September 1972 highlights  VAT was set to rear its ugly head on 1 April 1973, so BBC1 gave us a programme aimed at traders telling them what they need to know. David Bellamy gave us a preview of the autumn's educational programmes, and following Chigley we could watch Ken Dodd and his Diddymen. And on that evening was the first series of the long-running sea-faring drama The Onedin Line, starring Peter Gilmore (right).
Over on BBC2, The World About Us unusually stayed at home to look at the different breeds of British pony. This was followed by the best bits so far of The Goodies. Elsewhere this week, significant new shows on Monday night included Film 72 (London region only) followed by the 'new brain game' Mastermind. BBC2 still closed each weeknight with the open-ended discussion Late Night Line-up which had been running since its launch, but was soon to disappear. The same channel filled much of its daytime hours with  Trade Test films for colour. Again, these had ceased by 1973. Back on Sunday, Noel Edmonds was presenting the morning show on Radio 1, while something of a curiosity was Ed Stewart's Sunday Sport. But the big news was that Alan Freeman (left) was to count down the Top 20 for the final time in The Last Ever Pick of the Pops! The following week, Tom Browne took over with Solid Gold Sixty. (You can hear Fluff's final countdown on the The UK Top 40 page). Oh, and by the way, in the Burghley Horse Trials (coverage on BBC1), the horses were found not guilty.
 And in Radio Times 23-29 September 1972 Price 5p
Radio Times editor Geoffrey Cannon had given up trying to reduce the title to RT (standing for Radio-Television), and at the start of this month a revised masthead was unveiled, which would become the magazine's longest-serving logo, surviving until 1994. The BBC's production of Tolstoy's epic War and Peace (featuring Anthony Hopkins and Morag Hood, right) was showing on BBC2 and on the cover of RT. Wheelbase presenter Cliff Michelmore's own driving skills were put to the test at Brands Hatch, and Ben Murphy, star of Alias Smith and Jones was interviewed. Radio 1's Bob Harris spoke of being an 'unfrustrated disc jockey' - his early career as a police cadet wasn't his scene at all. Tim Brooke-Taylor was featured in the My Choice column, and wanted to know why Dick Barton
was not on - but RT assured us the Special Agent would return to BBC radio in November. The Letters section was entirely filled with comments on the recent Olympic Games coverage - mostly that there had been too much of it!
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