Essex Radio - Making Waves

This page contains a reprint of an article written to commemorate Essex Radio / Essex FM's 25th birthday in September 2006...

Twenty seconds to go, and across the ether, the soft tones of an orchestra tuning up can be heard... then:

“It's 6am, Saturday September the twelfth, 1981. Welcome to Essex Radio...”

That first voice belonged to John Wellington, and marked the launch of local radio for Essex, bringing the total number of new commercial radio stations opening up and down the country to just over 30.

In those first few exciting minutes of broadcasting, the County of Essex was introduced to the team that were to become household names for many in Essex. Accompanied by the station's main theme, called “Listen to Essex” and performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, we first heard the voices of breakfast show presenter Jon Scragg, daytime show hosts Dave Gregory, Dave Gilbee and Keith Rogers, drivetime presenter Terry Davis, news man Steve Wood, Talkback's Chris Mann, “The Hairy Eyeball” (Rock presenter Paul Lee), and late night phone-in voice, Tim Lloyd (later to become 'Timbo'.
The station's weekend lineup in those early days included Andrew Marshall's Country show, Andy Anderson's Saturday Supergold, sport with Rogers Buxton, Eddie Blackwell's Jazz show, the Sunday morning religious show with Jeff Bonser and Peter Elvy, Alan Bell's Essex Top 30 chart countdown, with Lindsay King's late night Sunday show. The first record heard on that September morning set the pace for things to come ... Cliff Richard's appropriately-titled “Wired for Sound”

Essex Radio broadcast from studios two floors below Clifftown Road in Southend-on-Sea, in a building that formerly housed the printing presses of the Southend Standard newspaper, and the basement had to be refitted with high-tech studio equipment, which was floating on special a special concrete base needed to deaden the vibration from the neighbouring Southend Central railway station.

Transmitters for the station were atop Benfleet water tower, with a medium-wave transmitter on a site in Rayleigh. Later, transmitters for North Essex were added.

Those few lucky enough to gain admittance to the catacombs of Radio House would hurry down a rather drab staircase into a beige and cream tunnel that lead to the station's two main on-air studios, the production studio and two production areas. The basement also housed the station's Engineering team and the well-stocked record library. Other parts of Radio House were home to the busy newsroom's typewriters and teleprinters, and the sales, production and management areas.

In the early days, the station was owned by local businesses people, including directors from Keddies, Garons, H.W Stone and TOTS nightclub. Since those early days, much has changed. Presenters have come and gone. The station's medium wave and FM frequencies did the 'splits' towards the end of the eighties, when Breeze AM launched, providing music for an older audience. Over the years, the station saw a transition from vinyl and magnetic tape, through the CD era, and now to digital computer systems. Over the years, Essex Radio's management and formats changed a number of times. Many may remember the old slogans “Somewhere Special”, “We'll make it a great today”, and “Greatest Memories, Latest Hits”. In the nineties, the station renamed from Essex Radio to Essex FM, with Breeze still operating an oldies station on medium wave.

Today, Essex FM broadcasts from Chelmsford, having recently vacated Radio House in Clifftown Road. The new studio complex is not that far from where UK broadcasting all started. Back in 1922, the first regular broadcasts were made, by an experiential station called “2MT”, coming from a small shed in Writtle. Essex FM is now part of the large UK radio group GCap Media, and twenty-five years since those early days of basement broadcasting, it's still the number one rated station in Essex. To many, the station will be warmly remembered by many locals as “somewhere special”, and a part of the history of our county.

Written by Pete Sipple, September 2006

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