"Sailing By" violinist sails off into the sunset after 50 years.

London, Tuesday 28th May - Colin Crabbe, First Violinist with the Alan Perry/William Gardner Orchestra, will hang up his bow this Friday night having performed the same orchestral piece daily for almost exactly 50 years; an incredible feat and one for which he will be recognised in the next edition of  the Guinness Book of World Records. Technically, his retirement begins on Saturday morning (1st June), as the piece, Sailing By is performed daily at 00:48hrs every morning in preparation for the reading of the Shipping Forecast beloved of BBC Radio Four listeners both at home and abroad.

Contrary to popular belief, Sailing By is performed live daily by a 24 piece orchestra and this has been the case since 1963 following an agreement between the BBC and the Musicians Union which successfully campaigned to "Keep Music Live" within the Corporation. Although the agreement has come under fire several times over the years in times of austerity, it has survived many changes of management and the different regimes which have been in place in the last half century. Staunch Radio Four listeners have also played a role in keeping the music live, once (in 1982) circulating and submitting a petition which attracted over 80,000 signatures of disgruntled "Sailing By" fans when the BBC announced that it wanted to start using a pre-recorded version.

Colin was 25 years old when he was first contracted to play the piece in 1963 with the newly formed orchestra. "It's been like a second family to me ever since. There have been lots of comings and goings. People have died, retired, left to have families, or just moved on to other things. I am the only surviving member of the original orchestra". Colin has been blessed with very good health, although he has performed over the years with: a broken ankle; raging tooth ache (twice); following minor operations and after the birth of his twins in 1972. 

He has made other sacrifices too, which includes never having taken a holiday outside of travelling distance of the BBC studios where the daily performance takes place. In 1969 his new bride watched from the gallery whilst her groom played his part in the piece before they departed to celebrate their 24 hour honeymoon.

 Sailing By was written by Ronald Binge in 1963. In 2008, a researcher from the BBC calculated that the whole of Sailing By is only heard approximately 25% of the time as the live performance is faded in and out dependant on the finishing time of the preceding programme, which does not always run to time. Jarvis Cocker chose Sailing By as one of his Desert Island Discs in April 2005. 
PA