A few days ago
mid_night_double07

Where did the phrase ‘London’s calling’ come from and what does it mean?

Where did the phrase ‘London’s calling’ come from and what does it mean?

Top 1 Answers
A few days ago
doshiealan

Favorite Answer

The phrase was in fact “London calling.” (repeated another two times) and it was used by the B.B.C. (British Broadcasting Corporation) during the Second World War (WWII) (1939 – 46), to introduce news broadcasts to Britain, Occupied Europe, the British Empire and Commonwealth, and British, Imperial, and Commonwealth forces and their allies, overseas.

A huge number of listeners world wide tuned into these B.B.C. broadcasts, believing them (with some justification) to be the only non-propagandised broadcasts coming out of Europe.

In Occupied Europe, at that time, the penalties for listening to the B.B.C. could be extremely harsh, often fatal, but even German Generals did it, to find out what was really going on.

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A few days ago
lucius.graecus
It was a BBC world service radio identifier during World War 2 as “This is London calling.” Also used as a war reference in the Clash song “London calling.”
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