BBC RADIO TEESSIDE

 

BBC Radio Teesside started life on New Year's Eve, 1970. This little painting was brought into reception by a listener which, eventually, found it's way into one of my scrapbooks.

Advertisements for the new radio station appeared in all local newspapers.

You can see here a series of articles which appeared in the Radio Times. If you click on each photograph, you can view the page in a larger size. The first photograph - a Radio Times article dated August 27th, 1970 with Radio Teesside Station Manager, Allan Shaw talking about Middlesbrough being 'his kind of town'. The second - a Radio Times feature, December 17/24th 1970 just before BBC Radio Teesside officially went on the air and, the third photo here, the programme schedule for the first day's broadcasting - December 31st 1970 from 6.00pm until 1.00am and then closing down until 7.00am on New Year's Day, 1971 when Graeme Aldous presented the early morning news.

The faces behind the voices - "It might not be the most beautiful picture of the year," so the story said, "but you can't take photographs of voices - and it's voices not faces that count. "These are some of the broadcasters, engineers, technical assistants and secretaries who work together as a team to bring you the sound of BBC Radio Cleveland." The photograph, taken on the roof of the Cleveland Centre in Middlesbrough, in 1974, when BBC Radio Teesside changed its name to BBC Radio Cleveland. Some of the faces on this photograph are, in the back row, Keith Moxom, Ian Hindmarsh, Ernie Brown, Ken Boar, Stan Laundon, George Lambelle, Eric Sumner, Ian Judson, Margaret Heseltine or Jackie French and Tony Baynes. In the front is Jim Brady, Parkin Raine, Peter Hedley, Mike Hollingworth, Sandy Marshall, Allan Shaw, Ruth France, Trisha Wharton, Vanessa Gittings, John Watson and Graeme Aldous. In 2007 BBC Radio Cleveland changed it name to BBC Tees! Photograph © Evening Gazette, Middlesbrough.

 

A mini slide show featuring some early BBC Radio Teesside photographs. You can read a little about the photos in question - in some detail - in the right hand column.

Ann Davies was kind enough to send us this old BBC Radio Cleveland magazine from December, 1978.

A publicity leaflet when BBC Radio Cleveland switched wavelengths from 194 to 1548 on the medium wave band. Phil White is with Colin Bunyan and Caroline Salt.

From the Ernie Brown collection - the front cover of a BBC Radio Cleveland Magazine, from the summer of 1987, with presenters Phil White, Stan Laundon, Ann Davis, Colin Bunyan and Keith Proud. The photograph was taken at Wynyard Hall just outside of Billingham. Not sure who the chauffeur is or who the Rolls Royce belongs to either!

A publicity photograph taken at Teesside International Airport underneath Concorde. We had to get special permission to get so close to the aircraft and walk out onto the runway. The picture shows Karen Partridge, Stewart McFarlane, Phil White, Stan Laundon, Ann Davies, Colin Bunyan, Keith Proud and Caroline Salt.

This photograph, by Ernie Brown, dates back to August 1979 and was taken at a BBC Radio Cleveland Sports Day, which was sponsored by a well-known cigarette manufacturer. It shows Barbara Jones, Keith Morton, Stan Laundon, Frank Birks, Barbara Everitt, Mark Waddington, Marion Birks, Nick Clarke and Chris Hodder.

This is another from the archives and I have no idea of the year in question. It could well have been taken at a Redcar Steel Gala or Teesside Show. It was titled 'Football Crazy' and shows, in football strips, Dave Picken, Stan Laundon, Mark Page and Jim Wilson. The referee is Pat Partridge.

Colin Bunyan, Stan Laundon and Stewart McFarlane handing out publicity stickers at Hartlepool Show, August 1980. Photograph by Ernie Brown.

Mike Hollingworth presenting an outside broadcast for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, in Hartlepool Marina. Listeners to the radio station raised enough money, through donations, to buy an inshore lifeboat for the Hartlepool station - called, coincidentally, BBC Radio Cleveland.

At an outside broadcast in the Cleveland Centre in Middlesbrough. Station Engineer, Ken Boar, is on the extreme left with Graeme Aldous, in the background, giving a salute of appreciation to my music - I hope!

BBC Radio Cleveland broadcasters Tony Baynes and Stan Laundon at a function organised by Sedgefield District Council.

This page is dedicated to the memory of Dave Eastwood, Ian Judson, Eric Sumner and John Watson.