Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
An overnight rescue mission at a house fire, followed by a busy day at work, leaves Alan exhausted – but he's due at the BBC to share his latest story with his loyal audience. When a friend offers him a lift home from the studio, his desperate need of sleep inadvertently leads him into another memorable adventure... The story begins at 00:01:10
Narrated/performed by Simon Stanhope. If you enjoy this content and would like to help me keep creating, there are a few ways you can support me:
* Occasional/one-off support via Buy Me a Coffee: buymeacoffee.com/bitesizedaudio
* Monthly support on Patreon: patreon.com/bitesizedaudio
* Donate via PayPal: paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=HMMUWZ7URN26A
* Visit my Bandcamp page to hear more of my performances of classic stories, and you can purchase and download high quality audio files to listen offline: bitesizedaudio.bandcamp.com
* Become a Bitesized Audio Classics member on YouTube, from $1 / £1 / €1 per month:
youtube.com/c/BitesizedAudioClassics/join
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:10 A Joy Ride
00:19:37 Credits, thanks and further listening
If you enjoy this story, you may like to hear my previous A. J. Alan recordings, available here: youtu.be/bmF4KhEgB9k
About the author: A. J. Alan was the pseudonym of the multi-talented Leslie Harrison Lambert (1883–1941), an English civil servant and intelligence officer whose readings of his own short stories on the fledgling BBC radio service in the early 1920s were incredibly popular with contemporary audiences. He was born in Nottingham, he went to school at Rugby and initially trained as a surveyor. After working for a few years as a surveyor, he made quite a radical career change: in about 1906 he became a professional magician and was accepted into the Magic Circle.
He also developed an interest in amateur radio in the years before the First World War which proved pivotal to his life and career: on the outbreak of war in August 1914 he volunteered to work at a coastguard station intercepting German wireless communications, and by the end of that year was working for the British Admiralty in Naval Intelligence Room 40, which was later to become part of what is now known as GCHQ. Lambert remained in the Intelligence service for the rest of his career. He still held a senior role at the outbreak of the Second World War, and transferred to Bletchley Park where he worked in Hut 8 (alongside Alan Turing amongst many others). However by this stage his health was declining, and he died in December 1941 at the age of 58.
Shortly after the foundation of the BBC in 1922, Lambert contacted the Corporation offering to read his own short stories as radio broadcasts, and he began doing so in January 1924. He performed those readings under the pseudonym A. J. Alan, and his real identity was kept a closely-guarded secret, although apparently his voice was once recognised by an old school friend.
There are various popular legends about Alan’s broadcasts: that he had his scripts pasted onto cardboard so that the paper wouldn’t make a noise on the microphone, and that he turned up in full evening dress to do the broadcasts, with his own candle in case the lights in the studio went out.
Lambert, or Alan's, stories were distinctive in tone, with a highly conversational, off-the-cuff style which belied the intense preparation which went into every episode. The broadcasts were hugely popular with contemporary audiences and made "A. J. Alan" into a household name. The stories themselves are typically a blend of humour and suspense, often with a twist. The majority of them were subsequently published in contemporary newspaper or periodicals, as well as published in book form ('Good Evening, Everyone!' in 1928 and 'A. J. Alan's Second Book' in 1933).
Sadly, the original radio broadcasts of Alan’s stories aren’t widely available, if they’ve survived at all, but a few were later re-recorded and released on gramophone discs in the 1930s. If you'd like to hear the voice of the man himself, a couple of short clips are available on the 'Stars of the Wireless' website:
rfwilmut.net/wireless/alan.html
A full recording of one of his last stories, 'The Fire Bell' (1937), is available on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=BLI7OqFIM0s
The original broadcast details of 'A Joy Ride' seem to have been lost in the mists of time, but the story is listed as having been printed in The New London Magazine on 3rd January 1931. The reference in the narrative to 'The 19 Club', which is listed as broadcast by the BBC on 3rd September 1929, suggests that 'A Joy Ride' was first heard towards the end of that year, or early in 1930 (although his BBC appearances followed no strict schedule he tended to broadcast approximately three or four times per year).
This recording © Bitesized Audio 2025
An overnight rescue mission at a house fire, followed by a busy day at work, leaves Alan exhausted – but he's due at the BBC to share his latest story with his loyal audience. When a friend offers him a lift home from the studio, his desperate need of sleep inadvertently leads him into another memorable adventure... The story begins at 00:01:10
Narrated/performed by Simon Stanhope. If you enjoy this content and would like to help me keep creating, there are a few ways you can support me:
* Occasional/one-off support via Buy Me a Coffee: buymeacoffee.com/bitesizedaudio
* Monthly support on Patreon: patreon.com/bitesizedaudio
* Donate via PayPal: paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=HMMUWZ7URN26A
* Visit my Bandcamp page to hear more of my performances of classic stories, and you can purchase and download high quality audio files to listen offline: bitesizedaudio.bandcamp.com
* Become a Bitesized Audio Classics member on YouTube, from $1 / £1 / €1 per month:
youtube.com/c/BitesizedAudioClassics/join
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:10 A Joy Ride
00:19:37 Credits, thanks and further listening
If you enjoy this story, you may like to hear my previous A. J. Alan recordings, available here: youtu.be/bmF4KhEgB9k
About the author: A. J. Alan was the pseudonym of the multi-talented Leslie Harrison Lambert (1883–1941), an English civil servant and intelligence officer whose readings of his own short stories on the fledgling BBC radio service in the early 1920s were incredibly popular with contemporary audiences. He was born in Nottingham, he went to school at Rugby and initially trained as a surveyor. After working for a few years as a surveyor, he made quite a radical career change: in about 1906 he became a professional magician and was accepted into the Magic Circle.
He also developed an interest in amateur radio in the years before the First World War which proved pivotal to his life and career: on the outbreak of war in August 1914 he volunteered to work at a coastguard station intercepting German wireless communications, and by the end of that year was working for the British Admiralty in Naval Intelligence Room 40, which was later to become part of what is now known as GCHQ. Lambert remained in the Intelligence service for the rest of his career. He still held a senior role at the outbreak of the Second World War, and transferred to Bletchley Park where he worked in Hut 8 (alongside Alan Turing amongst many others). However by this stage his health was declining, and he died in December 1941 at the age of 58.
Shortly after the foundation of the BBC in 1922, Lambert contacted the Corporation offering to read his own short stories as radio broadcasts, and he began doing so in January 1924. He performed those readings under the pseudonym A. J. Alan, and his real identity was kept a closely-guarded secret, although apparently his voice was once recognised by an old school friend.
There are various popular legends about Alan’s broadcasts: that he had his scripts pasted onto cardboard so that the paper wouldn’t make a noise on the microphone, and that he turned up in full evening dress to do the broadcasts, with his own candle in case the lights in the studio went out.
Lambert, or Alan's, stories were distinctive in tone, with a highly conversational, off-the-cuff style which belied the intense preparation which went into every episode. The broadcasts were hugely popular with contemporary audiences and made "A. J. Alan" into a household name. The stories themselves are typically a blend of humour and suspense, often with a twist. The majority of them were subsequently published in contemporary newspaper or periodicals, as well as published in book form ('Good Evening, Everyone!' in 1928 and 'A. J. Alan's Second Book' in 1933).
Sadly, the original radio broadcasts of Alan’s stories aren’t widely available, if they’ve survived at all, but a few were later re-recorded and released on gramophone discs in the 1930s. If you'd like to hear the voice of the man himself, a couple of short clips are available on the 'Stars of the Wireless' website:
rfwilmut.net/wireless/alan.html
A full recording of one of his last stories, 'The Fire Bell' (1937), is available on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=BLI7OqFIM0s
The original broadcast details of 'A Joy Ride' seem to have been lost in the mists of time, but the story is listed as having been printed in The New London Magazine on 3rd January 1931. The reference in the narrative to 'The 19 Club', which is listed as broadcast by the BBC on 3rd September 1929, suggests that 'A Joy Ride' was first heard towards the end of that year, or early in 1930 (although his BBC appearances followed no strict schedule he tended to broadcast approximately three or four times per year).
This recording © Bitesized Audio 2025
