Ronald Binge

Born into a poor family in Derby in 1910, Ronald Binge had to learn music the hard way. After his father, an iron moulder by trade, died from injuries sustained in WW1, the family had no money to spare for music lessons and Ronald had to teach himself, with help from a local choirmaster.

His film music career began in 1927 when he joined the orchestra of the tiny Cosmo Cinema in Derby, and it was there that he learned to sight read, arrange and compose for silent movies.

He had a musical colleague in the 1930s known as "Barry Gray" (real name Claude Eric Pountain, born in Derby in 1909). Not to be confused with the more famous "Barry Gray" (real name John Livesey Eccles, born in Blackburn in 1908) who scored Gerry Anderson television series such as Thunderbirds.

In 1932 he moved to London and three years later began a long association as arranger for conductor Mantovani. It was Binge, incidentally, who invented the "cascading strings" effect known as the Mantovani sound.

The first of his ten film scores was composed in 1938, and he wrote a huge output for radio, television and stock music libraries.

Father of Margaret Binge (born 1947) and Christopher Binge (born 1956).

Today, Binge is chiefly remembered for composing the popular melodies Elizabethan Serenade (1952) and Sailing By (1963), the latter of which became for many years the signature tune of the BBC shipping forecasts.

His most prestigious co-scoring assignment was possibly the BBC documentary series War in the Air (1954) in which he joined forces with British film music luminaries such as Arthur Bliss, Malcolm Arnold, William Alwyn and Clifton Parker.

He died of cancer in 1979.