When they first appeared in the city, the BBC launched their service with a proper giggle, writes our historic regional broadcasting correspondent Angus Young.

On 14 August 1924 a new radio relay station with the call sign of 6KH was launched in Hull by the BBC. It was the latest in a roll-out of regional stations by the Corporation designed to provide additional programmes for its main schedule which, until then, was broadcast from a transmitter in central London. The regional stations would also provide extra reach across the country beyond the range of the single London transmitter.
In Hull, a first floor studio was opened in nos. 26-27 Bishop Lane while a transmitting station was set up at Lion Mills in Wincolmlee where an aerial was installed between a chimney stack and the main mill building. The Bishop Lane base is now apartments. A plaque marking the property’s broadcasting history recently disappeared. In Wincolmlee, the chimney is long gone but the mill building is still in use as a warehouse now known as Lion Wharf.

The opening of the Hull station was marked by a special live concert at the City Hall which was broadcast to the nation. It’s estimated around four million people tuned in that night to listen. As you might expect, the concert included speeches from various VIPs while music was provided by the Band of the 1st Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry, pianist Edward Stubbs and two solo vocalists, the soprano Miriam Licette and bass singer Norman Allin. Completing the line-up, and bringing a jovial touch to the proceedings, was Charles Penrose, who was billed in the official programme as “The Mirth Maker”. During his turn, he performed what became his best-known song The Laughing Policeman.
According to one review of the evening, Penrose took to the stage “in a tornado of laughter”, eventually composing himself enough to inform the audience he was suffering for “laughteritis – the most awful of all the itises. He then proceeded to demonstrate its contagious character. He laughed so heartily and so loudly that the audience could not help but join in.”

Destined to remain on the BBC’s radio airwaves for the next 50 years via programmes such as Children’s Choice and Junior Choice, Penrose’s novelty hit borrowed its melody and laughter-filled chorus from The Laughing Song which was originally recorded by a former street singer called George W. Johnson in 1891. Regarded as the first successful black American recording artist, Johnson’s song was recorded on individual phonograph cylinders. As it was still mechanically impossible to duplicate records at the time, he had to sing the same song thousands of times, including its distinctive laughing chorus, to ensure it was captured on each cylinder. Johnson’s version was sung about himself but the subject in the Penrose version was switched to a policeman, a change credited to his wife Mabel who is listed as the song’s composer under the pseudonym Billie Grey.
While Johnson’s later life included an acquittal on a murder charge, poverty and being buried in an obscure unmarked grave in New York, Penrose followed up The Laughing Policeman with more laughing songs about army majors, vicars, jockeys and even typists. He even combined laughing and sneezing in one song with the B-side featuring a stand-off between a barking dog and a trumpet – both voiced by himself. He later became one of the first comedians to star in his own BBC radio show and also appeared as a character actor in several films.
As for Hull relay station 6KH, its output of regular programmes made in the city ended in October 1928 when production was switched to Manchester. The Wincolmlee transmitter remained in use until 1931. It was a sad end to the early days of BBC broadcasting in Hull but it got me thinking about how laughter has featured in so many tunes over years, enough to warrant this special Curiosity countdown of All-Time Top 10 Laughter Songs (to be read in the style of the late DJ Alan Freeman):
10) Janet Jackson – When I Think of You: Wacko Jacko’s sister bursts into a high-pitched giggle as her 1986 hit nears its end.
9) Billy Connolly – D.I.V.O.R.C.E There’s no holding back the audience having a right old laugh at the Big Yin’s comedy version of the Tammy Wynette classic on this live version which made No. 1 in 1975.
8) REM: – The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite: In which frontman Michael Stipe audibly chuckles over his inability to pronounce the name Dr Seuss correctly in a lyric.
7) Manfred Mann – Ha! Ha! Said The Clown: Let’s go back to 1967 pop pickers with those merry old Manfreds.
6) The Sex Pistols – Anarchy In The UK: Johnny Rotten kicks off this punk anthem with a guffaw worthy of Sid James at his Carry On finest.
5) David Bowie – The Laughing Gnome: Strangely, a track never usually featured in any collection of greatest hits by the Thin White Duke but it’s in with a bullet in our Top 10.
4) Stevie Wonder – Sir Duke; Stevie practically grins his way all through his tribute to jazz legend Duke Ellington, letting out a burst of infectious laughter at the mid-way point.
3) Joni Mitchell – Big Yellow Taxi: Opinion remains divided over why the singer-songwriter laughs right at the end of the song. Most think she’s laughing at herself for delivering the song’s last line in a deep low voice.
2) The Laughing Policeman – Charles Penrose: First released in 1922, it went on to sell over 120,000 copies and was inspired by real-life PC John “Tubby” Stephens of Leicester.
1) The Laughing Song – George W. Johnson: Still the daddy of them all, spending ten weeks at Number 1 in the American Phonograph Cylinder chart of 1891.