THE OFFSHORE CHUNK

RADIO CITY 

Radio City

Location: Shivering Sands forts in the Thames Estuary

23rd September 1964 till 9th February 1967

Radio City had pride of place on the Waffler's school pencil case.  At the tender age of 13 I obtained my first transistor radio and intitially discovered Radio Caroline.  Within a week I had discovered many others.  Initially the deejays all seemed to speak so fast and I could not catch the name of the radio station on air.  I also confess that Radio London on City seemed to me to be the same station.  Not on the sound but because they were both named after the capital of the country London, well that was how it seemed to me.

Screaming Lord Sutch soon tired of running his own station Radio Sutch so he sold out to Reg Calvert his manager.  I have a recording somewhere where I think it was Lord Sutch proclaimed "This is not the BBC!"

The on air sound was very professional although the towers were not as well insulated for sound as the ships were and the metal walls gave the on air deejay a rather "toppy but not totally tinny" sound.  

I remember the Anti-City show, in which they invited listeners to write in and say what they did not like about the station.

The show I also used to listen to quite regularly on a Sunday, well that is how I remember it, was the Auntie Mabel Show.  This was a satire show, rather like Week Ending on the BBC, but far more irreverent.  It was a tribute to the station presenters who put it together and scripted it themselves.  Sadly I do not know of anyone who has kept a copy of this show on tape.  If anyone has a copy the waffler will happily swap one of his station recordings just to have one in his own collection.

The station had its head office at 7 Denmark Street in London.

The reception from its 2 kilowatt transmitter was incredibly good.  They covered South East England within a territory from the Wash to Southhampton, also Midland to Northampton and Birmingham.  At its peak they commanded three million listeners.

The station identification was other "Radio City - The Tower of Power".  Is it pure coincidence that Radio 1 had a jingle in 1967 when it started proclaiming Radio 1 was a tower of power?  Possibly not because PAMs who produced the jingles were based in America and they sometimes refer to masts as towers!

The advertising rates were £30 for 30 seconds; the mainstay was religious programmes like "Voice of Prophecy"  They also followed Lord Hills earlier role at the BBC and ran a programme titled "Radio Doctor".   The chart used was a Top 60 format.

Reg Calvert was shot dead in an unfortunate incident involving Major Smedley June 1966 after a raid on the fort. This incident has largely been acknowledged as one of the major factors which made the British authorities clamp down on the offshore boom for fear of more catastrophes elsewhere.  Radio London did have problems with a drunk captain charging around with a knife,  the owner of Radio Invicta perished in a boat whilst leaving the fort in storm.

The Station closed on February 8th 1967 at Midnight and had been superbly looked after by Dorothy Calvert after her husband's death.

Alan Clark, Paul Kramer, Ed Moreno, Tom Edwards, Phil Jay, Ian Macrae, and Eric Martin were the main broadcasters on this superb radio station.  Ian Macrae used to use the expression  "mikeside this is  Ian Macrae"    A lively atmosphere at all times as their voices echoed against the steel walls of the forts.  Their technical equipment was cruder than that used on the boats but the transmission went out incredibly well due to the fact that the fact the the mast was 200ft on top of a 200 plus foot high tower above the sea.  The propagation of many of the stations was aided by the fact that they were all in contact with a superb earth - the ocean floor!

Overall a station I enjoyed very much indeed,  a true English radio station, in contrast to the American formats available elsewhere.  Definitely not a middle of the road station, and broadcasting tip top pop music of the day with a very small budget.

Picture courtesy of Offshore Radio Site