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BRMB
- History By Mike Smith |
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 BRMB RADIO - A LITTLE HISTORY |
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HERE you will find some history, some memories and BRMB programme schedules from 1984, 1985, 1988 and 1989. BRMB - HISTORY As a bit of a preamble I distinctly remember, as a nine year old in 1974, tuning into the test transmissions on 261 meters (1151 kilohertz) medium wave on a little six transistor 'Harmony' AM pocket radio that was made in Hong Kong. For several weeks the IBA's transmitters carried test transmissions from the new BRMB radio station and these consisted of music and announcements. I was fascinated by these unusual new sounds and remained tuned in constantly, carrying the little radio around everywhere - even to a restaurant on Sunday lunch time! I remember two or three of the music tracks played as being the orchestral work Finlandia by Sibelius, Meet Me On The Corner by Lindisfarne and Streets Of London by Ralph McTell - among many others. The IBA (The Independent Broadcasting Authority) was a body formed out of the old ITA (Independent Television Authority) with the passing of the Sound Broadcasting Act of 1972 which gave it addidtional responsibility for the introduction of commercial radio into the UK. The organisation that had won the franchise from the IBA to run the Independent Local Radio service for Birmingham was "Birmingham Broadcasting Ltd" who would use the on air name of BRMB RADIO. BRMB was the fourth of the IBA's ILR stations to go on the air, after LBC and Capital Radio in London and Radio Clyde in Glasgow. BRMB had moved into part of a building in Aston in Birmingham that had previously been occupied by the ATV television studios in the 1960's. The building was re-named RADIO HOUSE. The postal address was: BRMB
RADIO
Radio House P.O. Box 555 Birmingham B6 4BX Switchboard Tel: 021 359 4481/9 On Air Telephone: 021 359 4011  Ed Doolan on BRMB Radio (Photograph circa 1976) BRMB launched at breakfast time on 19th February 1974 - right in the middle of 'The Three Day Week' - a period of industrial unrest, strikes and power cuts - which also put the BRMB transmitter off the air for a short time on its first day of broadcasting! The very first voice heard on the new station was news man Brian Sheppard while the former ATV television announcer Kevin Morrison [a James Mason (actor) sound-alike] was BRMB's first breakfast show presenter. The now iconic broadcaster Ed Doolan joined BRMB from German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle to present the afternoon show with the emphsis on information, features and interviews. The output of BRMB had a heavy emphasis on a 'community radio' style of broadcasting whereby the station communicated with its audience and got involved in Midlands life, rather than simply talking at and playing music to the listeners. Like most ILR stations BRMB's output contained a good deal of music, but that was not the be all and and all of its output - news and information was a very important constituent of its programmes. John Russell was BRMB's first Programme Organiser. A short time after BRMB launched, George Fergusson took over the breakfast show from Kevin Morrison who left the station to go on to work in other media fields. In 1976 the legendary Les Ross joined BRMB to present breakfast. Les had worked for BBC Radio Birmingham (now BBC WM) before BRMB launched and BRMB's management failed to hire him for the launch of BRMB. Les left Birmingham in 1975 to work for Radio Tees, another commercial ILR station in Stockton on Tees. BRMB saw fit to tempt Les back down from Teeside in 1976 and he stayed with BRMB (and sister station XTRA AM) until 27th September 2002. Dave Jamieson was one of the early presenters at BRMB and has kindly added the following to to our account: "I was there from 1975, joining just before the first birthday from BBC Radio Leicester. My colleague there, Adrian Juste, had already made the move to BRMB, and I followed 6 months later. I started as the swing guy (i.e. sitting in for anyone who was on holiday), plus did the Sunday afternoon Top 40 show (a marathon 4 and a half hour thing), and the Saturday late night show. (Incidentally, I did a lot of announcing work at ATV as well, during my time at BRMB - all day time shifts, out of vision, and I always seemed to get landed with the schools programmes!!) Brian Savin moved to the late night show on weekedays, which I took over from him. It was 11 pm to 2 am, and I loved it. If you remember Six of the Best on Mercia Sound, this is where it was "born". I ran it on Friday nights there for ages. My sixth programme at that time was the classical music show (can you imagine BRMB having one of these now?!) on Sunday evenings." "Mike Owen joined BRMB during my time there in the 70s as a school-teacher on a training attachment ... and never left!" "I left BRMB to return to Scotland (I'm from Edinburgh) and joined the BBC, but didn't relish reading the shipping forcast for Scottish inshore waters much ... so accepted an offer from Radio Clyde, and stayed there 18 months until Mercia came along. I had met Ian Rufus on a BBC traing course (during my days at Radio Leicester) so rang him and said "Gimme a job!" "[When] I returned to Birmingham in the mid 80s, after [leaving] Radio Tees to join Central TV where I spent 8 very happy years. During that time, I got in touch with [Mike Owen] who was Programme Controller [at BRMB], and said I'd like to do a weekend show. So he gave me Sundays 8 to 10.30 am as an oldies show, which suited me great! Then when the split came, it seemed logical to move the show onto Xtra-AM. But the best bit was that Les Ross, a good friend, and a great broadcaster, followed me every Sunday morning, so we always had half an hour while the music was playing to chat and put the world to rights. I remember one Sunday where we had been chatting (off air) - and I paused and said, "Do you realise that for the past ten minutes, the two of us - supposed to be "trendy, pop radio deejays" - have been discussing the best place in Birmingham to buy soft furnishings?" A sign of middle age setting in ..." [Thanks Dave!]
In the 1970's and 1980's BRMB wasn't simply a music 'juke-box' but broadcast a very wide range of programmes from general music and entertainment shows, to phone-ins, comprehensive sports and in depth news coverage and classical music. Also broadcast were documentary and feature programmes that even the BBC would have been proud of. In the early days there was a lot of talk about the name of the station as many listeners wondered what the initials BRMB stood for. In actual fact the initials did not stand for any particular words but were simply extracted from the name of the company that ran the station - Birmingham Broadcasting Ltd - to form BiRminghaM Broadcasting Ltd John Russell, BRMB's first Programme Organiser, left in 1980 to be replaced by Bob Hopton, who arrived at BRMB in from Radio Tees to take on the job, now described as Programme Controller, a position that was later filled by Mike Owen in 1984. Phil Riley took over as programme controller around 1990. Some of the original engineers at BRMB were Quentin Howard and Phil Dawson who worked alongside the Chief Engineer Dave Wood. They organised the installation of all the equipment at the new station and were responsible for the smooth running of the complex technical facilities. Quentin Howard went on to work with GWR and then Classic FM in 1992. John Henry (of the "Ross and Henry Show" with Les Ross on BBC Radio Birmingham circa 1972-3) joined BRMB from Radio Birmingham in 1974 and was in charge of commercial production (the adverts). John stayed with BRMB for six months before joining Radio City in Liverpool. Station Executives listed in 1981 were: Directors. A J Parkinson (Chairman); David Pinnell (Managing Director); G N Battman; M A Brown; Reg Davies (Sales); J F Howard; J C Mason; E Swainson. Executives. David Bagley (Publicity and Promotions Manager); Bob Hopton (Programme Controller); Brian Sheppard (News Editor); Tony Trethewey (Company Secretary); David Wood (Chief Engineer). Ian Rufus, who made Mercia Sound such a great success in Coventry and Warwickshire from 1980, joined BRMB as Managing Director in 1986.  Phil Riley - BRMB Programme Controller from 1990  |
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BRMB RADIO - PROGRAMMES & PERSONALITIES |
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Some of the programme and presenter highlights: Kevin Morrison : The first breakfast show presenter joined BRMB whilst also working for ATV (commercial television) as an evening continuity announcer. Running the two jobs together - late nights at ATV and crack of dawn at BRMB - meant that Kevin felt rather tired and was forced to quit the BRMB breakfast show after about a year. He was replaced by George Ferguson. George Ferguson: Originally presented the late show in 1974, taking it in turns with John Howard. Later George presented the breakfast show, taking the slot over from Kevin Morrisson. Les Ross : Les Ross took over the breakfast show around 1976 (from Adrian Juste who had filled in since George Ferguson left the Breakfast slot) and became the definitive BRMB Breakfast Show presenter with all his funny characters, witty comment, sketches such as 'Yesterday Never Comes' and amusing listener involvement and the daily wake up call "Get Out Of Bed!" plus lots of great music, of course. Norma Scott : Presented the very first mid morning show on BRMB in 1974 with Brian Savin. Brian Savin : Presented very first mid morning show with Norma Scott (for about six months) and later the country music programmes. John Hedges : Replaced Brian Savin on the mid-morning programme with Norma Scott later in 1974. Peter Windows : Presented a two hour chat show from midday. Later went on to work for BBC Radio Four to produce The Archers. Stuart White : Presented the mid morning show (1979) after Brian Savin and Norma Scott vacated that programme slot. Stuart also presented BRMB's Ccountry msic programmes.
Nicky Steele : Or "Nicky Nicky Nicky Nicky Nicky Steele" as his jingle announced. Nicky not only worked for BRMB but was a resident DJ at The Belfry in Sutton Coldfield where he spent over twenty years. Nicky started with BRMB in November 1974 when he presented the Soul Show and later the afternoon programme which included the 'Tradio' feature whereby listeners could buy and sell items up to a certain value (£50 if I remember correctly) - but no pets, livestock or firearms. Nicky's 'Bathtime With Steeley' feature on a Saturday night, his 'Nicky Bag' competition in the 1980's when he presented after he returned to BRMB in 1986 after a couple of years at BBC Radio WM. Very sadly Nicky is no longer with us. Mike Hollis : Maybe better known for his days at 208 Radio Luxembourg, Mike presented weekend mornings on BRMB. Roger Day : Presented afternoons in the early 1980's, also known for his work on the sixties pirate ships such as Swinging Radio England, Radio Caroline and Radio Northsea International and later Radio Luxembourg and several ILR stations around the UK. Adrian Juste : Adrian left BBC Radio Leicester and started out with BRMB from July 1974. Adrian presented the Soul show and spent a short time on breakfast before Les Ross joined the station. In the late 1970's Adrian went on the work with BBC Radio. Dave Jamieson : Dave was at BRMB from 1975, joining just before the station's first birthday from BBC Radio Leicester. Dave's colleague at Radio Leicester, Adrian Juste, had already made the move to BRMB six months earlier. Dave presented the breakfast show on the day of the station's first anniversary, and Kevin Morrison joined Dave in the studio as a guest. Dave initially started as the swing guy (i.e. sitting in for anyone who was on holiday), and also the presenter of the Sunday afternoon Top 40 show (a marathon 4 and a half hour thing), and the Saturday late night show. (Thanks to Dave Jamieson himself for this information.) Read more from Dave Jamieson HERE. Nicholas Charles Wilberforce Howitzer Hydrofoil Trevor Meanwell (Nick) : Nick joined BRMB from ILR station Radio Tees around 1980 (at the time when Bob Hopton joined BRMB, also from Radio Tees). Well known for the 'Morning Call' weekday prgramme which included lots of listener involvement with the 'Two Way Radio' feature. Latterly Nick Meanwell presented The Late Show which featured Nick's excellent and frustrating 'Fiendish Phone Quiz' and also many varied and interesting guest interviews with celebrities and authors such as UFO expert Timothy Good who spoke about the causes of U.F.O phenomena and crop circles in a programme called "The UFO Report" and John Spencer who spoke about "Perspectives", where he tries to explain UFO sightings and alien abductions, and Dr Keith Hearne who spoke about his book "Visions Of The Future" which investigates visions, premonitions and lucid dreaming, in another of Nick's revealing interviews. ( LINK: Dr keith Hearne's European College Of Hypnotherapy website - http://www.european-college.co.uk/principal.htm ) Nick Hennegan : Born and bred Brummie - presented late nights on BRMB including Romantica on Saturday nights. Robin Valk : The station's music expert. From 1974 Robin presented the evening music show from 7:30 pm to 11:00pm (which included a half hour break for a full news programme between 9:00 pm and 9:30 pm). Robin is well known for presenting shows of Rock music, but he also presented other specialist music shows such as also presented other shows including BRMB's outings into the world of classical music with the superbly named 'The Ride Of The Valkaries' programme. John Slater : Presented the the important drivetime show on BRMB but was perhaps better known for his superb and unmissable 7pm weekday show 'SLATER' where he featured all the latest music and in particular showcased many local Midlands bands. Better than anything that Radio One did. Phil Holden : Presented the afternoon show and also the afternoon show which included his amazing impersonations and his daft 'Pop Quiz' where he tried to catch listebers out, but Phil always won. See the audio files below. Mark Keen : Presented the early shift in 1989 and went on to work with Mercia Sound in Coventry in the 1990's 'The Open Line' programme on Sunday nights - initially hosted by Alan Nin in the 1970's and by with Rev. John Austen in the late 1970's to the early 1980's and then more latterly by Michael Hartley. Steve Dennis : Presented overnights. Ian Hardy : Worked on BRMB in the 1980's Graham Torrington: Joined BRMB in the late 1980's when asked to fill in for Steve Dennis overnight programme. Steve had been called to fill in for Brendan Kearney who had been taken ill with a cold. (Poor Brendan was quite well known for his colds!!) Stephen Rhodes: Presented late mornings/lunchtimes in the middle 1980's. Also worked and Beacon Radio and subsequently moved on to BBC Three Counties Radio to present an excellent mid-morning consumer programme. Simon Davies and Deborah Kinch : Presented an all new breakfast show on BRMB when the station went FM only in 1989. Simon also went on to present the 'Hot Mix' feature of the latest dance sounds which aired around 1991. Tony Butler : A BRMB legend! Tony Butler was head of BRMB Sport in the 1970's. Tony presented the weekday evening sports phone-ins and the marathon Saturday afternoon sports programme which featured match reports from BRMB's correspondents reporting from all the local football teams matches around the country - possibly the most well know of which was BRMB's Company Secretary Tony Trethewy. Perhaps the most famous part of Tony Butler's sports show was the post match 'analysis' from fans phoning into BRMB on 021 359 4011 to give Tone their views on the performance of their respective teams. If Mr Butler disagreed with his phone contibutors they would be met with Tony's infamous catch phrase of 'On your bike' ....It went a bit like this: "What about The Villa eh Tone? They've got to change the midfield 'avn't they?" "No Way, NO WAY. On yer boike!" There had to be a seven second delay on Tony's phone in programmes, done by a tape loop (you could hear ther clicks every seven seconds!), so that the programme engineer could cut out any fruity language or comments from unruly callers! George Gavin : George was with BRMB in 1981 and when Tony Butler left BRMB in the early 1980's 'Gorgeous' George Gavin (a name coined by Brendan Kearney) took over as Sports Editor and presented the sports show on Saturday afternoons and the Friday evening phone-ins and "Football Forum" events. Tom Ross : Started with BRMB in 1981 as a freelancer doing many sports reports and after three years joined full time and is still working for the organisation in 2006 and presenter with sister station Capital Gold. Phil Gayle : Worked on BRMB's Overnight programme during the late 1980's and also other dyatime shows. Phil went on the work for London Today. Howard Hughes : Worked for Radio Wyvern in the early 1980's and then for BRMB. Went on to be Chris Tarrant's right hand 'news man' for many years at Capital Radio in London. Howard went on to Talk Sport to present 'The Unexplained' and then to or LBC in London (in 2006). Suman Kang : Presented Geet Mala with Tony Huq and also a fantastic general new music show in around 1980 or 1981 on a Friday or Weekend night. I forget the exact time or the name of the programme unfortunately, but it was a great show and Suman Kang a terrific presenter. Tony Huq : Presented Geet Mala with Suman Kang. Paul Brown: Well known for his later involvent with the I.B.A ( the radio industry regulator), Paul joined BRMB as an overnigh presenter in 1979 for a short stint at the station. Paul was also the stand-in for Stuart White and Nicky Steele. Terry Griffiths : Terry, a Canadian, did mid-dawns in 1976 -1977 - later moved back to Canada. Terry himself adds: "I did BRMB's graveyard shift from 1976 to 1979 (with one short 6 month break which I spent looking for work in Canada). I returned to Canada for good in January 1980 where I got a job as Station Manager of a small station on the West Coast. I worked my way up the ladder to Vancouver after many stops, in many towns, both on and off air. Today, I'm retired, living in British Columbia (in the same small town where I got the job as Station Manager). I really enjoy your site........brings back lots of fantastic memories." [Thanks Terry.] Stuart Ellis : Joined BRMB in the 1980's and in 2006 is Programme Controller at 97.5 & 96.7 FM Ocean in Hampshire.  Les Ross broadcasting on BRMB in the 1980's
Brian Sheppard, Mike Henfield, Rob Golding, Colin Palmer and Sue Todd were some of the first journalists on the news team. Brian Sheppard became BRMB's News Editor, and days after his appointment he found himself commanding the team covering the Birmingham pub bombings in 1974* [*Thanks to Frazer Sheppard for this information]. Mike Henfield later went on to work for Mercia Sound in Coventry in 1980 as 'Merry Mike Henfield'. Other journalists/newsreaders and reporters in the BRMB Newsroom in 1975 - 1977 were John Rogers, Maureen Carter (now a crime novelist), Sue Foster (wife of John Russell), David Ike, Trevor Reid, Mike Stewart (later Beacon Radio News Editor), Bob Mills, Terry Griffiths, Ian Webster, Rob Golding, Sue Plimmer, Colin Palmer and Roger Walker. Colin Palmer eventually moved on to launch Viking Radio in Humberside and then eventually back to Birmingham to work for the BBC, and subsequently [in 2006] to Saga 105.7 FM along with Rob Golding. Thanks to John Rogers of BRMB News between 1975 and 1977 for additional information. John also notes: "I have good memories of the professionalism and supportive environment in the BRMB Newsroom under Brian Shepherd and Mike Henfield." Another name and voice of the BRMB news team that I remember well is the unforgettable Merrill Harris. Merrill Harris would often be heard reading the news on BRMB during the Saturday afternoon sports programme with the equally unforgettable Tony Butler.
Razzamatazz was a great fun programme that was broadcast on BRMB every Saturday morning. See some of BRMB's schedules. Of RAZAMATAZZ, Rashida Subedar comments: I worked on air at BRMB from 1986-1990 when Phil Riley took over from Mike Owen and decided there was no room for fluff on air and therefore promptly fired me! I worked on Razzamatazz initially with Brendan Kearney and then remained on air with Nick Hennegan and we did Saturday morning Breakfast every week for over 4 years. It was fantastic and shaped me in every way. Celebrity interviews included (remember they were big at the time) T'Pau, Mica Paris, Simply Red, Nick Kamen, Brother Beyond, Deacon Blue and Ben Elton. I even had my hair done by John Frieda after the show when he came in for an interview. I was 14 when I first joined and was 'paid' with freebies - but I was a presenter and was just thankful to be there and didn't know any better. Yasemen Hussain was also part of Nick's girly "posse". Our show was fun loving and was consistently one of the most popular shows on air beatng Romantica and Les's breakfast show at one point. I still love radio but I'm more a listener than anything else at the moment, living in London and raising 5 beautiful boys. The old building on Aston Road North still fills me with joy and gives me butterflies in my stomach. I'm still in touch with John Slater, who is now in stage management, Nick Hennegan, who is working for The Arrow and Ian Hardy, who now lives and works in New York.
In 1988 BRMB joined forces with Mercia Sound in Coventry and later with Radio Trent in Nottingham and Derby and Leicester Sound to form a group called Midlands Radio PLC In the late 1980's BRMB experimented with some split frequency broadcasting whereby normal programmes would continue on 96.4 FM and sport or golden oldies were carried on 1152 kilohertz (261 meters) medium wave. This led the the setting up of a full time AM only station called XTRA AM in April 1989 called XTRA AM which concentrated on playing 'Classic Hits' from the 1950's 60's 70's and 80's and the best of current chart music. The enduringly popular, and household name, Les Ross moved to XTRA to do breakfasts and the reverred BRMB Sports programming was also moved from BRMB FM over to XTRA AM.  BRMB - MUSIC POWER  BRMB RADIO became BRMB FM - MUSIC POWER and re-focussed its output on current chart music and employed the services of new DJ's such as Simon Davies and Deborah Kinch who presented the all new BRMB FM Breakfast Show. Graham Torrington remained on BRMB FM for a while and Brendan Kearney, who had left BRMB a few years ealier, returned to the station in 1990 and as well as his daily breakfast show did a double header with Andy Hollins on Saturdays called "Hollins and Kearney" The format ended in tears though after they had a big bust up on air one morning! Phil Holden stayed with BRMB FM for a few more years until around 1992. Midlands Radio PLC sold out to Capital Radio in 1993. Capital Radio kept BRMB FM and the 1152 part of XTRA AM but did not want the rest and in 1994 sold Radio Trent, Leicester Sound and Mercia Sound to GWR. GWR also bought Beacon Radio around this period. Strangely, with the government's de-regulation of the radio industry with a new broadcasting act in 2004 which allows radio groups to own far more radio stations, GWR was bought up by Capital Radio PLC to form a merged group called GCAP.  BRMB today is not the
'all things to all people' type of radio that it used to be - an
entertaining,
communicating, community based radio station, and Birmingham, its
population and the radio industry as a
whole is much the worse off for that. Throughout the 1970's,
1980's and into the early 1990's BRMB provided some truly wonderful
local radio programming
which, today, is greatly missed.
However, today BRMB FM continues to be an extremely popular music station, in fact it is still the most popular pop station in Birmingham - so a hearty congratulations to one and all for that, and all past achievements. Well done! 
John Slater decided to leave BRMB in 1991. You can hear some audio clips of John Slater in the BRMB AUDIO section below. The shock news was announced by the Birmingham Evening Mail in this way:
After a year presenting The Hollins And Kearney Show, the duo split up in this way:
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FOND MEMORIES OF BRMB FROM QUENTIN HOWARD |
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| With grateful thanks to Quentin Howard who send these memories of BRMB to me in March 2008: "Mike, Here's some more stuff for your page on BRMB. I joined as an engineer in 1976, by accident. As a 2nd year engineering student in Rugby I'd been on an anorak visit to see Dave Wood, the Chief Engineer, to gen up on something. Dave lee, one of the BRMB engineers interrupted our meeting to ask how Dave intended to cover the shifts whilst one of their other engineers was recovering from an operation for 3 months. Dave hadn't thought about it and as I was a sandwich student (I had to find engineering employment until academic studies resumed the following January) I piped up and offered to cover until Christmas. Very cheeky, of course, but Dave hired me on the spot for £36 a week and I so started on 18th October, the same day as Mike Hollis and not long after Les Ross started doing breakfast on the station. My time at BRMB was undoubtedly the happiest and most inspiring of my radio career. I would spend hours in the studio, being Les Ross' audience, sitting in on Dave Jamieson's late night show, and learning my trade from the finest bunch of engineers you could imagine. I returned in January to do tech-op shifts, driving the studio for the evening phone in programme with Sue Barker, or the late Sunday evening lonely hearts show hosted by Alan Nin. One Spring Saturday in 1977 I was in the control room watching Terry Griffiths tech-op Tony Butler's sport show. 5 hours of the most hectic and intense operations anyone could imagine. The TO had to drive the desk, load and fire commercials, handle 6 live OBs from each of the local matches, plus phoned -in reports, play the music, including Tony's famous theme tune which he'd want played whenever he got his "prayer mat" out to encourage Villa to score, and finally the two hour live phone in from 5 to 7pm. Just before half time Terry asked me to "watch the controls" whilst he went to the toilet, and didn't come back until 7pm. It was a baptism of fire but from that day on until I left BRMB in 1979 I was Tony's tech op. The sports show was a legend, and I remember one day the BBC came to visit. Radio 2 (which at that time did their major Saturday afternoon sports show) despatched half a dozen of their producers and SMs to see how this Birmingham "legend" was broadcast. They were utterly gob smacked to see that the show consisted of Tony in the studio, George doing the racing results, Dave Wood's secretary was the runner between newsroom and studio with ripped off telex results , and then there was me operating the studio, dealing with the OB's, match round ups and filtering (i.e. producer) for all the punter's phone calls. That was it. The BBC probably had an army of hundreds doing the same thing (without the commercials, of course) and kept asking me how on earth we did it. The famous delay system was 4 seconds, not 7. This was physically the longest tape loop we could create using rollers and guides on the Technics reel to reel that served as the delay system. Dave Wood's view was that if you couldn't bleep out a "f**k" in 4 seconds then you didn't deserve to be a tech-op. The "bleep" was a four second jingle which simply blotted out the offending bit. If the phone in was going a bit slow then Tony and I would discuss my pressing the sensor button to make people think someone had sworn. That always got the lines lighting up! In fact, there were only 4 phone in lines - 021 359 4011 - so the tech op had to work quickly to get the callers lined up, on-air, and off again quickly to free up the lines for new callers. You could always spot a dodgy punter, as soon as you took their call. It was a sixth sense. Occasionally a dodgy one would get on air and many a time Tony would just give you the eye through the glass and you both knew to be ready with the bleep button. The famous Jasper Carrot sketch about Tony's programme is all true, and the incidents he refers to including sports reporter 'Harry Trethewey' at the Wolves saying live on air that the interviewee he'd lined up after the match "has just fu**ed off, Tone". I was the tech op and Harry Trethewey (real name Tony Trethewey - he was BRMB's chief accountant) was that reporter. Many a fine time was had at BRMB, including Dave Jamieson's memorable last late show. I had gone round the entire staff recording their brief farewell messages for Dave and recorded them over his show's theme tune cartridge which Dave was to play coming out of the 10pm news. How we laughed! Or the times we's struggle back from The Avenue (the local pub) with a somewhat worse for wear presenter and prop him up in his seat with hand on the fader ready to start his programme. In my 3 years at BRMB I learned my trade and am indebted to Dave Wood for teaching me everything I needed to know to become a manager which stood me in good stead when at the tender age of 23 I went off to be Chief Engineer at Severn Sound. The early years of BRMB were magic beyond compare - we were all pioneers and fearless. That spirit doesn't exist in radio today. Shame. Regards Quentin" . |
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BRMB RADIO - THE AUDIO FILES  |
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VISIT
THE NEW BRMB AUDIO PAGE - HERE (Page Opens In New Window) |
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BRMB RADIO - THE PROGRAMME SCHEDULES |
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| We hope that this page has brought
back some great memories of some really wonderful programmes that would
have been heard on the Second City's only Independent Radio station in
the 1980's - BRMB
261 meters (1152 kilohertz) medium
wave and 94.8 FM stereo
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| Grateful thanks to: Dave Jamieson who provided many interesting details of his, and other fellow presenters', career details at BRMB and other radio stations. Simon Davies who provided extra details about his time and the programmes at BRMB Al Cale who sent us some interesting audio clips - unfortunately we were not been able to include this additional audio here as we are short of space for any more large audio files. Sorry, though it is much appreciated. Rashida Subedar for taking the trouble to supply additional information regarding the Razzamatazz show. John Slater for additional material. John Rogers for additional newsroom names. Terry Griffiths for additional comments. Thanks also to all those involved at BRMB for the fine entertaiment that you have all provided. |