Tom Crowe
{{Short description|Irish radio host (1922-2010)}}
{{for|the Australian rules footballer|Tom Crowe (footballer)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Use British English|date=October 2024}}
Tom Crowe (5 July 1922 – 6 December 2010){{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/8237576/Tom-Crowe.html|title=Tom Crowe|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=3 January 2011|access-date=31 March 2022}} was an announcer on BBC Radio 3.
Life
Crowe was raised in County Clare, Ireland and educated at St Columba's College, near Dublin. His studies for a degree at Trinity College, Dublin, where he read French and German Literature, were interrupted when he joined the British Army and served in the Irish Guards between 1944 and 1948.{{cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.com/world/ireland-world/article/tom-crowe-cgkzkjjfn2w|title=Tom Crowe|work=The Times|location=London|date=9 February 2011|access-date=31 March 2022|url-access=subscription}}
He first joined the BBC's Third Programme in 1952 discovering his job was "simply a mouth opening and shutting in this tiny little studio in the double basement of Broadcasting House". He left in 1960, but returned in 1964 when attitudes were changing; the Third's announcers were now sharing office space with broadcasters from the Light Programme.{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/100-voices/radio-reinvented/the-network-voice|title=The Network Voice|work=History of the BBC|access-date=4 September 2020}}
He wrote the biography of the Arabist Owen Tweedy titled Gathering Moss, published 1967.Humphrey Carpenter The Envy of the World: Fifty Years of the BBC Third Programme and Radio 3, London: Phoenix, 1997 [1996], p.274 During the 1970s, he became one of the most familiar voices on Radio 3, and "an accident-prone but haughtily unflappable persona" evolved. Hans Keller recalled Crowe's "inspired" opening of the network in June 1971 with the words: "Good morning to you. It's seven O'clock I'm afraid". On another occasion, when the Greenwich Time Signal was accidentally heard over The Hebrides overture (aka, Fingal's Cave) he commented: "I do hope the Mendelssohn didn't spoil your enjoyment of the pips".
Crowe retired from the BBC in 1982. Later he worked for the South African Broadcasting Corporation where he presented a classical music programme for three months each year.
Death
He died at his home in Pickering, North Yorkshire, England where he lived with his second wife, Elizabeth Cooper.