THE OFFSHORE CHUNK

RADIO 390

Radio 390

Located on the Red Sands Fort in the Thames Estuary

Frequency 390 metres medium wave (am) - actually on 388.1 am but 390 sounded better

With the exception of Britain Radio and Radio 355 this was the only "sweet music" station on the air in the UK.  They did not play pop music and as a result built up an entirely different audience of housewives and businessmen.

On air: September 1966 to July 1967

This station was run by Ted Allbeury, who is now better known for his novels about spys, war and espionage.

The on air sound was very old-fashioned.  The announcers spoke in a very professional manner, and could indeed have been mistaken for the BBC themselves.  The only difference was the quantity of music that was played.  

The programmes were short, around 15 to 30 minutes in length with names like "Keyboard Cavalcade".  There were programmes of Organ Music, 78s and all varieties of music.  The only time that the station became at all pop orientated was when Mike Raven did his Rock and Roll show with his wife Mandy. There was a half an hour programme on in the evenings called the World of Business.

I remember how powerful the station's signal was in comparison to some of the ship based stations.  The power was in fact not as high, but the fact that they were based on a very tall tower in the sea, and the signal was earthed in the sea helped to propagate the signal very well in the South East of England.

I remember Edward Cole who eventually got to work as an announcer on Radio 4.  He did a show at the close of Radio 4 which reminded me of the way 390 closed.  Ted Allbeury used to do a show called "Red Sands Rendezvous, in which he read out listener's requests.  The station used to close the day's broadcasts with sweet music and the announcer bid the listeners goodnight.

Other announcers on air were David Allen, Paul Beresford, Wolf Byrne, Christopher Clark, Edward Cole, Brian Cullingford, Lee Gilbert, Graham Gill, Roger Gomez, Jonathon Hall, Mark Hammerton, Peter James, Sheldon Jay, Gordon Johns, Dominic Lefoe, Samantha Leigh, Jack MacLaughlin, Robert Randall, Mandy Raven, Mike Raven, John Ross Barnard, Roger Scott, Clement Shaw, David Sinclair, John Stewart, Alan West and Stephen West , Peter James (the chief announcer),  Stephen West, Brian Cullingford, Paul Beresford and John Ross Barnard.  David Allen did a programme on the station called "Country Style",  he did this on Radio 2 later on, then went to London's country station Ritz 1035 to do a show for a while.  His main area of work however was television continuity; but he never forgets his music roots.  Rob Randell did some sterling work, and rather reminiscent of his 390 days, on Radio Jackie in the 80s.

390's format was very successful and it won very many listeners.  It is a pity that there is no station on air which can match this today.  For a while Melody Radio in London played old standards and instrumentals, but they sold out and the station became more adult orientated rock than sweet music.  In the sixties there was a genre of music called "Middle of the Road".  In 2001 there seems to be no such classification, and I think that so called "Lounge" music has died out. 

Picture of Red Sands Fort courtesy of the Offshore Radio Site - article copyright Wireless Waffle Web Site