Harry Haward

Nice piece by Celia Topping in last week's Time Out London magazine about Resonance FM, broadcasting its eclectic mix from Borough High Street to the capital. Among the contrbutors interviewed is Harry Haward of DAGE (Deptford Action Group for the Elderly):

''Nice to meet ya,’ growls Harry Haward. His gnarled hand encloses mine in a powerful grip. For an 80-year-old, he does a pretty good line in intimidation. So he should: Haward is a former mucker of the Krays’, an ex-boxer, an ex-jailbird (‘I tried to do a coupla banks but wasn’t no good at it’) and now a broadcaster. In fact, he is mid-broadcast or, more accurately, mid-tirade – a scourging rant directed at Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt for his plans to downgrade Harry’s local A&E department at Lewisham Hospital. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, Hunt,’ he spits. ‘You’ve got two weeks to do something about it, or we’ll come round your house… and I’ll hit you so hard you’ll be nicked for speeding!’ Magic FM this is not.

Harry’s robust style of broadcasting on his show ‘Calling All Pensioners’ is typical of Resonance FM’s approach to radio. As ‘the world’s first radio art station’, Resonance has provided audio snapshots of real London and real Londoners for 11 years. Uninterrupted by adverts, traffic and weather reports, news bulletins, tired playlists and tireder DJs, it truly is a broadcaster for the people, with all their quirks, passions and oddities...'  

   
You can listen to 'Calling all Pensioners' at Resonance FM's archive.

London Weekend Radio - mid-1980s pirate

London Weekend Radio, later known as plain LWR, was a London pirate radio station in the mid-1980s broadcasting from Sydenham, Catford and Peckham (among other places). I came across this article which has the main story:

'London Weekend Radio started life broadcasting from Lawrie Park Road in Sydenham over bank holiday weekends in 1981 and was controlled by Jonny Haywood (Station Manager) and Keith Green (Engineering) prior to going full time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week in a basement in Brownhill Road, Catford London SE6 where they were joined on the engineering team by Pat Sinclair and the station amended the station id name tag to simply LWR and broadcasting on 92.5MHz. Unlike many of its counterparts LWR decided to play new pop music between 06.00 and 18.00 weekdays with the evenings and weekends centring on specialist shows.

Many famous names got a good grounding at LWR with Radio Luxemborg's Peter Anthony working under the guise of Oscar J Jennings (who was pioneering REM in 1984), Radio 1 presenter's Pete Tong and Tim Westwood in the lineup that included the late Robbie May (BFBS) on breakfast duty, a daily afternoon show from Paul Stafford (Invicta/Coast AM) now in Australia, alongside Martin James, Ton Tom, Steve Edwards, Ricky King, John Dawson, Perry Daniels, Dave Shirt and Jonny Haywood himself with guest hosts including World Snooker Champion Sir Steve Davis OBE, Legendary Jazzman Roy Ayers, Imagination singer Leee Johns and Brit Funk band Total Contrast.

The station closed temporarily in August 1984 when changes were made to the law giving greater powers of seizure/confiscation to the DTI. A new frontman, Zac re-activated the station which ran till the early ninties when it finally closed down'.

Comments at that article state that original studio was in basement of 25 Lawrie Park Road SE26  with transmitters variously located in New Addington, Pepys Estate (Deptford), Balfron Tower in Poplar, Shooters Hill, and Church road in Crystal Palace. In its later days it had a studio in 42 Gautrey Road, Nunhead SE15 upstairs from Mad Professor's studio (mentioned here before). Intrigued that Roy Ayers might have made it from California to Catford!

Here's the young Tim Westwood broadcasting on LWR in 1984



... and some more LWR extracts:

Radio Kent 1967

From the counter-cultural paper International Times, number 13, May 27 1967, a report of a pirate radio station in South London:

'TERRY VACANTI, a 21 year old former lens maker, ran a pirate radio station, Radio Kent, for six months in the heart of South London. Vacanti said that he built the transmitter for £ 3-15s "... to prove that the millions being spent by the Government on local radio at a cost to the taxpayer is a complete waste, of money".

"I fooled the GPO for six months, and I think I now have a way in which I can broadcast without being detected" he boasted. At the request of IT, Terry has drawn up a list of instructions for construction as well as a schematic diagram of the transmitter he used(see IT 14). Radio Kent could be heard throughout South London from Camberwell to Blackheath, and from Greenwich to Streatham. EVERY MAN HIS OWN MESSIAH.'

(the article refers to Terry Vacanti, the picture caption says Terry Vacani - I think the latter is correct, elsewhere on the internet Terry Vacani is mentioned as a DJ on the Irish pirate station Eastside Radio Ireland - Terry if you're out there tell us more about your South London adventures!)