with Mervyn Saunders

Fred Hartley, renowned for his individual and pleasing arrangements of music, was born in Dundee. At the age of sixteen his father sent him to London and the RAM. While still a student he got a job as second pianist at the Kit-Cat Club at £16 a week. After accompanying Estelle Brodie up and down the country, he went to the Cirkus Theatre, Stockholm, to arrange the music and conduct the orchestra for what was a sort of pioneer of the modern Palladium show.

In 1931 he won fame with his Novelty Quintet, which for years was on the air once 'a week. In addition to his broadcasting for home consumption, Hartley does a great volume of work in the Overseas Service of the BBC.