January 1, 1970

No. It’s been suggested that some of the famous recordings (not those on this site) aren’t actually the work of Churchill at all, but of an actor mimicking his voice. Although Churchill didn’t like broadcasting on the radio, and of course, during 1940, he was busy trying to lead the country in its moment of crisis, it’s never been proved that anyone else recorded them. In 1972, an obscure radio actor, Norman Shelley, claimed in his autobiography to have recorded the ‘fight on the beaches’ speech. Mr Shelley was a member of the BBC repertory company during the 1930s and often supplied the voice for the character ‘Dennis the Dachshund’ in the Children’s Hour plays about ‘Toytown’. He became slightly better known as Colonel Danby on the radio soap opera, ‘The Archers’. He died in 1980. Read more here.