‘I used to wander about the garden at night, you know, with a cello. And, one night, when I’d been playing for hours, I suddenly heard the note of the most heavenly bird I’d ever heard. Next day, a dear old gardener said in great excitement, “The nightingale is back again”.’ This is how Beatrice became the lady of Radio 3’s The Cello and the Nightingale exactly 100 years ago. She was one of four musically gifted sisters who lived in Sussex, with a 13th-century barn in the garden and a bluebell wood where the bird seemed to echo the notes of the cello – a rich litany of sounds. The resulting outside broadcast became the first-ever radio hit. They say no work was done on the Stock Exchange next day, as everyone was talking about it. Miss Harrison reprised it for 10 years – once accompanied by Lancaster bombers...
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