Prehistory

Kid stuff, early influences, the first pirates

From an early age I'd always had an interest in radio. My mum remembers me sitting in the garden at the age of two stirring a wooden spoon round and round in a metal tin while singing 'radio radio radio radio'. I then spent a large chunk of my childhood messing about with tape recorders and radios, destroying a large number of them in an attempt to find out how they worked.

My biggest influence as a child was undoubtedly the genius that was Kenny Everett. Forget his TV career, the Saturday and Sunday lunchtime shows on Capital that first introduced him to me showed just what pop radio is capable of. Some people think he was past his peak by that point, but for me it was new and his creativity was incredible.

In 1982 my uncle gave me his old hi-fi, an ancient Leak Point One valve amp with a Pye tuner. It didn't have a case any more and just sat on a table in the corner of my bedroom, giving off this orange glow in the dark — with the occasional blue sparkle when the valves went weird. Despite its age, this was a big step-up from the cheapo Fidelity radio from Curry's that I used to have, bringing in distant stations loud and clear for the first time in rural Hertfordshire.

Not long after, I was tuning around one Saturday night when I came across pop music where there wasn't supposed to be any — right between Radio Three and Four. My very first pirate station, South London Radio. Soon I was finding others too, dotted around the band between the BBC stations. Thameside Radio, Radio Telstar, Radio Invicta, London Music Radio...

I still remember now the huge rush of excitement at this discovery that no-one else seemed to know about. Evenings were spent tuning around listening to this strange underground culture. Presenters that were actually real people, rather than embarrassing celebrities like on Radio One. Music that wasn't played anywhere else from the new indie labels that were taking off at that time. An interaction with the listeners that was done because the broadcasters actually wanted to involve them. People re-finding the creative possibilities of music radio.

And of course there was that element of danger. Waiting on a frequency for a station to come on the air and never being certain that they would. Listening to a show and never being certain what would come next. And never knowing at any minute if it would suddenly be replaced by static as the DTI struck.

When Radio Caroline came back on the air (to huge disappointment after the fun of the London pirates) I found out for the first time about the anorak magazines that existed. However, they were really for a different generation — the people who had listened to the offshore stations as kids in the sixties — and only included the land-based pirates as a token effort.

Then in the summer of 1985 I was thrown out of University having failed my exams. I was studying to re-sit them the following year, but found myself with lots of spare time. And that's when the idea of TX Magazine was born.

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