TONY Blackburn is 80 tomorrow. That’s a lot of candles to blow out. He started working as a DJ in 1964 and he’s still working as a DJ in 2023. Longevity alone makes his one of the great broadcasting careers, one that spans pirate radio, the birth of Radio 1 and the end of Ken Bruce’s career on Radio 2.

There was, it should be said, a time when Blackburn felt like the enemy. A time when he came across as a personality DJ more interested in telling bad jokes than spinning tunes, as author Pete Paphides noted on the first episode of Happy Birthday Tony Blackburn, which aired at 3am this morning on Radio 2.

“I’ve got to be honest and say that for some of us who were teenagers in the 1980s, we really got the wrong idea about Tony,” Paphides suggested, “because, well, we saw him as emblematic of a music era that had passed. Perhaps a bit cheesy.”

But that image was always a caricature of reality, Paphides added. “Actually, he has remained 100 per cent himself all the time and that’s important. He’s wise. He realised early on if you don’t feed your love of music, keep that intact, well, what’s left? The fame? What good’s fame without the thing on which it is predicated?”

And Blackburn, unlike certain other Radio 1 DJs of his era, actually likes music, particularly soul music. It was Blackburn who told Motown that they should release I’m Still Waiting by Diana Ross as a single. It turned out to be a huge hit.

Blackburn, understandably, was the main talking head here, interviewed by Dermot O’Leary. The veteran DJ was his usual self-deprecating self, picking his way through a career that has seen more highs and lows than Aberdeen’s Scottish Cup record.

Talking of his early days singing in a big band in Bournemouth called Tony Blackburn and the Swinging Bells, he noted: “We changed the name very quickly. Some of the posters were slightly altered, I do believe.”

From there it was a short voyage to his life on the pirate radio stations Radio Caroline and Radio London, before he got a job with the BBC.

There’s a really interesting programme to be made about the rise, fall and rise again of Blackburn’s radio fortunes. This wasn’t it exactly. As is the way with Radio 2 documentaries, it was all a little too chummy. Still, it was an engaging enough tribute to a very familiar voice. And a clearly loving tribute too.

If nothing else we learned that Blackburn’s father – a doctor – was the man who helped deliver Kim Wilde into the world. And that when Blackburn appeared on the Basil Brush Show the puppet bit him and the bite turned septic. Never work with children and stuffed animals.

I did yearn for something a little more acerbic though; maybe an acknowledgement of Blackburn’s run-ins with the late John Peel, say, or even a reminder that Blackburn is sharp enough to still cause a stir when he wants to. Earlier this month on his Radio 2 Golden Hour show he set Twitter reeling with his link for the Moloko track Sing It Back.

“Wouldn’t it be lovely to hear Putin say this,” before cueing up Roisin Murphy singing: “When you are ready, I will surrender …”

The 3am airing was a bit weird too, but Radio 2 does shunt this kind of show to the twilight zone. They want you to listen to it on BBC Sounds, it’s clear. Part two is on slightly earlier at 1am next Saturday and includes the sound of Arnold the Dog (if you’re a certain age that will be positively Proustian) and the revelation that Blackburn was playing Jimmy Shand on pirate radio.

Meanwhile, today and tomorrow he’s back on Radio 2, playing tunes and trying to make people laugh. As he said, “one day it might happen.” We’ll miss him when he goes.

Listen Out For: Thinking Allowed, Radio 4, Wednesday, 4pm

The last in the current series presented by Laurie Taylor, another octogenarian still going strong.