University of Warwick professor has found three missing ‘Letter from America’ episodes including two of the earliest episodes ever recorded.

Professor Tim Lockley MBE from The University of Warwick has discovered three complete and two partial copies of Alistair Cooke’s famous ‘Letter from America’ series, missing from the BBC archives, dating from the late 1940s and the early 1950s.The two complete episodes from 1949 are the earliest episodes now known to exist. All the findings have been deposited in the BBC archives.

Talking about the discovery, Professor Tim Lockley MBE Head of History at the University of Warwick said: “I was undertaking historical research on 1940s US radio and visiting a friend in the US, an opera collector, who has transcription discs that were recorded in the BBC studios in New York. One of them had ‘Alistar Cooke’ written on it, I knew the BBC holdings of ‘Letters from America were incomplete so I was intrigued to see what was on these discs.”

At the time discs were used to record BBC programmes but only one side was used. A BBC engineer could flip the side of the discs to record things he wanted to keep personally, in this instance Metropolitan opera broadcasts.

Tim went on to say “the discs had survived because of the music recordings on the other side. The Faculty of Arts at the University of Warwick agreed to fund Seth Winner, a professional engineer in New York, to check several hundred discs to see what was on the back and in the process we discovered the missing episodes, now the earliest extant episodes.”

‘Letter from America’ was a weekly fifteen-minute spoken word radio series broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and its predecessor, the Home Service, and around the world through the BBC World Service. From its first edition to its last, it was presented by Alistair Cooke, who would speak of a topical issue in the US, tying together different strands of observation and anecdote and often ending on a humorous or poignant note. The series ran from 24 March 1946 to 20 February 2004, making it the longest-running speech radio programme hosted by one individual.

Listen back to Alistair Cooke’s ‘Letters from America’ here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b00f6hbp

ENDS

For further information contact:
Helen Annetts
Media & Communications Officer (Press Office)
Helen.Annetts@Warwick.ac.uk / 07779 026720

Notes to Editors

University of Warwick
The University of Warwick is one of the UK’s leading universities, marking its 60th anniversary in 2025. With over twenty-eight thousand students from 147 countries, it's currently ranked 9th in the UK by The Guardian University Guide. It has an acknowledged reputation for excellence in research and teaching, for innovation, and for links with business and industry. The recent Research Excellence Framework classed 92% of its research as ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’. The University of Warwick was awarded Midlands University of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times.