Memories
of 'Your station on the stairs'
Former
TTDC Member 39516, Mary Wingert, still 'Digs Pop'
(many thanks to Hans Knot and Raoul Verolleman for the pictures)
I
was around eleven years old
(circa 1961) when
I discovered Radio Luxembourg. It was on a school camping trip, and the coach
driver had the vehicle's radio tuned in to the station. Only ever having listened
to the BBC, I was fascinated to hear something completely new to me - commercials
on the radio! Already a keen pop fan, I was thrilled at the idea of being
able to tune in to Luxembourg and hear the music I craved every single evening,
instead of waiting for the sparse offerings of current music reluctantly supplied
by the Beeb. As soon as I returned home from camp, I commandeered my parents'
ancient wireless set, installed it in my room and twiddled the dial till I
found 208m.
Every evening, I would be glued to the set, awaiting the resounding 'BONGGGGG!'
of the station gong and the Luxembourg Waltz
(not even a remote cousin to the Sonowaltz) that
heralded the start of the evening's transmissions, when we were welcomed to
'Your station of the stars'. Before long, I begged, and subsequently obtained,
parental permission to withdraw money from a bank account that my folks had
set up for me, in order to purchase a reel-to-reel tape machine, so I could
record all the hits played on Luxy. A trannie was also on my list as an essential
buy, but I believe the tape recorder came first. A neighbour had promised
to come and show me how to connect the radio and the tape machine for direct
recording, but he never did, and there was nobody technically-minded in our
house. I was doomed for ever to record with the crummy little microphone that
came with the reel-t-reel machine, propped-up in front of the radio speaker.
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(Programme
schedule March 1965, Courtesy of Hans Knot)
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Most
of the Luxy shows were sponsored by the major record companies, and in order
to cram as many records into as short a time-slot as possible, the station
never played anything all the way through. Just when you were really getting
to like a record, they would fade it. Either that or a combination of poor
medium wave reception and 'The Luxembourg Effect'. would fade it for you.
It was very frustrating, and must have worked as a good record-selling ploy
on those who could afford to buy singles. For girls like me, who could only
buy a single after weeks of saving-up pocket money, the hotch-potch of snatches
of current fave tunes on my reel of tape was wonderful.
The other important thing in my room , besides my parents' radio, was a scruffy
moth-eaten book, in which I recorded what I considered vital information.
"
Wild Wind is round about number 3 on the tape
– Oct 8th 1961,"
I noted. I also faithfully noted various Luxy charts and compared them to
the official Pick of the Pops one, broadcast weekly on the Light Programme.
Luxy had an assortment of charts with names like Transatlantic
Tops, Pop Pools Top Twenty, England's Top Three, America's Top Three
and America's Decca Group Top Ten. It was hard
to keep up! I would also note essential info such as how many times I heard
certain records played. For anyone interested, the first record I heard played
100 times (without buying it) was played "about 8.55, Dec 1st, 1961" and was
Frankie Vaughan's Tower of Strength. (Luxy did
play the Gene McDaniels' version too. Never having encountered a man called
Gene before, I thought the name was spelt 'Jean'. I endured Charlie Drake's
My Boomerang Won't Come Back on 46 memorable
occasions. I was still young enough then to appreciate novelty records.
I signed up for Jimmy Savile's Teen and Twenty Disc
Club, and as member 39516, received a bracelet with charm in the shape
of a record, engraved with the words ÔTTDC' on one side and ÔDig Pop' on the
other. I was so proud of it that I secretly wore it to school, jewellery being
forbidden. Few people are likely to forget that Elvis
was TTDC member number 11321.
Once a trannie was acquired, it was obligatory for my friend and me to wander
around in the evenings, radio on the arm. We were only young kids, but thought
we were the bees' knees with our trannies (sometimes one each) turned up to
full volume. We would twist and turn them in every direction, desperately
trying to find the right spot to catch the ever-shifting signal. On the one
occasion in my teens that I got to visit the Grand Duchy, I was bowled over
to discover that, after years of struggling, at last I could get the Luxembourg
reception of my dreams. The signal there was so strong that you could practically
receive the station without the aid of a trannie.
After the pirates arrived, Luxy suddenly seemed rather old hat, the DJs a
bit staid and old-fashioned. Once Big L came on the scene, I would rarely
listen to anything else. However, we lived a long way inland, and the signal
from the offshore stations was frequently obliterated by foreign broadcasts
and heterodyne whistles in the evenings. When this happened I would twiddle
the dial back from 266 to 208, but my interest was waning. The advent of the
offshore stations and the change they affected on UK broadcasting, spelt the
beginning of the gradual demise of what 'short-term Luxy employee', Kenny
Everett dubbed "Your station on the stairs".
When Radio One arrived in 1967, followed a few years later by new FM commercial
stations, the once-captive Luxy audience began disappearing. On December 30th
1991, the mediumwave service on 208 was replaced by a satellite transmission.
As has been the case with so many satellite stations, it was not successful,
and Luxembourg closed for good on Dec 31 1992.
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David
'Kid' Jensen (Raoul)
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Bill
Hearne (Hans)
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Tony
Christian (Raoul)
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Chris
Denning (Hans)
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Royal
Ruler Tony Prince (Raoul)
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Tony
Prince and Lynsey de Paul model the 208 T-shirt (Hans)
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Ray Orchard from The Radio Luxembourg Book of Record Stars |
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