Ida Sargent (musician)

Ida Sargent
Born(1893-06-03)3 June 1893
Nottingham
Died22 December 1989(1989-12-22) (aged 96)
OccupationsRadio presenter, composer, musician
InstrumentsVoice, piano

Ida Sargent (3 June 1893 - 22 December 1989) was a musician, a published composer and a BBC radio presenter in the 1920s. Known as 'Auntie Ida' and 'The Nightingale' during her time at the BBC she featured regularly on Children's Hour and across other programming with her 'Songs at the Piano'.

Early life and education

Sargent was born on 3 June 1893 in Basford, Nottingham.[1]  Her father was Thomas Sargent (1862-1931), a Nottingham lace manufacturer, and her mother Alice Wilkins (1864-1945).[1] She attended the Royal College of Music, studying with Alberto Visetti and Cairns James.[2]

Career

Sargent was a published composer, her music appearing in the children's books of songs written by Marion St John Webb. With pictures by Margaret W. Tarrant and Dorothy Newsome, the book was described as 'an attractive volume of songs for children such as grown up people like to sing'. [3]

As a singer, pianist and child impressionist, Sargent was known as 'Auntie Ida', and 'the Nightingale', entertaining British Broadcasting Company radio listeners in the 1920s.[4] At a time when BBC radio consisted of a network of local stations, Sargent broadcast from the Nottingham relay station 5NG, the 16th BBC station which started operating in September 1924 and was based in Bridlesmith Gate.[5] By 1931 Sargent had broadcast from 16 different British stations.[6] She featured regularly in the Radio Times programme listings with her 'Songs at the Piano' and on Children's Hour,[7] a programme specifically aimed at children, which from 1926 had a broadcast time of 5.15 pm until 6.00pm.[8] She also broadcast twice at Lausanne where her 'Songs at the Piano' were quite 'taken' in Switzerland and she was 'much in quest'. [9]

The early BBC 'Aunties' and 'Uncles' were well-known figures in the 1920s. A crowd of 2000 turned up at the wedding of 'Uncle Laurie' (L. Bagshaw) in Carrington, Nottingham in 1925, an occasion at which Ida and other BBC staff were present.[10] Sargent's own wedding at the Friends' Meeting House, Nottingham, to fellow musician, Everard Haynes Berry, in April 1931, was a calmer event, having been kept quiet because of the recent death of her father.[11]

Sargent became a member of the Nottingham Society of Artists at the age of 80 and left a bequest of £400 which was put towards prizes at Nottingham College of Art.[4] She died in Nottingham on 22 December 1989, aged 96. In 2023 Ida's daughter, Gillian Shelagh Sargent Berry (b. 1932), also a musician, gifted a Steinway Spirio Piano to the University of Nottingham in recognition of her musical parents and the significance of music in her life.[12]

Selected works

  • St. John Webb, Marion (1926) The Littlest One Again. Pictures by M.W. Tarrant & D. Newsome; Songs by Ida Sargent. G.G. Harrap & Co., London

References

  1. ^ a b "Nottinghamshire, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1922". Ancestry. Retrieved 24 February 2026.
  2. ^ "BerryIdaSargent". Composers Classical Music. Retrieved 3 February 2026.
  3. ^ "The Littlest One Again". The Times Educational Supplement. 1926. p. 293.
  4. ^ a b Macmillan and Corlett, Marjorie and Nigel (2010). For the Very Joy of Art (2nd ed.). The Nottingham Society of Artists. p. 104. ISBN 978-1-4457-1500-1.
  5. ^ "Nottingham Calling". David LLoyds Radio Moments. 17 August 2015. Retrieved 9 February 2026.
  6. ^ ""Auntie Ida" In Songs at the Piano". Nottingham Journal. 19 January 1931.
  7. ^ "BBC Programme Index". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 24 February 2026.
  8. ^ Healey, Zara. "The BBC and the Child Radio Listener in the 1920s". BBC. Retrieved 11 February 2026.
  9. ^ "Local Singer's Success". Nottingham Journal. 22 September 1928.
  10. ^ "' "Uncle Laurie" - Remarkable Scenes at a Nottingham Wedding'". Nottingham Journal. 23 Jan 1925.
  11. ^ "Berry-Sargent Radio Interest in a City Wedding". Nottingham Journal. 13 April 1931.
  12. ^ "Introducing the university's Steinway Spirio piano". University of Nottingham. 28 March 2023. Retrieved 9 February 2026.
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