Judy Tzuke and Martin Turner of Wishbone Ash.

Naturally Taylor picked up some gossip about what went on behind the scenes.

"Bob Harris told me that Lou Reed, as a result of excesses, was having a bit of a problem in an interview.

"He was deposited in this chair and he fell asleep in the first interview," she laughs.

"Annie Nightingale told me about the first TV performance of the Police.

"Sting went into makeup and the make-up girl said: 'Can you open this tin of hairspray for me?' because it was stuck.

"And then it burst and it went all into his eyes and he was rushed into hospital.

"They were supposed to record him playing their first hit and when he came back he had red eyes.

"So he wore Stuart Copeland's sunglasses in the whole of the interview," she says.

The making of the features has been a treat for Taylor, who is still known to seek out fringe music.

"Meeting these people and looking at the archives has been great.

"It's fun, sometimes, wallowing in nostalgia.

"It was my era, the seventies, and I was into the album stuff and American stuff and a lot of this you just wouldn't get on the television or the radio.

"The only place you'd find it was on The Old Grey Whistle Test.

"Bob Harris was my hero - I know he wasn't a musician but it was just identifying him with that programme.

"He was a delight, a pleasure to meet.

"I still listen to him on Radio 2, late on Saturday night, if I'm not out and about or doing anything.

"He's a fantastic communicator of brilliant music and he's not stuck in the 70s - he's moved with the times.

"He is about uncovering new music and he does it today as he did it 30 years ago," says Taylor.

Now an accomplished presenter, Taylor remembers the format of The Old Grey Test with awe.

"The bands always played live or were recorded live.

"It had interviews and weird cartoons and stuff and it was very, very laid back and intimate... there was no fixed duration to it.

"It was the last thing on BBC2 - so if they fancied running for two hours, they ran for two hours, and if they had 40 minutes of stuff and there was nothing else they ran for 40 minutes, and it was as simple as that.

"I'd love to have presented something like that.

"I don't think it could exist now," says Taylor.

Many of The Old Grey Whistle Test musicians she met agree, although not all of them can be quite sure.

"Some of them had a few problems remembering," confides Sally.

"And I don't want to say why - I have absolutely no idea why."

The programme will be aired on BBC Radio Solent at 8pm on Monday September,17, and will launch a week of short features on the much-loved music programme.