DJ Heaven - Mike Read

In this the final post in the series on DJ Heaven it’s the turn of guitar playing,  Cliff impersonating, pop quizzing, tennis playing, poetry writing Mike Read.


Hands up if, on hearing his name, you want to sing the jingle: “Mike Read, Mike Read, 275 and 285. Mike Read, Mike Read National Radio 1”.  Go on you know you want to.


This edition of DJ Heaven was broadcast on BBC2 on 13 November 1993. Narration for the series was provided by Veronika Hyks. The producer was Jeannie Clark.

Mike was until quite recently still broadcasting but he seems to be finding it increasingly difficult to get a paying gig. Last year he was on Total Star out of Cheltenham but that company experienced some financial woes. In November he was back at Big L but that was beset with transmitter problems. By February this year Mike was now on One Gold, broadcasting on FM in Spain and also online. One Gold also experienced numerous technical problems and never, as far as I’m aware, played a commercial. One Gold is currently off air.

Here’s a scoped aircheck of Mike Read on Big L from 17 October 2010. At first Mike is somewhat pre-occupied with technical issues in the studio but also covers the news of the day – the royal engagement of William and Catherine and the release of Beatles tracks on iTunes. And, despite giving out the email address many times, you’ll notice that he reads out not a single message. Was anyone other than me listening?

DJ Heaven - Simon Bates

Think of Simon Bates and you’ll probably think of Our Tune and The Golden Hour. They’re a feature of his current show on Smooth just as they were thirty years ago on Radio 1.

Simon has had a varied career that started ‘down under’ back in the 1960s. Here’s his mini-biography taken from the 1980 Radio 1 Diary:

Simon Bates was born in Birmingham in December 1947 and was brought up on his parents’ farm in Shropshire.

After an unsuccessful brush with university, he went to New Zealand where he made his broadcasting debut as ‘Boy’ in a radio serialisation of Tarzan, while earning a living milking cows. He stayed in New Zealand with the NZBC for four years becoming well known for his television work and his commercial radio show.

In 1969 he moved to Australia and spent the next two years with the Australian Broadcasting Commission in Sydney, introducing a weekly television arts programme and migrant community affairs programmes, as well as travelling around the Pacific a good deal.

Simon joined Radio 1 in 1976 and after deputising for holidaying disc jockeys was given his own Sunday morning show in July that year. At the end of the following year he took over the Monday to Friday mid-morning programme from Tony Blackburn and has also presented Sunday afternoon’s chart show since 1978.

Whenever he has the time Simon combines disc jockeying with work as a television announcer. Although he lives in London, he spends as much time as he can on the farm in Shropshire, following his main outside interest – riding.

In fact the biography overlooks the fact that Simon initially joined the BBC as a Radio 4 announcer and newsreader before transferring to Radio 2 in 1972. Here he hosted a range of programmes,such as Late Night Extra, Sweet ‘n’ Swing, Folk 73, Dancing to Midnight, At the Jazz Band Ball, Saturday Night with the BBC Radio Orchestra and, for two years, The Early Show.

Simon’s break on Radio 1 was prompted by Johnnie Walker leaving his lunchtime show and Radio 1 to work in the States. Paul Burnett moved from Sunday mornings to lunchtime and it was Simon that took over Paul’s show that the Radio Times titled All There is to Hear, although Bates seemed to refer to it as The Music Machine in this short clip.

As is well recorded Simon left Radio 1 before he was pushed by Mathew Bannister’s sweeping reforms. Thereafter, stints at Atlantic 252, Liberty, Talk Radio, LBC and a many years at Classic FM followed before he moved back to pop radio earlier this year on Smooth’s Breakfast Show, complete with The Golden Hour and Our Tune.

But back to 1993 and another edition of the BBC2 programme DJ Heaven featuring our Simon. This was broadcast on 6^th November.

Simon maintains his farm interests by visting the Howden
Young Farmers back in 1989.
Goole Times & Chronicle 26 June 1989

More Bates audio at Radio Rewind

DJ Heaven - John Peel

As John Peel himself says on this video clip he’s the one normally to be found on the radio playing “lots of records by sulky Belgians”.  So it was perhaps a surprise when he turned up on Top of the Pops in 1982 for what was to be a fondly remembered run as programme presenter. Eschewing the forced enthusiasm of fellow presenters he adopted a witty, mocking and sarcastic style between the day’s latest pop and new wave hits.

In his diary John recalls a visit to TV Centre:
I was rather thrown when I saw how many kids there were in the studio. I was introduced to them and left to say amusing things – which I was quite clearly incapable of doing. This rattled me. I messed up takes 2 and 3, completely forgetting the spontaneous drolleries I’d been working on for months, and started sweating unpleasantly. Take 4 was rather rigid but OK and we pressed on with me gaining confidence. Lots of girls interested in me as a device by which they could be seen on TV, but they were amiable, and one of them perked me up by saying, “You’re not a poser like all the others.”

Here's this week's extract from the BBC2 series DJ Heaven broadcast on 16 October 1993:

No sulky Belgians in these two programme clips from the early 80s but there is an LP released in Belgium if that counts.
John Peel Intros

Quote from Margrave of the Marshes, Corgi Books, 2005

DJ Heaven - Tony Blackburn

Always cheesy, never cool, Tony Blackburn remains in the top flight of radio broadcasters.

After bobbing about in the North Sea for three years on the Mi Amigo and the Galaxy, in May 1967 Tony got the call from his agent Harold Davison to report to Broadcasting House.

Tony takes up the story:

And so that was why a day or two later I had my hair cut, changed out of my jeans into a sober suit and tie and for the first time crossed the threshold of the BBC. I had an appointment to see Mark White, an executive with a real, old-fashioned BBC title as ‘Assistant Head of the Gramophone Department’. I was so nervous and he was so charming that I remember calling him ‘Sir’.

Mark White told me I had come to his attention because he had listened to the pirates and admired my breakfast show on Radio London. For that reason the BBC would pay me £20 per week to present Midday Spin and if I came up to his expectations I would be the DJ to have the honour of launching Radio 1. I couldn’t believe my good fortune and all I could say was, ‘Are you really sure I’m the person you want? I talk a lot of nonsense about my knees’.

So Tony joined the Beeb to host Midday Spin on the Light Programme (a programme that didn’t actually start at midday but at quarter past the hour) sandwiched between Melodies for You and Parade of the Pops. Of course his try out was successful and Tony opened up the network on 30 September 1967 with what the Radio Times billed as a Daily Disc Delivery.

More on Tony in future posts but in the meantime here’s another clip from the BBC2 series DJ Heaven as broadcast on 9 October 1993:

From 1976 two bespoke sung jingles from Tony’s mid-morning Radio 1 show:
Tony Blackburn jingles

Quote taken from autobiography Tony Blackburn: The Living Legend, Comet Books 1985

Notice 11 November 2014: It seems that the above clip of DJ Heaven has been blocked in the UK by YouTube. Sorry about that.

DJ Heaven - Jimmy Savile



For goodness sake Jim, put your shirt on.



Now then guys and gals. This week I’d like to present to all you good ladies and gentlemen another edition of DJ Heaven featuring Jimmy Savile. How’s about that then!

Famously presenting the first edition of Top of the Pops in January 1964 the medallion-wearing, charity running Mr Fix-It was on the programme for an incredible 18 years.

Throughout most of the 1960s Jim was exclusively on Radio Luxembourg presenting, amongst other shows, his Teen and Twenty Disc Club. He joined Radio 1 in June 1968. He recalls his first meeting with Controller Robin Scott as follows:

He said “I think it’s about time we got together,” so we went out to lunch which is a very unusual thing for me because I do business over desks not tables. He said “Why won’t you work for us?” I said “Because nobody’s spoken to me. You’re the first guy from the BBC to speak to me” So he said “Well, will you  work for us?” and I said of course I would. He said, “We’ll I’ll be blessed,” because he thought that he was in for a tremendous fight because people had been saying, “You call it Radio 1 and the guy that’s been No. 1 for half a decade doesn’t even work for you!”

That first show became Savile’s Travels, which was eventually followed by Speakeasy and then the Old Record Club. He left the network in 1987.

This edition of DJ Heaven was broadcast on BBC2 on 2 October 1993:

DJ Heaven - Dave Lee Travis

DLT- Radio Pipe Smoker of the Year?

Back in 1993 BBC2 showed a series called DJ Heaven. It featured six Radio 1 DJs and was, in effect, an excuse to show clips from old editions of Top of the Pops with links from the DJ in question. The DJs were DLT, Jimmy Savile, Tony Blackburn, John Peel, Simon Bates and Mike Read. Over the next six weeks I'll be posting the opening short biographies that kicked off each programme.

So from 25 September 1993 here's a potted history of the broadcasting career of Dave Lee Travis.