Ken Bruce’s departure signals the start of an era Radio 2 listeners never wanted

It’s a sad day for Radio 2 listeners. Today, Ken Bruce is leaving the mid-morning slot he’s occupied for three decades. Never a showy broadcaster – like Terry Wogan before him, he identifies as a shy man – the 72-year-old Scot was an avuncular anchor in the day. To hear that he had decided to leave (to be replaced by the younger, shinier-toothed Vernon Kay) came as a shock. The mood curdled when it transpired Radio 2 bosses had refused to let him work out his contract, insisting he get his slippers out from under the desk by lunchtime today.

“It’s entirely within the BBC’s right to ask me to step away a little early,” he told Radio 4’s Today programme. “But for the sake of 17 days, which was all that was remaining [on my contract], it seems a shame.” He pointed out that he’d stuck to an old-school work ethic that meant that “over the last 46 years, I haven’t had very much time off, I’ve attempted to turn up whenever I’m required to turn up”.

Bruce’s departure is the latest, unnecessarily bloody blow in Radio 2’s ongoing cull of its cosy older DJs. Drive-time star Steve Wright, 68, has been replaced by 49-year-old Scott Mills. Paul O’Grady, 67, quit (after he was forced to share his Sunday slot with 37-year-old Rob Beckett). Vanessa Feltz (61) and Graham Norton (59) have also walked, leaving the station’s mic manned by presenters who made their names on Radio 1 in the 2000s.

When sentimental hipster Shaun Keaveny was shunted out of his post at BBC 6 Music last year he told me he felt “like an elderly Inuit relative pushed out onto the ice”. Like Keaveny and Simon Mayo, Bruce is snowshoeing off to Greatest Hits Radio. The commercial station (whose audience figures rose by a million last year) doesn’t embarrass itself by chasing younger listeners. It proudly bangs out golden oldies.

Because younger presenters aren’t what Radio 2 listeners want. Radio is often described as “the friend in the kitchen”. So: Radio 1 and 1Xtra are your cool friends. Radio 4 is your clever friend and 6 Music is your bearded hipster friend who drops around with craft beer and asks you to reassess krautrock. Radio 2? Well, that’s your low-maintenance, dad-joking friend with an elasticated waist. Trying to update it for younger listeners feels as phoney as a politician donning a baseball cap. And – so long as they’re not grasping greedily after sky-high salaries or behaving badly – we want our becardiganed ageing DJs to leave gradually, gracefully, on their own terms.

If you want to know what Radio 2 means to the nation, think back to lockdown. Through all the fear and uncertainty, Radio 2 kept calm and carried on. I’m usually a Radio 4 listener, but during the pandemic I found the station kept our household spirits up and our schedule vaguely on track. I realised why it forms the reassuring, unifying backdrop to so many multigenerational workplaces, from building sites to dental surgeries. The easy-going playlist features songs my kids knew as well as I did and – after homeschool rows – peace would be restored as we found ourselves singing along to safe, well-worn songs by Elton John, Paula Abdul and Bruno Mars.

Every morning at 9.30am, Ken Bruce’s soothing voice could be relied upon to offer an everyman’s companionship. He wasn’t quite the radio genius that Terry Wogan was, but he came from the same school of dry wit and had a similar ability to make a diverse audience of millions feel like members of a kitchen club. He’d worked in all the sorts of places where his show was now played, and he knew how to jolly us gently along.

The son of a Glasgow tobacconist, Bruce trained as an accountant and later worked in car hire, before slowly building a broadcasting career up from a hospital radio hobby; he settled into Radio 2’s mid-morning slot like it was an old armchair. The celebrities who came on to celebrate the Tracks of their Years were greeted like customers at his old car-hire place. The listeners who phoned in to participate in his brilliant PopMaster quiz could find themselves becoming low-key celebs. They were encouraged to give a list of shout-outs to friends, family and colleagues (Daphne in accounts and Dave on the front desk!) that were often as long as those delivered by tearful Oscar winners.

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In mid-May 2020, a PopMaster contestant called Scott delighted the quiz’s fans by calling in from his workplace. Scott was halfway through answering a question when a colleague entered the room. “Being a good social distancer and a natural live broadcaster,” Bruce later reflected, Scott “relocated to the bathroom, where he seamlessly continued answering the question – and scored rather well.” This is what the Bruce show – what Radio 2 – is all about: decent, British, cracking on. Displacing the stresses of life with a cuppa and trying to name three top 10 hits by Earth, Wind & Fire.

Over the years, Bruce says he’s had his suspicions about some of the contestants “getting assistance” (googling, perhaps?) during the quiz. “But I don’t like to use the word ‘cheat’ because I can’t prove anything. Rather like golf, we trust people to play by the rules.”

My own mum died – at home, before the ambulance arrived – on 20 May 2020. Two days before, 40 staff at Downing Street had gathered to enjoy “the lovely weather” at a cheese and wine party. The following days were a blur of grief during which my friends and family left flowers and bottles on my doorstep. Through it all was the arm around the shoulder of Radio 2. The familiar voice of Ken Bruce beside the kettle. His suggestion of a biscuit, a sly link between the news and a solid slab of Fleetwood Mac. Me, distracted from sadness for a moment by trying to beat my high score on PopMaster: “Shhh! Kids! Now I’ve missed the question...!”

I don’t know if I’ll follow Bruce to his new gig at Greatest Hits Radio. I hate jingles. And it feels aimed more squarely at the older listener than the entire family. They don’t play the new music my kids like. So we’ll also miss the fun of septuagenarian commentary on the current pop parade, which was always part of the Radio 2 party, like getting your granny on the dance floor to “Gangnam Style”. But I’ll probably have to tune in for the odd blast of PopMaster. I promise not to cheat.