The Eleventh Hour

As you know I like to add more thrillers throughout the month of October, and whilst looking back on the shows we've added over the years, I came across a poll we ran. The question was "Which is your favorite spine-chilling otr show?"

Well, the overwhelming winner of that poll was Suspense, with On A Country Road, which reminded me of a show with the same name, but from a different series called The Eleventh Hour from Springbok Radio, a South African station. The stories in this series are all horror and suspense, with a little supernatural thrown into the mix.

Each show sets the scene rather well, with the spooky introduction "Time - the silent herald of life and death, success or failure. The unseen force that measures man’s destiny, reaching its most fateful moments as it slowly strikes the eleventh hour.” 

There are a number of Springbok Radio shows in circulation, mainly dramas and thrillers. Glenn, a long time friend of RUSC, wrote to me once with some history of the Springbok Radio. Here's what he wrote...

I am a South African and I remember The Creaking Door which aired on Springbok Radio beginning in the 50's, as I recall, very well. My brother who is nearly six years older than I am would switch on the radio in the room we shared to listen, and I would be scared out of my wits! Of course, he would listen in the dark while we should have been sleeping. I would immediately jump into his bed and hold tightly on to him! I have 25 episodes, but unfortunately the South African Broadcasting Corporation in those days never archived any of their productions, and soon over-taped them, so only what was recorded by fans remains today.

Springbok Radio continued into the early 80's and aired a lot of local drama. It was only on January 6, 1976 that television came to this country, so our radio drama by that time was very sophisticated. It was very sad for us all to witness the eventual demise of the station; it was so orientated to drama that there was no way it was going to make the transition to the more modern form of radio, as there were already such stations in existence. My father especially never ever made the adjustment to television and remained a radio listener until his death in August 1976.

Fortunately, Springbok Radio survived him, and he continued to enjoy their broadcasts until he died.

You can find more of the Creaking Door thrillers on RUSC here, and the Eleventh Hour thrillers (which I'll be adding more of during October, ready for Halloween) here. Listen to these tales of horror and suspense if you dare!

Happy listening my friends,

P.S. If you have any memories of a particularly thrilling show do let us know by posting a comment below, as Joy and I would love to hear them.