Long associated with the theatre, Harold Collins and his orchestra was one of the best light orchestras of its kind on the radio. Harold Collins was born in Birmingham on the 4th. June 1899. Starting as a concert party pianist at the age of 18, Harold spent some years with the Archie Pitt Organisation as a conductor in revue, before becoming resident conductor at the Palace, Plymouth from where he first broadcast in 1936. Moving to the Lewisham Hippodrome In London, he became a regular broadcaster. When Music While You Work started in 1940, Harold Collins became one of the regular contributors, his orchestra providing 227 editions during the ensuing twenty-five years. They also produced a considerable number of records for the Decca Music While You Work label which acted as a companion to the radio series. Among the other programmes in which the orchestra was regularly featured, was the daily breakfast-time programme Morning Music.

Harold acted as Musical Director for a series of stage shows in London and the provinces. He was at the London Coliseum in 1947, the London Casino in1951/2 with Folies Bergere and toured with The Student Prince during the fifties. In 1956 Harold Collins and his Orchestra made the first of many television appearances and in 1961, Harold conducted the Jack Parnell orchestra for a rather special edition of Sunday Night at the London Palladium which, due to a strike in the entertainment industry, featured just Bruce Forsyth and Norman Wisdom (for whom Collins was M.D). This often repeated show provided Harold Collins with the opportunity to participate in one of the routines, in which he "refused" to play for Wisdom, resulting in the comedian jumping into the pit and conducting a frenzied cachophany!

In the early sixties, when the London Palladium was closed for refurbishment for a few months, the Sunday night television show transferred to the Prince of Wales theatre, for which Harold Collins was Musical Director. Consequently, his orchestra was seen and heard in this high-profile show every week. The BBC did not like their broadcasters appearing on ITV and (coincidentally or otherwise) did not use the Harold Collins orchestra during this period, and even when the television work ended, its radio appearances became less frequent. It was heard for the last time on September 1st 1964. A dynamic and polished combination of twenty-three players, it was one of the last traditional theatre orchestras to broadcast.

Harold Collins died in 1971.

Listen to Harold Collins and his Orchestra
playing 'Up With the Lark' by Cecil Norman
(60 second clip)

MORNING MUSIC -Home Service- 8.23 a.m. January 7th 1955
played by Harold Collins and his Orchestra

MUSIC WHILE YOU WORK at 3.31 p.m. on 10th April 1962
played by Harold Collins and his Orchestra