A memoir of Billy Cotton
Today would have been Billy Cotton's seventieth birthday and tonight Cliff Michelmore talks to some people who knew him when he was a boy and others who have worked, played, soldiered, flown, and raced with him over seventy years.

Tom Sloan, BBC-tv's Head of Light Entertainment, has said of Billy Cotton... 'I never knew a man who realised so much that life was for living. Into his career he packed enough to satisfy ten men... After the first war he started his own band-and worked his way to the top the hard way.
'He had a go at bus conducting, played football for Wimbledon and Brentford. He did a bit of boxing... he had his own plane... he became one of the great personalities of Brooklands... he was indeed top of the bill in everything he did.'
See page 42