Oct/Nov/December
2011
July/Aug/Sept is here
   
Email Mary with your news and views:
   The archived Happenings index is here...

(10/2011) 'Well Respected Man' – released in many different forms
(10/2011) Minor update to Boston Crabs info
(11/2011) A new climber is identified
(12/2011) 10 new climbers are added by Kees Brinkerink
(12/2011) 3 new climbers are added by Kees Brinkerink
(12/2011) 2 new climbers and a new chart entry (affecting FF for 19/12, 26/12) are added by Kees Brinkerink
(12/2011) It's been a hard day's night for Peter Sellers
Site Updates
(09/2011) Caroline charts added for 1964
(Updated 10/2011)
No news for six years, but we now have new Chuck Blair information
(Updated 10/2011)
 New model ship photos – this time the Ross Revenge by Stewart Crossley
(11/2011) Bill Buninga's personal Galaxy memorabilia – previously unseen photos
(11/2011) mini-memories Page 8 – more on the Big L Discothéque
And now, The News...

Season's Greetings...
...to all our visitors and never forgetting Radio London's 47th birthday, Dec 23rd 2011.
We do hope you'll all make many happy returns to the site in 2012.

Mary and Chris Payne

(Don't forget you can still enjoy the Big L Christmas Annuals and the story of the Big L Christmas cards and Peter Boalch, the artist who designed them)


Watery Wireless Wedding
Many congratulations to Dave and Sally Cash (aka Emily Knee-mail), who recently exchanged their wedding vows on a sunny beach.

The couple got engaged on Christmas Day 2009. Dave had managed to hide the ruby-and-diamond engagement ring till he presented it to Mrs Knee-mail as a very big surprise present when he proposed over the airwaves during his December 25th programme on BBC Kent. "It took me long enough," he admitted. "I've only known her twenty years."

Dave has posted a video of the wedding on Youtube.


Helpful Folder
Ron O'Quinn has sent a link to a copy of the RCA publication Broadcast News, from December 1956. It includes a promotion for a helpful folder that shows at a glance how to start a radio station. Features include 'Radio station on wheels' and 'New WMCA studios typify today's resurgent radio station'.


Captain Willem Angenent – good news from Canada (updated 15/12)
Hans Knot writes:

On the Radio Day Captain Buninga's son Ron and his partner Ton Beekes had a chat about the Galaxy days and one of the names mentioned was that of the second captain, Willem Angenent. I told them that he probably could be found in the city of Delfzijl, which was something I thought I remembered from the late Sixties. Indeed, some people with this 'rare name' are living there. When searching on the web, both Ton and I found the family website run by Christopher Angenent in Canada, so we wrote to him asking about Captain Willem, who worked for the Wijsmuller company in the mid-Sixties on the MV Galaxy.

At first, the family historian thought that he had identified the Galaxy captain as Willem Paul Frederik Lodewijk, who died in 1975, in the city of Breda. However, Captain Angenent features in a special on Dutch NCRV TV from 1966 and when the sister of the late Willem Angenent viewed the clip, she was able to confirm that the man featured was not her brother.

The Canadian family history researcher Christopher Angenent has now discovered that Willem is still alive and living in Hoevelaken. Christopher will ask him to get in contact with
Hans, who will keep us informed of any developments .

Olga's now Earl
Svenn Martinsen in Norway writes:

My best regards for Christmas and the New Year!

I'm attaching an interesting photo of what was the radio ship Laissez Faire, earlier Olga Patricia and the US Navy Ship Deal (FS-263/AG-131/AKL-2). As you know, it is now called the Earl J.Conrad Jr (call sign WYZ9562, IMO 6501393) and is sailing the waters of Chesapeake Bay (right). My latest information is that it had its registration extended in 2011, but for how long, I don't know. It is very much changed, but it is indeed the same ship as was broadcasting the late Don Pierson's stations Radio England/Britain Radio/Radio Dolfijn (lease)/Radio 227 (lease)/Radio 355 (lease) through two Continental transmitters of 50 kW.

See also my essay on Don Pierson's stations. (Please note that the present owners of the ship (Omega Protein Inc.) may not be interested in any contact with radio people.)

Deaths of Dobie Grey and Howard Tate

December 2011 has seen the sad demise of two soul artists who appeared in Fab Forties of 1965 (Dobie Gray) and 1967 (Howard Tate).

Dobie Gray, who died on December 6th, took 'The In Crowd' into the chart of February 1965 and prompted Kenny and Cash to launch a spoof club called The Kenny and Cash 'Out' Crowd. The single, which made #13 in the US Hot Hundred also became a Top 30 success in the UK.

Obituary, Jamaica Observer

Howard Tate, who died on December 2nd, took 'Look at Granny Run Run' into the Fab Forty in January '67. Dobie Grey's single made no impact on the UK Nationals, but reached the lower fifty of the US Hot Hundred.

Billboard obituary
Tom, Andy and Keith resume their 'dangling conversation'
From what Tom Edwards tells us, there should be a good programme of offshore memories in the pipeline.

On Tuesday 22nd November I went to BBC East in my home city of Norwich to meet up with Keith Skues and Andy Archer.The boss man at Radio Norfolk, David Clayton, has wanted for a long time to get us three together just chatting, while being recorded. Well, we did 'yak yak yak' for about an hour and 58 minutes followed by a good dinner courtesy of Mr. Clayton! As always with my dj pals of so many years, we just pick up our conversation where we left it. Amazing!

David now has the task of editing it all down to whatever he has in mind, so watch this space.

It's always so good to go home, back to the city of my birth, if only for a fast five hours then homewards to Heckington in Lincolnshire. I was knackered, but in a nice way; a superb day out for me.

Mickey's dreaming of a phone-free Christmas
Radio London's John Edward has produced a new HD video of a song featuring his TV character Metal Mickey (right). 'Robot Dreams' is a fun feature, expressing what most of us are thinking about the excessive use of mobile phones!


 

Ron Buninga and his friend Ton, very kindly sent this picture of the Radio London panel at the Amsterdam Radio Day, organised by Hans Knot, Martin van der Ven and Rob Olthof.

(l to r) Dave Hawkins, Norm St John, Ian Damon, Moderator Ray Clark, Ron Buninga and Graham Gill.

Ron says:

"We enjoyed the Radio Day very much. The Radio London team with their former DJs was really great and what nice guys! The stories about their life and work on board the Galaxy were great. Ian Damon and especially Norman St.John mentioned my father in a very touching manner.

It was nice to hear all the stories from the other panels as well, especially the Radio Veronica panel."

Visit the Radio Day website for photos, video and audio. Captain Buninga's personal photos and memorabilia are here.

SOTS CD has some unusual Fab Forty tracks
Fans of Radio 2's long-running Saturday morning programme Sounds of the Sixties (where a certain Mike Terry of Bournemouth is a dab hand at getting requests played) will be pleased to hear of the release of a 46-track double CD.

The compilation contains a number of Fab Forty entries (some, unfortunately, not the original singles) including the Walker Brothers' 'Walking in the Rain', The Newbeats' 'Run Baby Run', Helen Shapiro's 'She Needs Company' and The Purple Gang's 'Granny Takes a Trip'. You can hear previews of all the tracks, but not all are available for download. (Click on the album sleeve.)

(Thanks to Alan Hardy)

Memories of a true pirate radio ship
In New Zealand's Waikato Times, Steven Oliver writes about Abe Nathan – "Sort of a latter-day prophet with microphone plus radio frequency afloat at an undisclosed latitude" – and his Israeli station Voice of Peace.
New decade stations
Absolute Radio launched two new DAB niche stations in November – Absolute Radio 60s and Absolute Radio 70s. The company already has services dedicated to the 80s, 90s and 00s and cites the 80s venture as 11th biggest radio station in the UK. The company's latest promotion is getting its listeners remixing 1980s classics via its new iPhone app.

Absolute Radio chief operating officer Clive Dickens told the Guardian:
"Like our other digital stations, the spirit of these services will be the music of the 60s and the 70s through the lens of Absolute Radio. They won't replicate Gold or Magic or Smooth Radio. You won't find Herman's Hermits or the Searchers on Absolute Radio 60s."

Whatever these stations play, we can bet they won't offer the variety of the thousands of tracks heard on Oldies Project. (Thanks to Alan Hardy)

George Harrison: Living In The Material World
Martin Scorsese traces the life of George Harrison in an intensely personal film, weaving together previously unseen archival materials, home movies, and interviews with Eric Clapton, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, George Martin, Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, Tom Petty, Phil Spector, Ringo Starr, Jackie Stewart and others.

Sir Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, Olivia Harrison and Ringo Starr attended the film's London Premiere and BBC 2 showed it in two parts on November 12th and 13th. It was picked by Radio Times as Documentary of the Week.

The film was released as DVD, Blu-Ray and Deluxe packages by Lionsgate Home Entertainment UK. The UK Deluxe Edition includes 2 DVDs, a Blu-Ray, a 96-page booklet and a CD of never-before-released George Harrison tracks. Order your copy from Amazon.

View a trailer at georgeharrison.com

News continues on Page 2....
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