BRIAN JOHNSTON was known as ‘Johnners’ to millions of cricket fans around the world. For nearly fifty years he was the voice of cricket on BBC television and radio. When Brian died in 1994 at the age of eighty-one, the Daily Telegraph described him as ‘the greatest natural broadcaster of them all’ and the Prime Minister, John Major, said, ‘Summers will never be the same.’
Brian Johnston was born in 1912 and was educated at Eton and Oxford, before serving with the Grenadier Guards in the Second World War. He joined the Outside Broadcasts Department of the BBC in 1946 and appeared on hundreds of different radio and television programmes. He commentated on state occasions and royal weddings and major events such as the Boat Race and he also presented 733 episodes of the popular radio series Down Your Way. He was best known as a cricket commentator, most notably as a member of the Test Match Special team on BBC radio, where he became a national institution until his death in 1994.