Liverpool’s Lita Roza longed for the BBC to ban her How Much is that Doggie in the Window? (1953). Instead, they disapproved of the lyric, "Someone who’ll hold you and do it up right", in her version of an early Burt Bacharach song, Keep Me in Mind (1955).

For generations, Liverpudlians had sung of Maggie May, who roamed Lime Street and was sent to Botany Bay for robbing a Homeward-bounder. When the Vipers Skiffle Group recorded the song in 1957, it was banned.

Frankie Vaughan’s Garden of Eden (1957) was on its way to number one before the BBC banned it for being blasphemous. Spencer noted that by then sections of the media were calling for its exclusion, indicating that on matters of taste the Beeb could be swayed.

These days people would wonder what all the fuss was about, though we are now more sensitive to racial references than we were then.

"I had already used the archives in Caversham from my series of Liverpool entertainers called Starry Eyed. I thought then that I would love to see the files on banned records," says Spencer, 62.

"I found that they had files going back to 1931. They didn’t want to tell anyone they were banning records. They wanted to do it as furtively as possible. They certainly didn’t want the people on the committee to be named in case they were nobbled or criticised by members of the public, or that the record companies might try to get to them – all sorts of things."

But performers knew of the committee’s existence. Norman Long even recorded a record called, We Can’t Broadcast That (1932), and the Beverley Sisters came up with We Have To Be So Careful in 1953. Both were banned for cheek.

Sir Arthur Bliss (1891-1975), composer and music director of the BBC (1942-45), was charged with ensuring that the classics weren’t "mutilated" by modern interpretations. "In about 1947 they had a slight revision of that and said if you ‘burlesqued’ the music instead of doing a dance-band version, it could go through," says Spencer.

This cleared B. Bumble and the Stingers’ Nut Rocker (a 1961 rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite).

Slushy religious songs were marginal. "The Committee didn’t allow anything against the Christian religion," says Spencer. "They felt that prayer shouldn’t be used for getting a girlfriend or wife. Even if they thought it might be sincere, they would ban the song because it had been written for commercial reasons."

With the passage of time the bans were lifted or simply ignored, but Spencer finds records with "not to be broadcast" still stamped on them.

From the realm of crudery, rudery and prudery, arises the question first asked by William Booth of the Salvation Army, "Why should the devil have all the best tunes?"

Perhaps the answer is that some were not only good, but not really as wicked as the Committee had once thought. Our souls can endure the occasional reference to sticks of rock.

This Record Is Not To Be Broadcast from Acrobat Music, chosen and annotated by Spencer Leigh, is available at music shops and on-line at prices around £10.99.