Pete Drummond


Pete Drummond is a British voice artist and former BBC and pirate radio disc jockey and announcer.
He was born in Bangor, Wales, and as a child lived in Australia and France, before attending Millfield School alongside later BBC Radio 1 colleague Tony Blackburn. He trained as an actor and toured the US, where he realised that, following the "British Invasion", English accents were in demand on radio stations. He worked as an announcer in Wichita and Topeka, Kansas, before returning to Britain in 1966. He then joined the staff of pirate station Radio London, where he had his own shows during the station's final months on air.
He joined Radio 1 from its start in September 1967, and, as someone who was seen as both avant garde and reliable, was used as one of the early presenters of Top Gear, along with John Peel who later took over the programme. Drummond continued presenting radio and occasionally TV programmes for the BBC until the early 1990s, often featuring progressive rock music on programmes such as Disco 2, Sounds of the Seventies and Sight and Sound In Concert. He also worked for the BBC World Service and Radio Luxembourg.
After leaving the BBC, he became a leading voice-over performer in Britain, his voice often appearing in advertisements and film trailers.