Radio

[foxyminx]

Has to be one of the best inventions ever! I love radio! Do you remember listening to your little transistor (tranny) radio when you were a kid? (in the 60`s/70`s) mine was a little plastic red one and my brother had a blue one the same. I think we got them for Christmas one year.they had a wrist strap on too. I used to sneak mine up to bed with me and lay listening to Stuart Henry I think it was, on Radio Luxembourg. you`d try tuning in and you`d get all the whistles and interference...ah bliss.everythings too perfect these days!lol.;)

[Aidan]

Radio is hugely underrated - I remember power cuts in '77 when we listened to a battery-run one each night & enjoyed it thoroughly. My mam always had Harbour Hotel on at dinnertime, if I hear the jingle today I can still taste mashed spud with sausage & tomato sauce !
I got my own tranny when I was 15 & listened to Stuart Henry ( hope he's still with us, I know he had MS ) and Rob Jones when I was "studying".

[wingman]

Do you remember the Radio Luxembourg "Power Play" where they played whatever song was chosen that week on every hour? Great if you liked it, not so good if it was one you hated. I used to listen to Luxembourg or Radio Caroline, the pirate station.

[Aidan]

Yep, the new Power Play was aired Sun. nights - it became the highlight of the week ! A bit young to have heard Caroline, I'm afraid.

[foxyminx]

check out this link, sadly Stuart Henry is no longer with us,died in 1995.:(
http://www.radioacademy.org/halloffame/henry_s/index.shtml

[foxyminx]

I didnt know til I searched today on the link above that Tommy Vance is no longer with us either,he died from a stroke last year. such a shame we are losing all these wonderful people.

[tanas]

Simon Bates 'Our Tune' and Bits & Pieces on the Radio 1 Roadshow.

[koukou]

Anyone remember listening to the charts and taping the songs you liked....trying to get the song and not the DJ. And the waiting for ages while he read through them all again so you could find out what number one was. And there were different charts depending on who you listened to. Radio one always had one answer but David Kid Jensen had something else...cant remember what station he was on. It was the Pepsi Chart if my minds serves me correctly...and it doesnt do that a lot!

[Aidan]

Sorry to hear Stuart and Tommy are both gone, ar dheis De go raibh siad.
DJs don't seem to talk until the song is half over anymore - not that it matters, as we just download now...

[Wil]

I love radio. Especially fiddling about on short wave late at night when I was a kid. Tucked under the bedcovers, finding bizarre stuff like radio Moscow or forces radio with baseball match commentaries. It all seemed so exotic, somehow.

[Trace]

Anyone remember listening to the charts and taping the songs you liked....trying to get the song and not the DJ. And the waiting for ages while he read through them all again so you could find out what number one was. And there were different charts depending on who you listened to. Radio one always had one answer but David Kid Jensen had something else...cant remember what station he was on. It was the Pepsi Chart if my minds serves me correctly...and it doesnt do that a lot!

I totally did that. Sunday night was chart night - right?

[foxyminx]

Simon Bates 'Our Tune' and Bits & Pieces on the Radio 1 Roadshow.

I remember `Our Tune`, I used to listen to Radio 1 most days. That was when Radio 1 used to be good, now its a load of old twaddle.
and I loved Bits n Pieces on the roadshows.... and I`m sorry to brag but I used to get nearly all of them right cos I was well in to my music scene then. dont know how I`d fare nowadays!

[Van_Whistler]

I used to listen to Radio 2 as a kid every night in bed.
There was a programme with "Whistle While you Work" as the theme jingle. Later in the evening, depending what day it was, you had either Grumbleweeds or News Huddlines. Then Round Midnight with Brian Matthew, using Cat Stevens' song "Matthew & Son" as theme jingle.

[daubers]

i listen to our local radio station(pirate fm) as it plays most of the older songs i used to listen to when growing up.
i dont listen to radio 1 anymore as the music(if thats what they call some of it)they have now aint realy up to much anymore

[dondons69]

On our local radio station simon bates is back doing "our tune" at noon, that music still makes me well up!

[SpiralCoolStuff]

My fave radio station is one of our local ones called Energy FM. Lots of music on there, comps where you can phone/text/email in to win prizes and such. I love it :) I used to like Radio 1 but havnt listened to it for a while. Carpark Catchphrase used to crack me up!

[David]

I used to love Talk Radio (now Talksport) listening to a presenter called "Ceaser the Geezer" winding everyone up lol and especially listening to Ian Collins and the Creatures of the Night. They had features called "Who's Talking Cack" and "****** Of The Week" and the Creatures had names like "Kev The Wondersheep" and "Miff The Merciless" it was a great laugh :D

They don't do that anymore :cry:

I also listened to Diana Luke whom I consider "The Sexiest Voice On Radio" I remember lying in bed late at night listening to her on Radio 2, wishing that they didn't play any music so that all I could hear was her voice. :o

I used to keep up with her when she changed stations, but I've since lost her because the last I knew, she moved to Hallam FM which I can't get. :(

[sixtyten]

Fab 208! under the bedclothes..
I too was a late night listener in the mid 70's, the powerplay,hairspray ads,bad reception..those were the days!!

[Oggy]

My mate Sniff must have been one of the first kids I knew to have one of those big Tv/Radio/Cassette player things, he carried it round everywhere he went.

[The Imposter]

tinny transistor under the bedcovers, trying to tune into anything in english. You finally found a song in english and when it finishes the DJ starts gibbering in some indeterminable language you've never heard before or since. ... Happy days.

[Oggy]

radio under the blankets, and comics by torchlight, heaven.

[Heather74]

Anyone else remember when the presenters/D.J's sounded old like your dad,now they sound like a friend or your brother/sister ,or even worse Niece or Nephew. wahaaaa.:cry: I dont yet have to say kids.PHEW:D

[andria]

I remember when Atlantic 252 came out with Kevin Kevin and Dusty Roads and Robin Banks, all the dj's had stupid names. But these days I love Chris moyles and Vernon Kaye on a Sunday. My local stations too - Radio Cumbria and CFM

[sixtyten]

Lazer 558,Radio Pussycat,Radio Jackie!

[danbakuk]

I remember when Atlantic 252 came out with Kevin Kevin and Dusty Roads and Robin Banks, all the dj's had stupid names. But these days I love Chris moyles and Vernon Kaye on a Sunday. My local stations too - Radio Cumbria and CFM


I remember Atlantic.... for a while it was the best radio station around but then i stopped listening and i hadnt for years until yesterday! (spooky init)

It sounded naff the Dj was blatantly from Yorkshire trying to do a hip American accent:(

[Burbs]

mine was radio luxembourg !!!!!!!!
Gentleman of a certain age me thinks !

Used to listen Sunday nights especially ........ Funky disco countdown and trying to tape it without the presenters taling all over it !!!!!!!

one I particularly rememebr was searching by Change

[sixtyten]

Radio..
Lordy, where do you start?
as we all know, our memory can link certain smells,sounds, all kinds of things to an era, or date,year,etc.
I was a Radio Luxembourg listener, under covers sometimes, but as I went to bed far earlier than the rest of my family, normally just a radio playing in the room.
The static,hiss,silvarkrin hairspray ads,Emperor Rosco, the power play,
all good memories:p
My big " timewarp" is Roberta Flack's "Killing me softly"

As soon as I hear that song, I'm back to a world of fab 208, my tiny old bedroom and Spiderman comics:D

Why Spiderman??

The first UK Spiderman comics weekly (with the free mask/or flyer from next edition) had just been issued..
and it was the ONLY time in my life, we had a paperboy deliver it on day of publication.

HAPPY DAYS!!

[sixtyten]

Southern Counties Radio used to play that to death when it was out (1994)
one hit wonder Josuha Kadison

[Mulletino]

I used to have a really old wooden radio that lit up and was about 2 foot wide which I used to listen to under the bed and pretend I was in a spaceship.

Also remember when Essex Radio was first launched and you used to be able to go into their building at Southend and write request/dedication slips (like you used to in clubs) which they'd read out on air. :D

[Wil]

Mum always listened to Radio 2 so that's what I grew up with. Pete Murray, Waggoner's Walk, etc. and that's what I still listen to now (with a bit of deviation to Radio 4). I'd go to Capital on a Saturday lunchtime for Kenny Everett and Captain Kremmen and if I was listening under the covers of a nighttime I'd scan the short wave for odd foreign stations and exotic sounding forces radio.

http://www.radiorewind.co.uk

is a great place if you grew up with Radio 1 or just fancy a quick trip back to the 70s. Lots of clips!

[steve edwards]

back in about 87 i used to really enjoy radio 1 , with steve wright , gary,s bit in the middle , dlt , and our tune , but then it became rubbish and so i prefer radio 2 now but inly in the morning with sarah kennedy , ect

[sixtyten]

I've just bought a great DAB radio, great stuff!! miles better than the normal Radio. My Favotite stations are 5Live Music and Chill

[Austin 1100]

Used to listen to Radio Luxembourg on my grandad's car radio, the reception fading in and out and always worse in the evenings.

Listened to Radio 1 in the mid 80s at work (before the managers banned radios from the factory). Steve Wright in the afternoon was my favourite, I used to crack up when one of his silly characters The Pub Singer started his drunken crooning lol!:D
The whole place used to go dead quiet when Simon Bates Our Tune came on in the mornings.

[suzannewozere2]

Mum had a valve radio in the kitchen which I used to have to tune back in to radio 2 if I managed to listen to the hairy cornflake (DLT) or mike read on 1 in the morning.
If we were at home it was Terry Wogan, Pete Murray and Jimmy Young with Waggoners Walk, Listen with Mother, Womans hour and The Archers in between.
Later though she discovered Robbie Vincents phone in show on Radio London.
I liked our tune and the golden hour but hated Steve Wright. We smuggled tiny transistor radio's in to listen to the lunchtime chart show but registration always started just at the wrong time so even though we heard the announcement we could never hear the song.

[Wil]

Waggoner's Walk - now there's a memory. Now I also can't get Jimmy Young's Raymondo and 'what's the recipie today Jim?' out of my head.

[suzannewozere2]

Waggoner's Walk - now there's a memory. Now I also can't get Jimmy Young's Raymondo and 'what's the recipie today Jim?' out of my head.
What was the silly voice/character on Blackburns kids show?

[sixtyten]

Arnold the Dog?
Gerald the Pixie?

[suzannewozere2]

Arnold the Dog?
Gerald the Pixie?
Hmm thinking cap on...now where was that site?

[sixtyten]

What site??

[suzannewozere2]

What site??
The one I was finding all my Radio ! stuff on...


The one I was finding all my Radio ! stuff on...
I've found the site but not the clip. It was from junior choice and doesn't sound like Arnold.

[Wil]

Was it Ed 'Stewpot' Stewart's 'Allo darlin' clip rather than Tony Blackburn?

I can only think of Arnold the dog from him.

[suzannewozere2]

Was it Ed 'Stewpot' Stewart's 'Allo darlin' clip rather than Tony Blackburn?

I can only think of Arnold the dog from him.
I listened to them both..all I remember is it was very annoying.

[Pensky]

I used to enjoy Adrian Juste’s Radio 1 comedy clip show which was broadcast on a Saturday lunchtime in the early 1980s.

[Marine Boy]

Junior Choice has been mentioned and I certainly have very fond memories of that programme. It was great to hear Ed Stewart recreating the show last Christmas.

In the seventies, my friend and I had great fun trying to pick up local radio stations that weren't exactly 'local' to us. We were always terribly excited if we heard something from many miles away!

Our nearest local station at that time was Radio 210 in Reading, although even that was a good forty minutes away by car. And we did actually visit on one occasion when my friend's mother delivered a birthday cake to Gavin McCoy, one of the presenters!

[HG]

Dis anyone else used to tune in to the police radio? There'd be a series of beeps and then some talking, just like Starsky and Hutch in your own bedroom :)

[branny]

My earliest memory of radio is from the early 70s. My Mum used to have Piccadilly radio (a local staion) playing in the morning when i was getting ready for school. Tunes that stuck in my head from that era were Part of the union, The Strawbs, Without you, Nilsson and Close to you, The Carpenters.My first tranny was a Tom and Jerry one which didn't work very well. I used to listen to the top 40 on Sunday and Timmy (Mallett) on the tranny in the early 80s and in later years used to fall asleep listening to the James Stannage phone in. Can't stand much radio these days though. My Wife has Century on in the car in the morning and at night when we are on the way home. Everytime it's on at the moment they only seem to play Robbie Williams or Take That. I much preferred it when they had split up.

[Marine Boy]

Dis anyone else used to tune in to the police radio? There'd be a series of beeps and then some talking, just like Starsky and Hutch in your own bedroom :)

Yes, Herr. My freind and I used to do that too! But then someone said we were bad boys because it was illegal and if we were caught, goodness knows what would happen! Not sure if this was true, but it sure stopped us from tuning in!

(Is there no lol smiley?)

[HG]

:D Chessy grin is about as close to a LOL.

Yes I heard the same stuff, so it must have been true :)

[rossobantam]

Dis anyone else used to tune in to the police radio? There'd be a series of beeps and then some talking, just like Starsky and Hutch in your own bedroom :)


ooh yeh I'd forgotten all about that HG.....came across them by accident as you tuned the dial....how did it happen....how come they weren't scrambled??

parents in bed, me under the covers in mine, secretly tuned in to the one & only Radio Luxembourg...ahh bliss!

[ridski]

Growing up in London is was Radio 1 and Capital for music, but my first little radio was an alarm-clock radio, and I used to love waking up to the news on LBC. It was so melodramatic! Also, Tommy Boyd on Sunday nights and the "Night Trek" game where he gave out cryptic clues about London locations and you had to figure out where it was and follow it like a treasure hunt.

There were a couple of pirate stations, too in the early 80s that on Fridays played really early hip-hop. I remember Westwood on LWR before he sounded like an idiot, and there was a great show on Capital that did the hip-hop charts from some record shop in Soho.

I do remember listening to the Grumbleweeds, too, and then the first 30 minutes of Brian Matthews before bedtime.

I used to have all the episodes of Victor Lewis-Smith's radio one show, too, but those went missing during a move, and early Mary Whitehouse Experience (still listen to the podcasts of the Now Show from them, which is basically the same thing)...

So... 275 and 285 Radio One. Simon Mayo's sign off to Mark Goodyear's show ("Goodie-bags, goodie-bags, Mark-Mark Goodie-bags!"), Radio Two comedy, Capital Radio hip-hop, Lazer 558 for the Dr. Demento show and always closing out the night with Thank You For The Music by Abba, was able to get Chiltern Radio for a while, which was weird, LBC for news and talk and the legendary "Big red building in Petticoat Lane" and Pearl capital accumulator plan ads that ran constantly on it, and, yes... The police. I never managed to get any good information on the police channels, but by the time they were moved out of range of regular radios, I knew what all the "IC" numbers meant.

[Marine Boy]

...I used to love waking up to the news on LBC. It was so melodramatic! Also, Tommy Boyd on Sunday nights and the "Night Trek" game where he gave out cryptic clues about London locations and you had to figure out where it was and follow it like a treasure hunt...

Your post really took me back! I lived about 25 miles SW of London but picked up LBC very well. I was a huge fan of the station and of the Tommy Boyd show you mention. He used do do strange make-believe things didn't her? I'm sure he did a whole programme where he had supposedly climbed on top of the building and was doing the show from there. (Don't quote me, because he also did a show from the old Southern Sound in Brighton, in about 1986, so I could be mixing it up.)

Other highlights on LBC: ...I never missed Jenny Lacey's Nightline, she was a terrific braodcaster, and I loved the eccentric Monty Modlin. I think Jeremy Beadle did a show too, calling himself Jeremy-James-Anthony-Gibson-Beadlebum.

Memories of listening to all of this curled up in my bed, secure and content with my lot. I wonder how much of that is a case of 'rose-tinted spectacles'?

And the LBC theme and ident jingles were always brilliant.

[humanracer]

anyone remember radio sweden and the creepy jingle they used to play?

[chilligrape]

I used to listen to Radio Luxembourg in bed, remember Stuart and Ollie Henry very well!! Powerplay and adverts for Cuticura Athletes foot powder stand out for me!!:D

[sixtyten]

It was always adverts for Silvikrin I remember :p

[steveffisher]

I can still hear Jimmy Young in the seventies on Radio 2 (?) saying, "This is Jimmy Y saying 'BFN - Bye For Now!'"

[memoman]

I remember listening to steptoe and son on the radio also the late night phone in's on radio trent.

[Wil]

I can still hear Jimmy Young in the seventies on Radio 2 (?) saying, "This is Jimmy Y saying 'BFN - Bye For Now!'"

What's the recipe today Jim?

[Richard1978]

I first remember listening in the 1980s to Radio 1 & Picadilly Radio, which eventually split so the pop was on FM as Key 103, with the AM keeping the older music.

My Dad got an auto tune car radio which somehow used to pick up minicab radio when searching for a stong station, but often you could here half a converstation.

These days I normally listen to Smooth Radio & Imagine FM, with occasional listens to Radio 2 & Key 103.

[SimonParton]

And 6 years later here comes a reply!
I am a keen Short Wave listener also. Do you remember those funny number stations on the Short Wave?

[battyrat]

It seems I am not the only person to have sneeked a radio up to bed.Always used to listen to the hip stations,but after about 10.00pm tuned into radio 2 as they had a whole variety of diffrent music to the mass of the stations at that time.Jazz,blues,folk,etc.Think they still have these various music nights even today.Had to have the radio down low with my ear pushed right up against it so parants did not hear it.That would of been in the very late 70's and early 80's.The chart rundown was possibly the most important event of the week and everybody worth their salt had to listen to it just to be on the button.Before I had my own radio unfortunatly I had to listen to what my parants wanted or thought I should be listening to thrust down my throat....shudders.The music was so varied and eclectic that I ingested at times it makes me wonder why in my late teens I became so narrow minded over what I liked and did not.

[darren]

i did listen to the radio a lot when i was growing up.

or as we called it the wireless.

but it was more what my dad listened to than what i wanted to listen to.

he loves his country and western and would have it on from he came in from work till he wet to bed.

was only when i got my own radio i listened to what i wanted.

are you still that narrow minded when it comes to music.



It seems I am not the only person to have sneeked a radio up to bed.Always used to listen to the hip stations,but after about 10.00pm tuned into radio 2 as they had a whole variety of diffrent music to the mass of the stations at that time.Jazz,blues,folk,etc.Think they still have these various music nights even today.Had to have the radio down low with my ear pushed right up against it so parants did not hear it.That would of been in the very late 70's and early 80's.The chart rundown was possibly the most important event of the week and everybody worth their salt had to listen to it just to be on the button.Before I had my own radio unfortunatly I had to listen to what my parants wanted or thought I should be listening to thrust down my throat....shudders.The music was so varied and eclectic that I ingested at times it makes me wonder why in my late teens I became so narrow minded over what I liked and did not.

[agfagaevart]

Anyone remember listening to the charts and taping the songs you liked....trying to get the song and not the DJ. And the waiting for ages while he read through them all again so you could find out what number one was. And there were different charts depending on who you listened to. Radio one always had one answer but David Kid Jensen had something else...cant remember what station he was on. It was the Pepsi Chart if my minds serves me correctly...and it doesnt do that a lot!

Oh yes yes!!
I can recall hearing the Radio One Chart every Sunday, taping a few, and also, Capital Radio had their chart rundown during the week...and sometimes on a Sunday :cool:

It got a bit confusing as there were different number ones...

Anyone remember Roger Scott's chart show - i think it was Thurdays evenings, circa very early '80s.

[agfagaevart]

Simon Bates 'Our Tune' and Bits & Pieces on the Radio 1 Roadshow.

He has a show on Smooth Radio now.

[havasack]

Always loved radio, and still do!. Posted elsewhere on here (In praise of radio). From my early years "listen with mother" through to the radio 1 breakfast show before school as there was no tele back then. On to teen years and football on radio 2 , from '82' onwards John Peel and Radio Luxembourg. Since I was about 11 I haven't left the house without a radio unless I was going "doon toon" (the geordie will understand!).