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MERCIA MESSAGES |
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 MERCIA
MESSAGES
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Both Jim Lee and Dave Jamieson have kindly taken the trouble to contact us here at MDS975 about the MERCIA SOUND Page. |
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| Dave writes: "Hi Mike. Have just been looking at
your comprehensive history of Mercia Sound, where I worked in the
80s. Well done. Excellent stuff.
You may be interested to know that I now live in the south of Spain, and as I couldn't get to Mercia's recent 25th anniversary party, three of my former colleagues came to visit me instead - Andy Lloyd, Jim Lee and Tony Gillham. There's a pic of us on the front page of one of our local, English-language papers this week. Have a look to see how old and decrepit we all are:" [Honestly Dave, hardly "old and decrepit" !!]  A
collection of the UK's finest broadcasters:
From left to right - Andy Lloyd, Tony Gillham, Dave Jamieson and Jim Lee |
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| Dave
continues: "You might like to add me to your BRMB page as well, by the way. I was there from 1975, joining just before the first birthday from BBC Radio Leicester. It all seems a long time ago - which it was! 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 Dave left Mercia Sound in 1984 he joined Viking Radio in Humberside..... "Andy Hollins started his career with me at Viking. When we set up the station I was Presentation Controller, I was looking for a swing shift person, and called the Radio Academy (as was) in London to see if they had any young and aspiring presenter interested in doing the odd shift. We ended up with Andy who came from the area anyway. When I moved to Tees as Programme Controller, he worked for me there as well. Andy now lives in California where he has a very succesful PR company with a guy called Peter Bowes, who was one of our journalists at Viking. I occasionally hear Peter on Radio 5, and he recently was the BBC radio representative at the Michael Jackson trial. And as for Les Ross! A good friend, and a great broadcaster! I returned to Birmingham in the mid 80s to join Central TV where I spent 8 very happy years. During that time, I got in touch with Mike Owen (who had joined BRMB during my time there in the 1970s as a school-teacher on a training attachment ... and never left!) who was Programme Controller, 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 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 ... Anyway, I hope these ramblings fill in some gaps for you. Regards, Dave " |
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| Jim
writes: "Hello Mike I just wanted to say congratulations on your Mercia memories site and to say thank you for the nice things you say not only about the station but also some of us who had the immense pleasure of working there in the 80s. I know that Dave Jamieson has been in touch with you - I tipped off him, Andy Lloyd and Tony Gillham about the site the other night. He may have mentioned that we four met up a couple of weeks ago for a mini-reunion in Spain. One of the recurring themes of our discussions in Spain last week was that despite the wealth of experiences we've all had in and out of radio over the years, Mercia has made the greatest and most enduring impression on all of us. From your site it seems it had a similar effect on you too. Keep up the good work, Jim Lee" Radio 4 Presentation/BBC7 Presentation BBC Radio 4, 92-95FM & 198 LW & www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 BBC7, DAB digital radio; Freeview channel 78, satellite channel 881; Telewest channel 910; NTL channel 866 & at www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7 http://www.bbc.co.uk/ |
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THANKS FOR THE MERCIA MEMORIES |
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Thanks to Dave and Jim for writing in. You are quite right Jim, of all the stations up and down the UK that I listened to in the 1980's most were excellent, but none could quite match the receipe of professional presentation and inspired programming provided by Mercia Sound. It may be an overused word today, but I think that Mercia Sound really was unique. The people of Coventry, Warwickshire and South West Leicestershire were very lucky indeed. Don't forget to listen out for Jim Lee on BBC Radio Four and BBC 7 and for Tony Gillham on BBC Radio Jersey on weekdays and to the excellent "Gillham Gold" programme at the weekends on BBC Radio Devon, BBC Radio Berkshire, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and BBC Radio Oxford. You may hear some snippets of Dave, Tony and, Jim in the audio files below: |
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 MERCIA SOUND - THE AUDIO
FILES |
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CLICK HERE to go to the MERCIA SOUND AUDIO PAGE > > > |
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" EVERYTHING
YOU NEEDED TO KNOW
ON MERCIA 220 " |
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