BBC Radio Teesside
BBC Radio Teesside started life on New Year's Eve, 1970
This page takes a look back at the birth of local radio on Teesside with some cuttings from the Radio Times in 1970. Radio Teesside began in Linthorpe Road, Middlesbrough in a building next to Wright's Tower House. The first studios were built where a well known fast food chain is now situated. Eventually, BBC Radio Cleveland as it became in 1974, moved to a new purpose built building known as the Newport Triangle, which is directly opposite Middlesbrough Bus Station.
Advertisements for the new radio station appeared in all local newspapers
A Radio Times article dated August 27th, 1970 with Radio Teesside Station Manager, Allan Shaw talking about Middlesbrough being 'his kind of town'.
Radio Times, December 17/24th 1970 just before BBC Radio Teesside officially went on the air
The programme schedule for the first day's broadcasting - December 30th 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 Radio Teesside Girls - secretaries, receptionists and broadcasters - Linda Tutin, Barbara Littler, name required please, Sabrina Taylor, Noreen Moss and another name required!
BBC Radio Teesside staff on a visit to ICI at Wilton with Iain Hindmarsh, Colin O'Keeffe, Jenny Colley, Jim Latham, Dave Williams, Derek Hobson and Graeme Aldous among others
Photograph © Evening Gazette, Middlesbrough
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 well known names include Mike Hollingworth, Peter Hedley, Ernie Brown, George Lambelle, Eric Sumner, Tony Baynes and Graeme Aldous. In 2007 BBC Radio Cleveland changed it name to BBC Tees!
Dave Eastwood was a popular breakfast show presenter
Nellie was BBC Radio Teesside's first cleaner. We all believe that Nellie deserves a special place on this site. She kept us all going in the mornings and was a wonderful, kind, caring lady. I was very fond of her.
Graeme Aldous (left) was with BBC Radio Teesside from the very beginning and produced and presented various programmes over the years including "Polished Brass." Graeme has retired from radio and lives on the North York Moors. Geoff Edwards (above) presented the weekly "Reach Out" arts programme and also worked within the education department.
Ian Charlton presented the very popular programme "Dad's Music" for many years. He now lives in retirement in Cumbria. David Peel was a newspaper reporter in Whitby before joining the staff at BBC Radio Cleveland. For a three month period he presented the breakfast show. His last position at the radio station was Managing Editor.
George Lambelle, seated in the centre,
with Middlesbrough Big Band. The leader, Derek Bridge, is in the centre
right behind George and
third from the left is a trumpet player called John. We don't recall his
second name, but he went on to play with the Three Degrees Band. On the
right is George receiving an award for his programme "Northern Folk in
Poland" which featured the late Phil Conroy, the director of Billingham
International Folklore Festival, who presented the programme about his
group, Northern Folk, which won an unprecedented number of awards at the
annual Polish Folklore festival in Warsaw.
Two photographs when BBC Radio Cleveland moved into their new, purpose built, studios and offices on the Newport Triangle in Middlesbrough - one of a broadcasting studio and the other showing the reception area.
Mike Hollingworth presenting an outside broadcast for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, in Hartlepool and BBC Radio Cleveland's programme organiser, Mick Wormald.
Popular page three model, Linda Lusardi, with presenter Keith Proud and Phil White enjoys a hug from Miss BBC Radio Cleveland, Tracy Pearce, at an outside broadcast.
A very colourful Tony Baynes, dressed as a court jester, at a BBC Radio Teesside outside broadcast event and Sports Editor, John Allard, competing in the Radio Cleveland Team in a Weardale Half Marathon.
Paddy McDee - broadcasting these days at BBC Radio Newcastle
Colin Bunyan with Sir Cliff Richard
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.
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. On the right is 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!
I am not sure what year the photograph on the left was taken, but it was at a BBC Radio Cleveland Sports Day that was sponsored by a well-known cigarette manufacturer. The photograph shows Barbara Jones, Keith Morton, Stan Laundon, Frank Birks, Barbara Everitt, Mark Waddington, Marion Birks, Nick Clarke and Chris Hodder. On the right is another from the archives. Again, I have no idea of the year in question, but it could 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.
BBC Radio Cleveland broadcasters Tony Baynes and Stan Laundon at a function organised by Sedgefield District Council and Colin Bunyan, Stan Laundon and Stewart McFarlane handing out publicity stickers at Hartlepool Show, August 1980.
The very first BBC Radio Teesside car sticker
The radio station offered prizes if a sticker was spotted in the rear window of your car. The staff were asked to write down registration numbers if they saw a sticker in a car. They were then read out on the air, and if it was yours you were invited to phone in and claim your prize - usually a bunch of promotional 45's!
Eric Sumner, one of BBC Radio Teesside's most popular newsreaders, was also an expert in martial arts.
This page is dedicated to the memory of Dave Eastwood, Ian Judson, Eric Sumner and John Watson
Where are they now?
So what did happen to those old names from
Radio Teesside/Radio Cleveland's early years?
Graeme Aldous volunteered, in 1985, to be the first person to be made
redundant by the BBC, in order to be able to stay in his beloved North
York Moors. As a freelance audio-visual producer, he has become the
voice (and often face) of the safety induction videos for many of the
chemical and industrial plants on Teesside, and beyond. The last we heard Colin
O'Keeffe was living in the New Forest and wearing green wellies! Tony
Baynes was an executive with a well known cola company and, we are told,
lives in France. George Lambelle runs a
DVD production company in County Durham.
David Peel has a media marketing company. Stewart McFarlane lives in
Skelton. Ernie Brown is a local councillor, near Northallerton,
and runs broadcasting training courses in the area. Keith Harrison
has a sound business in Buckinghamshire and Phil White is
involved in radio on Humberside.
Thanks to Ernie Brown, Colin Bunyan and George Lambelle for their contributions to this page
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