It’s 6.59 am on Saturday 30th September 1967. I am in our little living room at home in Brislington (Briz, as it is known), Bristol. I am still at junior school so why on Earth have I got up at such an ungodly hour? For one thing, I have to get up early on a Saturday because my mum, a lone parent, has to work every Saturday in a ladies’ fashion shop in town and I have to be walked to my grandparents’ house about three-quarters of a mile away, where I will read comics, eat a portion of chips from the nearby chippy, if I am really lucky I will have an ice cream from the legendary Tarr’s at the bottom of the road, followed by an afternoon of watching TV with grandad, the climax being professional wrestling on ITV’s World of Sport and a crumpet toasted on an open coal fire. But this day is special. The BBC are launching Radio 1.
I can’t believe I have worked this out in advance. I am only ten years old for starters, so I suspect my mum is the instigator of all this. I am a music obsessive and she knows the BBC Light Programme, which is a bit of what became Radio 2, but for the over 80s, isn’t enough. I am into the Beatles, the Monkees, Simon Dupree and the Big Sound, not Perry Como, Val Doonican and Vince Hill. Just before 7.00 am, someone does a countdown from 10 to one and next we hear the voice of someone called Tony Blackburn. He says: “And, good morning everyone. Welcome to the exciting new sound of Radio 1.”
As Tony talks, he is accompanied by a tune called Beefeaters by Johnny Dankworth, which was written by the legendary Beatles producer George Martin and then we are straight into Flowers In The Rain by The Move. Flowers In The Rain is actually number two in the charts at the time but the powers-that-be decided not to play the actual number one which is The Last Waltz by Engelbert Humperdinck, which could hardly be the exciting new sound of Radio 1. (Full disclosure, here. I vividly remember the countdown, Beefeaters, although I had no idea what is was and who it was by and I will never, ever forget The Move. Suddenly, this little boy has music to listen to all day long.)
58 years on
It feels like 58 years on, too. Radio 1 is still here, still going strong and even more surprisingly so am I. I have not listened to it for many years before it is not for old people like me. It’s for 18-24 year olds in the main, which means even my own children are too old to listen.
There should be a dedicated station for young people, too, and because of the way of the world, only the BBC, as a public service provider makes any real effort to connect with Da Yoot, while older people, and particularly the hard of thinking, wrap themselves up in the comforting grip of a million and one oldie stations.
Even though I was oh so very young, I definitely felt that here was something different, something new. And I feel very lucky to have been there – well, at home – and, rarely for me, that I remember it, too. I don’t recall there being the same frisson when middle of the road stations like Smooth, Heart, Capital, Greatest Hits Radio, Boom and a million more stations were launched but that’s likely down to the fact that the country’s first national pop music radio station can only be launched once!
When I play this recording, I am once again sitting on the floor of our living room as the gigantic radiogram shared with us the birth of the exciting new sound of Radio 1. Happy birthday!
