The BBC World Service programme New Ideas was billed as the "radio shop window for British
industry" with "news of the latest products of particular interest to
the householder and small businessman". A kind of industry fair of the
air.
Running weekly for nearly 40 years the ten-minute programme
played an important role in promoting British business ideas abroad. By the
mid-70s it was generating 12,000 enquiries a year to be dealt with by the small
production team at Bush House that included an Export Liaison Officer. Those
letters were then passed on to the companies who would often report back on an
increase in orders. The BBC Handbooks highlight a number of successes from
water purifiers, brain diagnosis X-ray scanners, maritime survival kits to
asbestos cement cutters, solar energy devices and electronic door chimes.
Though New Ideas
was heard on the English-speaking service of the BBC, other language services
made their own versions with the Japanese one being particularly fruitful. By
the early 1980s the External Services had over 100 programmes in 30 languages
"geared to promoting exports or describing scientific, medical and
technological advances".
New Ideas had
started in 1958 when London Calling
called it "a series in which inventors, manufacturers, business man,
doctors, surgeons, philosophers, technicians and scientists will talk of the
latest inventions, discoveries and projects in their various fields". Over
the years other programmes came along - Science
in Action, Discovery, Health Matters and Global Concerns - that took over the reporting of some of these
themes leaving New Ideas to
concentrate on the marketplace. It was presented by a number of different
broadcasters such as Chris Bickerton (in the example below), Casey Lord, Sarah
Mills and in later years by Andrew Dunn, Peter Goodwin,Roberta Symes (daughter of one-time Tomorrow's World presenter Bob Symes)
and Gareth Mitchell.
In October 1990 New
Ideas was merged with the relative newcomer Tech Talk that had launched in 1987. Now with a doubled
running-time of 20 minutes and keeping its New Ideas title but with the
original element now forming a New
Products part of the programme. Co-producer Chris Westcott explained that
"we want to keep the new Ideas format of going out and about, talking to
people in their workplace and seeing the things being made and used. That's
where it ties in nicely with Tech Talk which has been an out-and-about
engineering technology programme which hasn't concentrated necessarily on
products."
Here from 27 July 1974 is the earliest example of the
programme I know of. It was included in a long sequence of World Service output
sent to me some years ago by Richard Tucker, to whom I offer my thanks. At this
stage it's just a straight read of product information with none of the
reporting that Chris Westcott talks about. The presenter is Chris Bickerton, perhaps
better known as one of the of Focus on Africa team, something he presented
for more than 30 years until his untimely death in 2002.
In this programme, edition number 833, the items are an
acre-meter, an adjustable lawn rake, a portable charging generator and a
plastic holder for use at conferences. At this time New Ideas had a theme, Quite
Contrary, a 1966 KPM library music track by Syd Dale. In this recording the
continuity announcer is Pamela Creighton.
The ideas, it seems, ran out in March 1997 when the
programme was dropped. There are 27 editions from 1996 and 1997 on the BBC
World Service website, though sadly not the final one.
If you have any World Services programmes of any genre and
from any era please contact me.
This is a companion
post to 50 Years of BBC Radio Humberside. Whilst researching that post I went
back through my Radio Times archive
to trace the history, people and programmes on the BBC local station. I've
scanned in that many pages that I thought I'd put some of them online.
My collection is pretty complete from 1976 but there are gaps
before that. Nothing from 1973, 1974 or 1975, so if you have an old edition
somewhere in the house please let me know. As you'll see this is a case of the
gradually shrinking schedule, in terms of column inches at least. In the 70s the listings get a full page at the
back of the Radio Times. By the 80s
they share space with neighbouring locals, Lincolnshire, York, Leeds and Sheffield,
depending on the edition. By the 90s up to a dozen stations are spread across
two pages. I've stopped in 2008 as by 2009 all the schedules appear on the BBC website.
Happy 50th Radio Humberside! The station opened this day in
1971 broadcasting to folk on both sides of the Humber some three years before
the county of Humberside was formed. Bridging the estuary a full decade before
the opening of the Humber Bridge. It had, at the time, the largest geographical
area of any BBC local station. Driving from the extreme north near Filey round
to Cleethorpes in those pre-M62/M180 days would've taken nearly three hours by
road via Goole and the Isle of Axholme. Alternatively you could head down to
Hull and cross on the Humber Ferry to New Holland.
The station is based in Hull and its original studio centre
was above the Post Office on the corner of Jameson Street and Chapel Street. The
main south bank studio was over in Grimsby initially at 10 Town Hall Street before
moving into St James House in December 1980, then a shop unit on Victoria
Street South from 2003 to 2017. The current base is an office and contribution
studio at the Grimsby Institute. Unmanned remote studios were also dotted
around the county in Cleethorpes, Barton, Scunthorpe, Goole, Beverley and
Bridlington.
The station's VHF/FM transmitter - initially on 95.3 MHz -
was up on the Yorkshire Wolds at High Hunsley near Newbald. Medium wave
transmissions on 202 metres (1484 kHz) from Paull started in September 1972
until the plug was pulled in January 2018. The FM frequency switched to 96.9
MHz in 1973 and in April 1986 did a swap with Viking Radio to 95.9 MHz. Between
2001 and 2016 the DAB services were transmitted from the BT site at Cave Wold
near South Cave before being transferred to High Hunsley.
But 25 February 1971 wasn't the first time that radio
broadcasts had been from Hull. Before it officially went on air about 90
broadcasts had been made that winter to cover the extreme weather conditions and
the cuts in power supply. These emergency transmissions were only heard on
Hull's wired Rediffusion service on Channel B and were made from a makeshift
studio above the Yorkshire Electricity showroom on Ferensway.
But even that wasn't the first time Hull had a radio
service. Back in the 1920s, starting in August 1924, it was the home of the BBC
relay station 6KH. Based in studios in Bishop Lane and with a transmitter in
Wincolmlee, it principally acted as a relay for the main programmes from
London. Locally produced programmes were few and far between but included Children's Corner, a Women's Half-Hour and concerts of live
dancemusic from the City Hall and the
Majestic Picture House (renamed the Criterion)on George Street. Later the station did broadcast a number of civic
events and orchestral concerts from Bridlington and Scarborough.
Hull was also chosen as one of the test sites for some
closed-circuit broadcasts in 1961 that helped persuade BBC management and the
Pilkington Committee of the viability of local radio. This time the studio was
based in the Guildhall. When the first experimental BBC stations opened in 1967
the cityhad been short-listed but Hull
Corporation was unwilling to stump up any ratepayers money for the running
costs. When the next round of stations was announced in November 1969
Humberside was short-listed.
The opening day was Thursday 25 February and the opening
programme at 12.30 pm was an edition of the station's news programme Outlook. After an welcome from station
manager John Cordeaux there was a live link-up to radio room of the trawler
Miranda stationed more than 1,000 miles away near Northern Iceland. Alf Smith
the ship's fishing advisory officer offered greetings to the new station.
The oldest Radio Times
magazine I can rustle up is for the week of 19 June 1971. The station only
broadcast for about five hours a day, with either Radio 4 news or Radio 2's
music shows acting as a sustaining service.
Note the logo at the top of the page. Long before corporate
BBC branding came along this was the station's own design combining the
Lincolnshire Imp and the Yorkshire Rose. It was replaced about six years later
by a design put together by Barry Stockdale of a blue and green stripe with the
peak to represent the transmitter.
On weekdays listeners could wake up to the sound of Morningtide, which, along with Countywide were the station's best known
programmes of that era. Morningtide
was the main breakfast show through until 1992 when it became Humberside Today but the early morning
show at 5 am retained the Morningtide
title until the end of that decade. Most of the presenters took a turn on the
show but Fiona Cowan was the best known and most regular "hostess". Fiona had previously worked as a Studio Manager for the BBC World Service before moving up to Hull. As well as the usual mix of news, weather and music the show offered both a
Radio Doctor and a Radio Dentist and morning exercises in Swing Hi, Swing Lo with Maggie and Jo. Maggie represented the local
Women's League of Health and Beauty but, as Fiona Cowan says in one of the
audio clips below, she has no recollection who Jo was. Fiona left in 1976 to
emigrate to the States where her husband Alan took up a university teaching
post.
Co-presenting Melody
on Sunday was David Gredington who was also the Programme Organiser. He'd
joined the station from Radio Stoke-on-Trent and retired from Humberside in
1976 following a stroke. Also coming from Stoke was the station manager John
Cordeaux (pictured above). John had joined the BBC in 1945 and by the mid-50s was working as the
Overseas Instructor in the Staff Training Department. He was Programme
Organiser at Radio Stoke-on-Trent before moving to Humberside. He retired in
1977 and a couple of years later he and his wife Shirley moved to Suffolk where
he occasionally broadcast on Radio Orwell.
John's successor as station manager was David Challis who'd
already had local radio experience at Radio Leicester when is started in 1967
and as Programme Organiser at Radio Solent. David Greddington's successor as
Programme Organiser was John Jefferson who'd began his career on the Bridlington Free Press and after other
press jobs joined Radio Durham and then Radio Cleveland and Radio Carlisle. After
leaving Humberside he was station manager at York and Leeds.
Other key members of staff when Humberside came on-air were
the Engineer in Charge Ken Fossett (succeeded in the post by Mike Jasinski ex.
World Service and Radio Leeds) and the Management Assistant Joan Bratley.
Another ex-Radio Stoke broadcaster was Derek Ratcliffe who
was the station's South bank producer and reporter. As well as hosting Hello Neighbour he also co-presented Now Then -It's 4.30! (1975-76) from one
of the South Bank studios and Both Sides
Now (1976-77) which also, as the title suggests, linked both sides of the
Humber.
Paul Heiney was part of the original team here listed as
presenting the Saturday morning show Scunsby
Gookington, a contraction of Scunthorpe, Grimsby, Goole, Kingston-upon-Hull
and Bridlington, offering a Singing Granny competition and Telephonagroan. Following
an increase in broadcasting hours later that year Paul also presented the
teatime show A Taste of Heiney. He
left in 1974 to work as a reporter on Newsbeat
and then Today. That's Life! and loads of other TV work followed.
Looking after the sport in 1971 was John Withington. That
coverage was mostly football, with Hull City, Grimsby Town and Scunthorpe
United as the local teams and, of course, Hull's two rugby league sides. For
the majority of the 70s Peter Ward was the voice of sport on Humberside. His
first radio experience was with the British Forces Network but back in civilian
life he was an assistant bank manager before starting to volunteer for a
hospital radio unit in Rotherham and reporting on the rugby league games, this
led to his full-time role on Humberside. Assisting were part-time reporters
Stan Hall, who'd been providing match commentaries for Hull's hospital radio
service though he was a printer by trade, and Elliot Opel, an ex-teacher again
starting with hospital radio experience before joining the BBC as a regional
sports correspondent. Elliot also devised, presented and set the questions for
the long-running Top Town Quiz
(1971-86) and also Top School Quiz.
One of the station's longest serving sports presenters would
be Dave Gibbins. Dave was with Humberside from 1978 to 1984 before hopping over
to commercial rivals Viking Radio. After a spell with TFM he was back at
Humberside as sports editor 1988-2000. Moving into television Dave was the
sports presenter for BBC South West on Spotlight
until his retirement in 2016.
Presenting Club
Together with news from local clubs is Al Gillyon. Over the next six or
seven years Al would go on to present a number of shows such as The Good Companions, which became The Centre Show recorded with an
audience from Hull's Centre Hotel (just round the corner from the Chapel Street
studios, now the Portland Hotel),For You Alone and Young at Heart. Both The
Centre Show, which usually involved some community singing, and For You Alone featured Jimmy Gibbons at
the piano. Al had made his stage debut aged 12 as a song-and-dance act. He went
into repertory theatre before doing war service with the 2nd Battalion of the
East Yorkshire Regiment where he would eventually produce variety concerts and
plays for Army Welfare. After the war he appeared in variety and revues as a
utility man playing character roles and made radio appearances on Variety Bandbox, Startime and Workers'
Playtime. In the mid-50s he established himself as a club comedian and in
1961 founded the Hull based charitable organisation the Society of M.I.C.E (Men
in Charitable Endeavour) along the lines of the Grand Order of Water Rats.
(Another founder member was Clive Hunter). It was this entertainment background
that led to his Radio Humberside appearances. In the 1980s he took on small
television acting roles on programmes that included All Creatures Great and Small and Emmerdale Farm. He died in 1990.
Other names in the original line-up include:
Jill Ward (now Hopkins) who left in 1974 to produce Roundabout East Anglia and was later at Radio
4, Radios Bristol, Stoke and Oxford. In 1976 she married David Eggleston, also
ex-Humberside and at the time at Radio Bristol, who tragically died on their
honeymoon in Rhodesia.
Ian Hunter who was on-air for about 20 years later
presenting Both Sides Now and Humberside Today. Prior to working for
the BBC he'd been with the local paper in Driffield. At Radio Humberside he was
a sports producer for a while and inaugurated Countywide, presenting it for the first three years. (Its launch
coinciding with the creation of the new county). He had two spells as a current
affairs producer with the BBC in Northern Ireland.
Tony Bell who would later produce
the religious shows Jigsaw and Fresh Air.
Colin Caley left Humberside for
Plymouth where he was the senior producer of Radio 4 regional opt-out Morning Sou'west and later at Radio Devon.
Jim Hawkins, initially full-time then freelance until 1977
when became a playwright and novelist.
Arnold Miller was yet another former teacher. (Local radio
at that time seemed to be full of folk that had given up the classroom or were
attached to the education department which all the stations had in the 1970s. Two
of my school teachers, Brenda Eveleigh who presented Contact and Margaret Henrickson on attachment to the education department,
were with Radio Humberside). Arnold was the first education producer. He left
in 1978 to become Programme Organiser and then Manager at Radio Nottingham.
Pam Gillard was a secretary at the station when it started
but left for BBC Radio Highland for a while before coming back to Hull as a
station assistant, eventually hosting After
Three. She moved south and worked for Radio Solent.
Presenting Round About
Folk are local folk musicians Christopher Rowe and Ian Clark. Chris was a
regular broadcaster on television and radio. His songs would often feature on
the station including that for the tenth anniversary (included in the 1970s
audio sequence below). Both were teachers in Hull at one time, Ian at Kelvin
Hall and Chris at Hull HE College (he taught me in the early 80s) and together
they released a number of records including Songs
for Humberside. Ian now lives on Merseyside. Chris died in 2001.
Humberside's geographic spread caused headaches for the
station management as John Cordeaux explained in the Radio Times in March 1971: "After only a few weeks, Radio
Humberside is having to pass up some first-rate material, simply because it
cannot physically be collected by a modest-sized staff however enthusiastically
they extend their efforts ... because of the distances involved in recording
the programmes. But Radio Humberside is rapidly shortening its own lines of
communications in two ways. First, we are training a team of part-time
broadcasters, many of whom travelled far out and about with tape-recorders in
their knapsacks and have already made their radio debuts. Then,in our three studios in Barton-on-Humber,
Cleethorpes and Goole, the central station has its own out-stations. News and
the people who make it are heard immediately throughout the region."
Moving forward a nearly two years here's how the programmes
looked for the week commencing 30 December 1972 as Britain was about to join
the EEC. The importance of Humberside's ports is recognised in Hands Across the North Sea with a live
link-up from the North Sea Ferry MS
Norwind. For many years they would 'Go Dutch' to celebrate the station's
birthday and take a ferry load of listeners across to Amsterdam (and bring them
back again!).
By now there are some more familiar names who've joined the
station.
Producing Top Town
Quiz was Robin Pulford who'd go on to look after the daily phone-in show Countywide for ten years from 1978.Robin's broadcasting career started as a
Technical Assistant for BBC Television in London (he was a cameraman at Lime
Grove for a while) before moving into general production and then radio. He
worked for the BBC in Aberdeen and for BBC Records. At Humberside he was a news
reporter and bulletin reader before moving into production and presentation. He
left the station in 1990 to become the press officer for the Docklands Light
Railway and is now retired.
Peter Adamson is now with Radio Humberside presenting
programmes about jazz, something he'd continue to do at intervals over the next
couple of decades - for a while his Great
Northern Jazz show was also heard on other stations in the north east. In
time he would become a household name across Humberside with his phone-in show Soapbox, at first on Sundays but in time
every weekday throughout the 1990s. Peter left in 2004, shortly after picking
up a Frank Gillard Awardfor his
Outstanding Contribution to BBC Local Radio. Soapbox continued until 2008 with
Blair Jacobs (also on Look North and
at Radio Solent, leaving Humberside in 2019) as one of the regular hosts.
Barry Stockdale became a very recognisable voice on the
station over 20 years initially as a station assistant, joining three months
after the station opened, and eventually becoming Programme Organiser. He
presented Morningtide and for a while
was the Grimsby-based producer and co-presented the South Bank leg of Humberside Today.Barry was later the manager editor at Radios
York and Sheffield and was a Project Director for the BBC leading the projects
for the new broadcasting centre in Hull and later at Salford Quays.
Tex Milne, here listed as presenting Country Music Time, was the station's country music expert from
1972 to 1986. He was a storeman with a Hull based company but his interest in
country and western dated back to 1959. For a while he worked in a record shop
and in 1968 was compering at the original Hull Country Music Club. Tex jumped
ship in 1986 to join Viking Radio. Country music remained a popular genre on
the station and when Tex left both Tammy Cline (a local singer whose real name
is Marilyn Cuff) and Bob Preedy (also a YTV continuity announcer and author)
presented shows.
With the Platter
Chatter Show on Saturday morning were Paul Heiney, Barry Nettleton and Tim
Jibson. (Three presenters for a 30minute show!). Barry was a local music promoter involved with The Brick
House music venue and later Hull Truck and the Beverley Picture Playhouse. I
knew Barry when I worked as a part-time film projectionist at the Playhouse and
also volunteered for the folk and jazz festivals.
In the early 70s Tim Jibson's full-time job was as a transport
manager but in time he'd be one of the best known radio voices across the
county. Tim would go on to present a number of other Saturday morning pop music
shows such as Stop the Wheel -
"phone Hull 27744 and take your chance on the musical merry-go-round"- Soundabout
(taking over from Carl Kingston) which became Soundsabout Saturday. In October 1978 he came up with the idea for
a weekly evening show called The Paull
Hunsley Electric Wireless Show - taking its name from the transmitter sites
at Paull and High Hunsley. Aimed mainly at a teenage audience and broadcast on
a Tuesday night from 7.30 to 10.00 - the first time the station had regularly
gone on into the evening apart from sports commentaries - it featured local
bands, local music news, star name interviews, current chart hits and the Tuesday Talk-in which gave listeners at
home and the teenage panel (of which I was one for a short time) in the studios
(in Hull and usually one of the South Bank studios in Grimsby or the self-op
studio in Dolphin Street, Cleethorpes) the chance to discuss issues of the day.
Occasionally the talk-in would be replaced by a Juke Box Jury with, as
participant Gary Clarke remembers from a 1980 appearance, "tipping whether
new releases from the likes of Roxy Music and Split Enz would be Hits or Misses".
One of the regular contributors was Scarborough-based Chas White, aka Dr Rock,
who on one occasion was talking to Tim from the Grimsby base when the studio
clock fell on his head. As this
programme, broadcast in 2019 and an edited version of a 2001 show, recalls, some of the PHEWS participants went on to
bigger things including John Beesley (BBC politics producer), Adela Nozedar
(music producer), John Tondeur (long-time Radio Humberside commentator on
Mariner's games) and Steve Massam. Steve joined the station on a permanent
basis in 1983 presenting the mid-afternoon show Let's Go and then other afternoon shows until the early 90s in
addition to a Sunday morning show originally called Sunday Spin that ran from 1983 through to 2016.
Tim presented The Paul
Hunsley Electric Wireless Show until the end of 1983 at which time,
probably in response to the imminent launch of Viking Radio,it became a nightly one hour show with Carl
Kingston until it ended in December 1984. Tim would, in time, also join Viking
(as did Carl) but he was back at Humberside on Saturdays from 2001 to 2006
before leaving once again to establish Hull-based KCFM radio.
My hand thrown mug by Jerry Harper of Blacktoft to mark the 10th anniversary
The first news editor was Colin Adams. He left in 1973 to
help launch Radio 1's Newsbeat (he
was deputy editor to Mike Chaney) and was replaced in the post by Jim Latham
who moved down from Radio Teesside (he left in 1983 to become a Senior
Instructor in Journalism in the Local Radio Training Unit).
The news reporters in the mid-70s through to the early- 80s
included: Charles Levitt (former Hull
Daily Mail news editor), Chris Ramsden (ex HDM and Swiss Broadcasting Corporation), Nigel Robson, Paul Drewitt
(ex. Radio Nottingham and HDM), John
Andrews, Nigel Lucas, Graham McKenzie, Roderick Clark, Robin White, Peter Grant,
Rod Crocker, Graham Smith, Neil Walker, Jane Howroyd, John Drury (ex-teacher
and later a co-presenter of Chalk and
Cheese), Michele Romaine, Geoff Barratt (ex. Radio Blackburn), Mike
Cartwright (Grimsby based reporter for over 20 years), Alan Cuthbertson (also a
presenter on After Three), Alan
Douglas, Nick Haydon, Sam Jaffa, Steve Howard, Steve Williams, Mike Fennell
(later the station's news editor), Nicholas Moss, Charlotte Counsell, Trevor
Austin and Chris Bates.
Rod, Charles, Jim, Paul and Chris are featured in this
sequence that I recorded in, I think, 1979.
The biggest new story that Radio Humberside covered , in
terms of one which quickly became a national and an international one, was the
explosion at the Nypro chemical plant at Flixborough in 1974.
Here's how the 1977 BBC booklet Serving Neighbourhood and Nation recounted the events of that day:
Jim Latham, the News Editor of Radio Humberside, was at home
digging his garden on the afternoon of Saturday 1 June 1974, when he was
startled by an enormous bang at eight minutes to five. The Nypro chemical plant
at Flixborough was exploding, and several days of frenzied news reporting were
just beginning.
By five o'clock the duty newsman at Radio Humberside that
afternoon had put out a newsflash, even before the debris had stopped falling
from the sky. He didn't yet know what had caused the explosion or how serious
it was. He then had to summon the rest of Humberside's news team - but first he
telephoned Broadcasting House in London with the news. He spoke to what's
called the GNS desk (standing for General News Services - the BBC's internal
news agency, which collects information and passes it on by teleprinter to BBC
staff all over the country in one go). This was the first hint of the disaster
to reach London, and the duty GNS man immediately moved over to a nearby
microphone and spoke over the special loudspeaker system (reserved for
important newsflashes alone) "GNS here: Radio Humberside reports a big
explosion at factory near Scunthorpe" - and thus all the main BBC
buildings in London were put on alert.
While news editors waited for further details, a Radio
Humberside producer, Derek Ratcliffe, was the first journalist to reach the
scene of the disaster at Flixborough. By 20 past five, he had picked up a phone
in an evacuated house near the factory, and reported his first impressions on
the spot - with time just enough before the police removed him too, for fear of
another explosion. At a nearby airfield, a very fortunate Radio Humberside
reporter, David Eggleston, just happened to be in a plane, ready to record a
feature on aerobatics. So he too could record his impressions of the disaster,
this time from the air.
In London the editor of the day prepared the six o'clock
news bulletin on Radio 4, with the Flixborough explosion at the top of the running
order. He recorded Derek Ratcliffe's eyewitness account, sent down from Radio
Humberside, and told the station that he'd take any further reports it got -
even if it were while the bulletin was going out on air. Television News also
made use of the recording, because their camera crew hadn't yet had time to get
to Flixborough from the nearest regional base at Leeds. And while the nation
slowly became aware of one of the worst tragedies since Aberfan eight years
before, the news team at Radio Humberside had to work quickly and efficiently
to provide further information about casualty figures and the extent of the
damage. They were working for all the BBC's national news output, plus the
overseas broadcasts (both the World Service in English and the various foreign
language bulletins) and, of course, for Radio Humberside itself, whose audience
was, after all, worst affected by the disaster and anxious for every crumb of
news. The station itself stayed on air until past three o'clock on Sunday
morning, and for 16 more hours on Sunday provided further news, casualty
figures, advice and warnings from the emergency services and so on. But during
the weekend the national networks transmitted as many as 30 voice-pieces by
Humberside reporters in an operation that is still legendary in London
newsrooms.
In the early years the schedule was filled with short
specialist programmes, anything from 10 to 30 minutes was not uncommon. These
had all but disappeared by the early 1980s or at least been incorporated into
longer sequence programmes. In 1981 some of those providing their expert
knowledge for Humberside programmes included gardening advice from Fred
Fletcher (former Hull University grounds manager) and Dick Robinson (Bishop
Burton College lecturer), angling with Bill Mower and antiques and art with
Margaret Garbutt.
In July 1981 Radio Humberside covered the opening of the
Humber Bridge. See also my blog post Bridging the Humber.
By 1986 Radio Humberside was finally venturing into regular
evening broadcasting, sharing specialist music programmes with Leeds, York and
Sheffield. So we have Great Northern
Brass with Barrie Davenport, Great
Northern Folk with Henry Ayrton (also presenter of The Real Music Show and Henry's
Jukebox), Great Northern Folk with Ray Williams (who'd already been
presenting Humberside Folk), Great Northern Rock with Jeremy Hibbard,
Great Northern Country with Bob
Preedy, Great Northern Classics with
Martin Hindmarsh and Great Northern Jazz
with Peter Adamson. By May 1991 this sharing arrangement also included local
stations in the north west (GMR/Manchester, Merseyside, Lancashire and Cumbria)
under the Night Network banner with Radio
Humberside providing Adamson's Night
Network Jazz and Ayrton's Night
Network Folk. This arrangement continued throughout the nineties and the
noughties with Humberside taking some networked shows or replacing it with
local sports coverage. At the weekend Humberside has sometime shared shows from
its sister station Radio Lincolnshire such as Melvyn Prior's Sold Gold Saturday and Howard Leader's
musical nostalgia show.
In 1988 Radio Humberside was proclaiming that "We're
the One..." though it could just have easily said that it was number one
as mid-80s listening figures showed that the station had the greatest
percentage of listeners of any local station, both BBC and commercial.
The line-up now included:
Charlie Partridge,
with the station from 1983, moving to BBC Essex seven years later and in 1994
promoted to assistant editor. Managing editor at both Radio Leicester and, from
1999 until taking voluntary redundancy last year, at Radio Lincolnshire.
Liz Meech here co-presenting Countywide with Robin Pulford had been with the station since the
late-70s and started out as a researcher on that very programme. She later
became the education correspondent for the BBC in the region.
Dave Taviner was with the station for 26 years from 1980 having
volunteered at Radio Nottingham prior to that. Moving to television he worked
on Songs of Praise until 2015 and
then joined the United Christian Broadcasters as Head of Radio and now Director
of Broadcasting.
Jonathan Cowap who moved to Radio York in 1992.
Mike Hurley presented the Saturday morning Hurley Burley between 1985 and 1996.
Originally at Pennine Radio and then the launch team at Radio Aire he joined
Humberside where he created the"the
archetypal, flat capped, opinionated Yorkshireman" Bill Bore, based on a
bloke he'd met in a pub in Bradford. He did a similar show on Radio York
(2000-05) but his bread and butter was as an advertising voiceover artiste recording
thousands of TV and radio commercials. Mike won a Sony award as local radio
personality of the year in 1986. He died in 2008 aged just 59.
Here's Mike as Bill Bore recorded for the Radio Academy
Festival in 1986.
Russell Harris presented a Saturday oldies show from October
1985 which became It's Russell Harris
a couple of years later and won a Sony award in 1988 for best children's
programme. He moved shortly after to BBC Essex then Radio Kent, GMR in
Manchester and 5 live.
Clive Hunter was a local club comedian and musician who
broadcast on Humberside from the mid-70s initially on Call Clivvy, usually going out on a Thursday afternoon, in which listeners could phone-in and request
Clive to play their favourites tunes on the organ. Call Clivvy was dropped in 1982, presumably because he'd now
exhausted the 4,000 tunes in his repertoire that he could play off pat. He also
wrote comic poems that he read on Both
Sides Now. His next engagement was a Sunday music show of nostalgic records
and the occasional tune at the organ. Clivvy's
Soft Spot ended in March 1992. This
recording, courtesy of Dave Rhodes, dates from 28 August 1988.
In 1988 the station also produced this promotional video. BBC Radio Humberside - We're the One
features manager Geoff Sargieson (ex-Radio Sheffield, Radio Aire, Radio
Scotland and later manager at Radio York), news editor Mike Fennell, programme
organiser Barry Stockdale, engineer-in-charge Dave Matthews, Charlie Partridge,
news reporter Clare Morrow, Liz Meech, LRAC member Joyce Bratton, Steve Massam
and Robin Pulford.
In 1991 Radio Humberside was claiming to be the county's
number one. The daytime line-up included Martin Plenderleith whose radio career
started at Radio Cumbria before a short spell as a Radio 4 schools producer
then going freelance which included seven years on Humberside (1989-96) mainly
on Morningtide and its successor Humberside Today. Martin returned to
Radio Cumbria and also established his own production company.
Judi Murden is another long-serving Humberside personality.
Starting in 1983 she was a presenter and then producer, latterly the Faith
Producer, until last year. Judi was heard on Morningtide, Chalk and Cheese
and Countywide.
Also shown here are Katy Noone, a presenter from 1988, later
a producer including BBC Introducing;
Phil Squire initially part of the sports team later managing editor at Radio
Leeds and now an Assistant News Editor; and Matt Watkinson also on Radio
Cleveland and Radio York where he was the District Producer based in
Scarborough.
At the turn of the millennium the BBC published plans to
expand their services in East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire (The BBC: Connecting Locally). The plan
included a new broadcasting centre that featured an Open Centre offering a free
drop-in learning centre and bi-media studios for Radio Humberside and the newly
launched Look North for the region
co-presented by Peter Levy and Helen Fospero (for a while this came from a
small studio built at Chapel Street). Radio Humberside eventually moved out its
old Chapel Street home and into Queen's Court in 2004. Peter Levy himself would
later appear on Radio Humberside between 2008 and 2014 in the old Soapbox slot.
Paul Teague, Richard Usher, Lara King and Andy Comfort in a far from sun-drenched photo shoot on Hessle foreshore
Some of the broadcasters on-air at the time of the move to
Queen's Court includedAndy Comfort
broadcast journalist and presenter at Humberside since 1995 who presented the
breakfast show for 15 years, including a few years where he co-presented from
Hull with Ruth Barcroft (journalist at one time on Channel Five) in Grimsby. Andy
has been the station's drivetime host since 2013.
Carl Wheatley who was with the station for 25 years, joining
in 1994. He was part of two radiopartnerships firstly a weekday mid-morning show with his 'mother' Gloria
Johnson and then five years on the breakfast show with Lizzie Rose. Carl left in 2019 to become CEO for the
Northern Academy of Performing Arts.
Steve Redgrave (ex-Viking) for many years (1993 to 2012) looked
after the early show and had a 6 am and later a 5 am start. He now works behind
the scenes as a weekend producer.
David Burns, aka Burnsy, has been "making sense of the
day's big stories" since 2011 and hosts what is now the main phone-in show
on the station. See 2017 Face behind the
voice article above.
Two of Radio Humberside's most unlikely stars were Beryl
Renwick and Betty Smith. The pensioners were spotted by presenter David Reeves
(with Humberside from 2001 and now the Social Media Producer) when they were on
a tour of the station in 2006. They were eventually given their own weekly
one-hour show, billed as Radio Humberside
Rewind, which was a mixture of music, chat and banter between the two
friends who met at an afternoon club in Hull in 1999 following the death of
their husbands. Betty and Beryl garnered the best entertainment programme Sony
Award in 2012 with the last show going out that Christmas.
On 25 February 2011 Peter Adamson was back to present this
look back at the station's 40 year history.
Also on-air that day were Steve Redgrave, Andy Comfort (on
his bike from Grimsby to Hull to raise money for charity), Lara King (with the
station from 1995 and at one time presenting the Grimsby leg of the breakfast
show, now the NE Lincs reporter), Look North reporter Caroline
Bilton sitting in for Peter Levy, David Reeves, Phil White (presenter from 2005
currently looking after Saturday breakfast) and James Hoggarth (ex-Kingstown
Hospital Radio joining Humberside c.1999 as a Sunday afternoon broadcast
assistant then seven years in the breakfast show production team. Presented the
early evening show 2007-2012 and is now also the head of music).
On that same day there was a light-hearted quiz Not a Clue on 202 chaired by Phil White that
pitted the voices of 2011 Lara King, Andy Comfort and Carl Wheatey against the
golden tonsils of Peter Adamson, Gloria Johnson and Martin Plenderleith with
Dave Gibbins making a guest appearance. It was produced by Derek McGill, the
Assistant Editor at Radio Humberside since 2007.
Other people you'll have heard on Radio Humberside across
the decades include, in alphabetical surname order (and this is by no means an
exhaustive list. It's taken from the Radio
Times and online schedules so won't include news reporters and some sports
presenters, nor necessarily those broadcasting from other Yorkshire stations such
as York or Leeds and also heard on Humberside):
Chris Arundel, Henry Ayrton (presenter of Great Northern Folk from 1987 and later The Real Music Show and Henry's Jukebox), Chris Barker (late 70s presenter of Farm), Keith Barnwell, Chris Bell (1979-87 later at Stray FM
now working for a transport and logistics company), Jules Bellerby (long-time presenter on Radio York, also on BBC
Essex), Helen Brookes, Jeremy Buxton (also worked at Radio Sheffield
and BBC Devon, now on Radio York and a BBC Induction Manager/Trainer), Tony Cartledge (also on Radio
Newcastle), Andrew Clark, Simon Clark, Lucy Clark (discovered
following the 2017 Face of Hull competition and co-presents Absolutely Clueless),
Ian Clark, Trisha Cooper, Averil Coult,
Siobhan Daniels (1997, also South East Today reporter), Jenny Danks, Gordon Davidson, Chloe Davies,
Mike Day, Matt Dean (senior sports journalist since 1999), Tony Delahunty (sports presenter 1982
but mainly at Pennine Radio as commentator/sports editor), Christine Dexter, Keeley
Donovan (2014), David Doyle-Davidson
(sports presenter, former Hull FC player), Clarke
Dunn, Betty Dye (presenter of Fresh Air), Nigel Dyson (presented On
Campus in 1976 and later produced this and other shows, see alsoRadio Blackburn post), Charles Ekberg (1970s Letter
from Lindsey and Scene from the South),
Sally Fairfax (from 2012 previously
at Radios York and Leeds), Dave Fewster
(also on Viking Radio and manager of Beverley FM), Susanne Fraser (Grand Night
In 2007-08) , Gail Fryer (1970s),
David Golley (sports presenter also
on Viking), Alan Grant, Paddy Grice, Joe Hakim (presenter of Culture Night), Kim Harrison (BBC New Voices winner), Paul Hartley (2001-07, later at Stay FM now cabin crew with Flybe),
Chris Harvey, Rob Hawthorne (1980 sports presenter), Marcus Heald (co-presenter of Westenders),
Graham Henderson (late 70s, 1980s
presenter and producer), Andy Hollins
(late 80s after Viking), John Howden,
Kevin Howells, Paul Hudson (Look North
weather forecaster), Nick Hull
(ex-Voice of Peace, KCR FM in Ireland, Radio Wyvern, also on Radio Leeds, Radio
Nottingham, Viking as Deputy News Editor, Essex Radio, talkRADIO and
talkSPORT), Richard James, Bill Jenkyns (later on BBC York and a
BBC Technology Manager), Keri Jones
(went on to run Radio Pembrokeshire and Radio Scilly), Steve Kaye, Kevin Keane,
Adam Kirtley (also on Radio Berkshire,
now a media trainer), Jon Knighton
(sport mid-80s before joining BFBS where he is the sports editor), Chris Langmore, Donna Larsen, Chris Lawrence,
Alex Lester (1981, one of many BBC
locals before joining Radio 2), Gwillym
Lloyd, Keith Loxam, Martha Mangan (presenter of No Filter) Richard Marginson (1970s), Sandi Marshall (mid-70s), Andy Marsters, Maggie Mash (mid-70s presenter of Morningtide and Both Sides
Now, long time YTV announcer also on Radio Aire), Paul Massey, Ian Meikle
(mid-80s, now in Australia), Russell
Merryman (later at BBC News and Al Jazeera), Fiona Mills (from 2018 initially with Unheard and Uncensored evening show), John Mills, Honor Morris
(mid-80s on It's Saturday, later on 5
live now business consultant), Mike
Morris (late 90s sports presenter, ex. Viking FM, later a producer on Look North), Stuart Mountain (a BBC Senior Broadcast Journalist), Dave Nash (late 70s to late 90s
including Sounds of Brass), Fr Mike O'Connor (1970s presenter of Jigsaw), Rob Palmer (sports presenter), Jonathan
Parker (co-presenter of Westenders),
Steve Parkes, Helen Philpott (also on Look
North), James Piekos (from 2011
previously on Imagine FM, Hallam and Viking), Mike Plumb, Howard Pressman,
Steve Quinn, Alan Raw (Sony Award winning presenter of BBC Introducing), Barrie
Redfern (also on Radio Aire and BBC/ITV continuity announcer), Andy Ridler, Barry Robinson, Andy Roche
(1995-98 also at Radio Oxford and now Radio Lincolnshire), Matthew Rudd (also on Viking and KCFM, now presents Forgotten 80s on Absolute 80s), Neil Rudd (also on Viking and Magic 1161), Dave Sanders (1970s to early 80s, also
on Radios Nottingham, Cleveland, Nottingham and Lancashire before jobs with
COI, CIPR and Lufthansa), Helen
Schofield, Anne Skellern, Kate Slade (now News Editor), Mike Smartt (later on Look North and a BBC correspondent).
Kofi Smiles (current breakfast presenter, see Face behind the voice above), Les
Smith (also on Viking & Yorkshire Radio Network), Eric Smith (Morningtide
presenter mid-80s, also on Radio Sheffield, Radio Aire and 26 years as
breakfast host on Radio Shropshire), Mike Soar,
Rob Staton (sports presenter), Doug Stewart, Neil Symons, Paul Teague
(1990s, now an author), Ernie Teal (presenter of The Great Outdoors), Katie Teakle,
Sheila Tonge, Rev Geoff Towell (presenter of 70s religious programme Jigsaw), Petroc Trelawney (now on Radio 3), Alex Trelinski (also on Radios Leicester, Nottingham and Derby, now
an author living in Spain), Richard
Usher (1997-2001 also on Radio Sheffield, later Radio Berkshire, now actor
and voiceovers), Kelly Vhora (The 9.5 Show in mid-70s, as Kelly Temple
on Hallam and Capital), Jonathan Wall
(later Controller 5 live), Joanne Watson
(late 70s before joining Radio Sport in London), Mollie Weeks, Roger Westby,
Amanda White (also presenter of the Sex, Drugs & Lullabies podcast) , Mike White, Steve White, Adam Wild,Ian
Wise (rugby commentator), Stan Wyatt
(1970s) and Chris Yates.
BBC Radio Humberside will be marking its 50th birthday
throughout the day and the highlights include the return of Carl and Gloria (9
amrepeated at 6 pm) and a quiz with Andy Comfort (7 pm)
In addition to this blog post I'll be uploading some old Radio Times listings for Radio
Humberside later today covering every year from 1976 to 2008.
With thanks to Ken Clark, Gary Clarke and the staff of BBC
Radio Humberside.
