Born in Woolwich, south east London,[1] Andrews was raised in Eltham, and completed his national service in the RAF.
After working as a Post Office telephone engineer, he joined the BBC as a technical (tape machine) operator in 1957, later being promoted to producer.
He also booked The Rolling Stones; the group failed their first BBC radio audition, but Andrews used them as a backing band for Bo Diddley and re-recorded their performances of some of their own numbers, enabling them to pass on the second occasion as a "trial broadcast".
He was also responsible for producing the very popular BBC Radio 1's Top 20 show presented by Tom Browne in the early 1970s, working alongside engineer Pete Ritzema.
Some of this material has been included on Volumes 8, 9 and 10 of The Goon Show Compendium CD box sets, provided by John Beecher of Rollercoaster Records, who purchased the collection from Andrews to preserve it after the BBC allegedly reneged on a negotiated agreement to compensate him for storing the tapes for many decades.