A special day for a North Yorkshire radio station

10:51am Friday 4th July 2008

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BBC Radio York celebrates its 25th birthday today. Reporter NADIA JEFFERSON-BROWN looks back at the station’s history.

CANDLES are the icing on the cake for most birthday parties – but BBC Radio York will be heralding its silver anniversary with 25 gongs from York Minster.

At 6.30am on July 4 back in 1983, BBC Radio York was launched as the Beeb’s first local radio station for the county of North Yorkshire.

More than two decades later, the team broadcasts more than 44 hours of news, music and entertainment from its studios in York, Scarborough and Harrogate.

To help mark the station’s milestone, a peel of 25 bells will ring out over the city at midday today, leading into the station’s lunchtime bulletin.

The tribute is one of a number of celebrations taking place today following the nostalgic journey into BBC Radio York’s sound archive, dubbed “25 years in 25 days”.

The daily feature has enabled listeners to relive the last quarter of a century through music and snippets of coverage of the biggest events to hit the news.

And the headlines did not get much bigger than the blaze which ripped through the roof of the south transept of York Minster on July 9, 1984.

That same year saw the arrival of Prince Charles in York with the opening of the Jorvik Centre.

A year on, residents in Harrogate were treated to a visit by Princess Diana – had her trip been better timed, she might have seen the World Record attempt to bake the biggest ever Yorkshire Pudding on York’s Knavesmire.

Keeping with the royals, Radio York was also on the scene when the Queen Mother visited Ripon to mark its 1,100th anniversary in 1986.

These are just some of the landmark stories peppering the station’s archives alongside the closure of York’s rail carriage works in 1996, the floods of 2000, the foot and mouth crisis and Great Heck train crash which both shook 2001.

In more recent years, Radio York’s reporting has been diverse, from the 2005 floods to Royal Ascot in York to the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu’s inauguration in 2006.

Reflecting back over the years, Sarah Drummond, managing editor, said: “It is nice to hear more Yorkshire voices on air, from local people who have become reporters and presenters, and from the audience.”

She said she hoped that reflected how much the station was “embedded in York and North Yorkshire”.

Another change was the focus on lifestyle issues, as seen with Radio York’s Bra Week in the winter of 2007.

The BBC bus parked up in York to advise on bra fittings, breast health and how to get husbands buying the right bra for Christmas.

“If we had to nail our target audience it would be men and women in their early 50s who are very young at heart,” said Sarah.

Since being set up 25 years ago, the station has had to cope with the rise of commercial radio stations.

However, Sarah said that the influx of new broadcasters had not had much of a negative impact upon them.

She said: “We have different target audiences. Their target audience is probably younger people than ours. We are a speech-based radio. I think commercial radio stations are usually music based. I see us all as part of the healthy ecology, as giving listeners lots of choice on the radio.”

Perhaps the most newsworthy time in the BBC’s modern history came with the uproar caused by the scandal of Andrew Gilligan’s report into the “sexed-up” dossier regarding Iraq’s ability to launch missiles at the UK in 45 minutes.

Sarah said newcomers to the BBC were made aware of its editorial guidelines to ensure staff understood that the BBC was “a trusted broadcaster who the public expects to broadcast in an impartial way”.

She said these guidelines were produced long before the upset caused by the report.

But she added that presenters were still human beings. “They themselves want to make a distinction with audiences between something they believe and when they are the questioning voice of the corporation.”

Radio York’s most recent accolade was recognition for its book of children’s stories, which were written by listeners for a radio competition and were considered too good not to publish. Proceeds went to Children In Need, winning the station a Sony Radio award nomination in April.

“We are part of North Yorkshire and part of people’s lives, and we hope to reflect what their interests are,” she said.

Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond is among the former Radio Yorkies, who worked at the station in the 1980s, as well as Will Hanrahan who went on to work on Watchdog and Good Morning on BBC One. Others who have also worked at Radio York are Tim Smith, now with Radio 2’s Steve Wright show, and ITV News At Ten correspondent Chris Choi.

Today, fans wake up to breakfast show host Richard Reynolds, before tuning in to former Butlin’s redcoat Adam Tomlinson on the mid-morning show, and the dulcet tones of former Radio 2 presenter Richard Allinson’s album show.

Of the future, Sarah said: “We plan to be, and are looking forward to being, here for another 25 years and celebrating our golden anniversary.”


The way we were.

WHILE listeners were tuning into the new BBC Radio York in 1983, here’s a snapshot of events elsewhere...

• Sally Ride became the first US woman into space.

• Margaret Thatcherwon her second term as Prime Minister.

• Alexander Graham-Bell’s grandson answered the first commercial mobile phone call.

• CDs hit the high street for the first time.

• Manchester Utd beat Brighton in the FA cup final in a replay.

• Wheel clamps first came into use in central London.

• Anti-nuclear demonstrations were taking place across Europe • Derby winning horse Shergar was kidnapped and held to ransom for £2million.

• Judi Dench accepted an honorary degree from the University of York.

• York Council told residents they were exacerbating a water shortage problem by storing bathtubs of water at home.

• York City finished 7th in the old fourth division then began their unforgettable, record-breaking title winning season 83/4.

Celebration countdown.

Celebrations to mark BBC Radio York’s 25th anniversary included:

• 8.30am: BBC Look North presenter Harry Gration was invited to cut Radio York’s 25th birthday cake on the Richard Reynolds breakfast show.

• 9am to 12noon: Anna and Adam, on the Morning Show, will be live from the food and drink festival at Newby Hall, near Ripon.

• Noon: There will be 25 ‘bongs’ from York Minster rather than the usual 12, followed by the midday news live from outside the Minster.

• Former presenters and people who have been associated with the station since its launch will be talking to Radio York throughout the day.

• Radio York will also be linking up with other people celebrating their 25th birthday.