Recollections of DevonAir Radio

Bob Kingsley | Paul Owens | Deb Richards | Doug Ford | Catherine Ogivie

Remembering DevonAir from those who worked on the station.

I have been in touch with some members of the the former DevonAir Radio staff and freelancers to ask them if they would be so kind as to spend a few moments of their time to recall the days before and just after DevonAir when to air.

If you have any memories of DevonAir please click here and let’s read them!

Bob Kingsley
(DevonAir’s first Programme Presenter)
(image: © DevonAir Radio Limited (1980))

So many significant things happened to me while associated with DevonAir, I’ve probably forgotten more than I remember! (After all, it was 25 years ago!) But here are a few memories …

First: getting the job as breakfast show host. I’d worked with Jeff Winston, who became DevonAir’s Programme Controller, and Paul Owens, DevonAir’s Head of Presentation and Music, at Pennine Radio in Bradford. I’m forever grateful to Jeff, who wanted to take me with him from Pennine based simply on my few Saturday morning breakfast shows, and to Paul, who had become a dear friend and fought my corner despite my lack of professional credentials, for swinging it for me. At my initial interview with Maurice Vass I turned in an abysmal performance. Jeff was sitting in the office with us, and I couldn’t help noticing his pained expressions as I stumbled and mumbled my way through my answers to Maurice’s questions. Apparently, after I left the room, Maurice turned to Jeff and said in an exasperated tone, “And you think this is the guy for our flagship breakfast show??” To which Jeff could only reply, “Well, he’s much more confident in front of a microphone! Believe me!” I think Maurice always had his doubts, but Jeff’s confidence in me won the day.

A few weeks later, I sat in the Exeter studio at 05:59am on 7th November 1980, being ogled through the glass by several pairs of eyes belonging to stern Board members, expectant members of staff and, of course, Jeff with his always reassuring smile, and put the station live on air for the first time. I’ve never been as nervous about doing anything, either before or since. Paul and I had decided on The Beatles’ Here Comes The Sun as our opening song; we also thought it best to pre-record the first link onto tape, just in case I dried up at the crucial moment, so the first words I actually said live on air were: “We’ve waited a long time for this, haven’t we?” The rest of that first breakfast show was a blur – thank heavens this site has managed to rescue some of it in the audio archive, otherwise I wouldn’t have recalled any of it myself!

Some weeks after the launch, another milestone: I played the UK’s first-ever split commercial break. No computers in those days – our amazing engineers rigged the studio with two stacks of cartridge machines and a big white box with several firing buttons for operating the various slots; at the appropriate time, usually after a couple of national ads that had to go to both transmitters, one pressed the Split button and the left-hand stack was routed to the Exeter transmitter while the right stack was fed to the Torbay area’s mast. The commercial breaks on each side had to be accurately balanced by the Traffic department, otherwise chaos ensued in the studio as the presenter made frantic recalculations, adding or removing trailers and fillers to make sure the jingle at the end – which went out to both transmitters again – wasn’t followed on one side by an agonising silence while the other side caught up! I sometimes felt like an octopus, arms flailing frantically, chucking carts around like bricks, trying not to jog the needles on the vinyl lined up on the turntables. It was almost miraculous, but it worked. (Most of the time, anyway!)

One memorable morning, as I drove in to the studio at 5am listening to the World Service on Tuesday 9th December 1980, I had to pull over and sit quietly for a while to gather my thoughts, stunned by the news that John Lennon had been shot dead in New York.
I couldn’t quite take it in. I realised I would have to tell my listeners this news myself during the first hour, and the thought terrified me. I was always very nervous when reading serious stuff – and this was really serious. When I arrived I hastily grabbed some Beatles and Lennon music from the library and rearranged the show’s running order, inserting some of John’s tracks in appropriate places. All I can now remember about reading the 6:30am headlines was that I had to fight really hard to keep my voice from breaking – I was really quite cut up about it. I think I got through it OK, but it was one of the most emotionally fraught days of my broadcasting career (image: © Bob Kingsley / IRN).

A lighter moment: I was awakened one morning in February 1981 by my next-door neighbour throwing stones at my bedroom window. I surfaced groggily and peered at the clock, wondering what on earth he was doing. Then I saw that it was about 6:30am. I’d overslept! “They’m asking fer you on the radio,” he said, helpfully, as I flung the window open. Sure enough, newsman Keith Cooper, who had no real experience of operating the studio’s desk, was manfully struggling on, playing a few songs and asking in between for anyone who knew me to please wake me up!

I high-tailed it into the studio, arriving in time to get in the air-chair for about 7:15. As a light-hearted way of explaining my absence, I said on air: “Cor! Do you know, a funny thing happened to me on the way in this morning – I was abducted by a UFO! Took me away for a while, then dumped me back on the road! Blimey!” I was red-faced about being late, to be sure, but hey – these things happen from time to time, and I got on with the rest of the show …

The following morning, when Keith did his on-air review of the morning papers, he began by saying, “Now, I won’t mention the Sun this morning, or the Star, or the Express, or the Western Morning News, all of which carry reports of a certain disc-jockey who was late for work yesterday …” I was dumb-founded! A local “stringer” had picked up the story, embellished it and sold it to some of the national newspapers! Complete with pictures of me!

They reported my little aside about the UFO, said that phone calls to my home had failed to wake me up (I didn’t have a phone in my rented house), and that I’d refused to comment (no reporter had actually bothered to contact me) until I’d been “carpeted” by the boss. Actually, when Jeff came in on my late morning I immediately rushed up to him and apologised. “What for?” he said … he hadn’t been listening that morning and knew nothing about it. His “carpeting” consisted of nothing more than an avuncular smile and a cheery “Well, never mind – you won’t do that again, will you?”

A brief mention for the Snowlines: when the winter weather became really bad and the power went off, working from the Racks Room on batteries to ensure we could continue reading out the lists of closed schools, cancelled trains and personal messages from listeners …

I met my then-future wife Val in the record library one day. She was Valerie Lane then, presenting the “Old Friends” show on a Sunday evening. Val and I married in 1984 and we enjoyed a very happy life together until, sadly, she died suddenly one morning in June 2002 at our home in Dorset. DevonAir gave Val her big break in radio – she subsequently worked on several radio stations around the Home Counties and was also one of the voices on Heathrow’s Flightwatch travel service, which was piped into my breakfast show on County Sound. Later, we co-hosted a popular weekend evening quiz show for Salisbury’s Spire FM, and Val also contributed massively to the successful launch of Shaftesbury’s Gold Radio, where she was Head of News for a time and, later, host of the afternoon show. We also co-hosted a Sunday morning sequence which proved to be a firm favourite with our rural audience. My times working alongside Val were some of the happiest and most satisfying periods of my career.

I was rested from the breakfast show and presented the afternoon show in Torbay during the summer of 1981. This involved a daily drive from the Exeter studios to Torquay, often rather frustratingly held up in holiday traffic (but which fortunately never made me late for the show). The Torquay studio was the most beautiful I’ve ever worked in, with a splendid view of the bay through a huge window on the first floor of a lovely building overlooking the harbour. For the first hour, I linked up with Alan Ross in the Exeter studio and we did a double-headed magazine-type show. Alan was a consummate professional (and another dear friend – we’d met at hospital radio many years before and we’d also worked together at Pennine) and a joy to work with. We had such fun on that show – our hysterical laughter often clogged the talkback between the studios! Then for the next couple of hours I’d bask in the summer sunshine coming through that huge window as I played my choice of music, which I carried around with me in a supermarket basket, interspersed with chart hits, to an audience who really appreciated our efforts. It was quite a surreal experience – like I imagined working for a laid-back Californian station might be.

My guest one afternoon was an elderly local dignitary. I was never very good at interviewing people at the best of times. Whoever had arranged for him to come in had failed to realise two rather important things: a) he was very old and had a thin, weary voice, and b) he was almost totally deaf and relied on two hearing aids. As I set him up in the studio and asked him say a few words “for level”, he said, “Eh? What? I can’t really hear you, I’m afraid.” I shouted louder, noting that when I did so, my microphone level was way too high for normal transmission – and that his hearing aids were dangling uselessly on his lapels. When he eventually got the message and replied with a few words about what he’d had for breakfast (“I don’t eat breakfast”), his microphone level was barely registering, even though it was full up. The record was almost finishing – I had to start the interview in a few moments! I asked him quickly to put his headphones on – but he said he couldn’t wear them. Ok, I said, then could you please put your hearing aids in? “I can’t,” he replied. “I’ve got these abscesses in both ears – make the damn things so uncomfortable to wear, don’t y’know …” The interview consisted of me shouting my questions at the top of my voice, with the transmitter almost tripping out, and him whispering his barely audible replies ever s-o s-l-o-w-l-y … it wasn’t exactly my finest hour!

As I said, I’m sure I’ve forgotten more about my time at DevonAir than I can remember, but I do know that it was the most exciting, innovative station I’ve ever worked for, staffed by committed, loyal, loveable people who absolutely lived for the station and its listeners. Jeff’s programming ideas were fresh and exhilarating; he inspired everyone who worked with him. Note I didn’t say “who worked for him” – we all felt like we were treated as his equals, all in it together. That’s what was so special about working at DevonAir Radio in its early days. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Bob Kingsley

November 2005

this added 21 Nov. 2005 by Doug Ford (Engineer):

Bob Kingsley’s thoughts about the snowline reminded me that. When we had to originate programs from the Exeter racks room, BT came along with a generator to keep their gear running, which was vital as that was what fed the circuits to the transmitters. I also remember the only music we could play was from a bunch of cassettes from my car!

Paul Owens
(DevonAir’s first Head of Music and Senior Presenter)

As I write my memories of DevonAir it is a bright Autumnal day with the sun shining, it reminds me of that Autumn of 25 years ago and of course the DevonAir logo of a smiling Sun. November 7th 1980 launch day 25 years ago.. 2 and a half decades ago… a third of a lifetime ago.. it is a cliche but it seems like yesterday.

My involvement with Devonair started some months before as I was working with Jeff Winston at Pennine Radio in Bradford after spending 10 years at the BBC on BBC Radio London..BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2.

Jeff was looking for me and I was looking for him and he hired me!! He immediately struck me as a man of vision and immense talent with a great journalistic background. My producer at Pennine is now Head of BBC News, Roger Mosey. (image right: © DevonAir Radio Limited (1980)) I hated being in the cold north of England with the Yorkshire Ripper on the loose I lived less than 200 hundred yards from his house and was constantly being stopped by the police and the strange thing of seeing no women in the City after dark!

I then heard that Jeff was leaving to start a new Commercial Radio Station in Devon and I told him I was going with him and I wanted Bob Kingsley also to join from Pennine .. we went to see Maurice Vass (Managing Director) in London and the deal was done we were all on board..

That Summer Bob and I ended up in a cottage in Exmouth run by a very feisty landlady with a heart of gold ..

I was Head of Music and Senior presenter so led the team under Jeff Winston’s guidance to be fair I was given carte blanch over music as Jeff understood my knowledge of music genres my first job was to put together test transmission tapes which we were required to do by law with announcements like “you’re listening to test transmissions from the Independent Broadcasting Authority these transmissions are in preparation for the new Radio Service for Exeter and Torbay provide by DevonAir Radio” etc these would go out every 15 mins and people loved them!! It also gave us a chance to see where our signal could be reached – I remember one day Nick Johnson our superb chief Engineer turned up the wick and we were broadcasting across the whole of the UK great!

Bob and I talked about our first song and Jeff agreed “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles would be appropriate. Jeff had commissioned jingles from Steve England (AlfaSound) which again reflected the feel of Devon..”By the Shore and in the town” … fantastic..

A little secret here we were so worried at getting the first link wrong we recorded the opening link with Bobby picking up live on the end of the Beatles and it worked well.

Jeff had hired lots of local presenters Ian (The Voice) Waugh, John Pierce, Travis Baxter, John Reynolds, Mike Powell (Journalist) and another ex colleague Mike Joseph (Head of Features). We all seem to get on straight away and all somehow knew what we had to do and I can honestly say we were all equal in our contributions to the success of the station

Gerri was a wonderful PA and Debbie replacing our first librarian and keeping me in line and not telling anyone of the beer under the desk! She did have some herself though..

On our launch day we had the Dooleys in the studio then we went out with them to meet the listeners who turned up in droves that was a good sign.

I remember Jeff wanted programme titles I suggested and still hold the title for “Good Company” we had great listener competitions, “Under 3ft Highs”, daily guests Christine Trigger the first talking about the WI she became a regular, the morning Market (no pets or clothes on this show) Food prices even wildlife programmes with the RSPB in the studio and on location. I was once bombarded by Nightjars but got a good recording.. TV Presenter Tony Soper taking me and Fitzy (David FitzGerald) to Beachy Head for the Sea Birds.. Live outside broadcasts from the Devon County Show..The DevonAir Cookbook which sold out!! (that’s what Sara Murray on reception told me), not forgetting the lovely Finny on reception who took no prisoners..

Charity days raising money for local charity and so much more including me interviewing Cecil Parkinsons wife the day before the news of his affair!!

John Lennon being shot dead a month after our launch we were able to get interviews and comment from people who saw the Beatles or had met him – Billy Fury dying also..

Getting the highest Audience figures of 54% and making a massive profit in the first year. Summer for me was a weekly trip to present the programme from Torquay at the Harbour Point Studios great for watching all the girls in their bikinis – I had the actor Lewis Collins in for an interview and he stayed and used my binoculars to eye up all the ladies !!

Then came the greatest challenge we had the very best studios and equipment so we were about to become the worlds first radio station to split commercials, It was great fun loading up 12 carts with separate jingles at the end we used to take it out of split mode and make the jingles Phase (technical term) then I wanted a double headed show again the first to have a fellow presenter. Her in Torquay (Gill Capewell) with me in Exeter so we were able to have guests at any studio with both of us being able to chat to the guest.

So many more memories and friends – presenters Alan Ross, Andy Archer, Bob Kilby, David Willis (Trainee Journalist), Pete Barraclough (Head of News) who after leaving DevonAir interviewed me on TV about DevonAir’s so called problems not forgetting Broxy (John Brocks) traffic tyrant and of course Pam who paid us for having fun..

My last song on my last show in February 1983 sums up my feelings about my albeit short time at DevonAir it was the Beatles In My Life ..

“There are places I’ll remember All my life though some have changed Some forever not for better Some have gone and some remain All these places have their moments With lovers and friends I still can recall Some are dead and some are living In my life I’ve loved them all”

Lennon/McCartney – Northern Songs

Happy 25th Birthday, DevonAir

Paul Owens

Deb Richards
(DevonAir Radio Record Librarian)

I remember so many good times about the early days at DevonAir. The teasing that you were subjected to often Ian (Waugh), which you always took in good heart!

I started by answering phones on the late night show (NightWatch). It took me a while to realise that all the calls coming from Bristol and South Wales for people in Exeter related to our listeners held at Her Majesty’s pleasure!

During the day I worked with Paul Owens on his show – Good Company – the number of times I would run up and down the stairs fetching coffee, fags, tunes that he was suddenly desperate to play! Ages spent getting carts out of racks and stacking them ready for the next hour, and then having to put them all away again – in the right place.

But the music was great! Mainly Beatles – but still great! Even the Under 3 foot highs (youngsters feature) took a turn for the better thanks to Ralph McTell’s input. The mid-day market – what a pain that was. Carefully sifting people on the other end of the phone so that Paul wouldn’t end up with some listener trying to sell yet another calor gas heater! Same with the mystery voice! I could add more!

Doug Ford
(DevonAir Radio Engineer):

First off, you may remember that Nick Bennett (Engineer) and I spent alternate weeks making commercials in the second studio. We both had different feelings about the temperature in the room so, first thing on Monday morning, each of us had to go out to the plant room out back and adjust the thermostat. I always wanted it a bit warmer, Nick always wanted it cooler. Dunno what Mike Jones (Commercial Producer) made of all that!

The other one was when the Torquay studio was opened with a party before it went on air. For months people had got used to the idea that you could just walk in there and do whatever. We’d patched the feed to the transmitters in the little racks room so the desk wasn’t in circuit. On opening day there was some sort of programme originated from Torquay, so, naturally the studio was in circuit. We hadn’t yet built the switcher to take it out, remotely, from Exeter. Later in the afternoon the programme on the Torquay transmitters was interrupted, next thing we heard one of the Directors, (a company director) maybe demonstrating his prowess as a DJ to one of his friends. We had no way, in Exeter, of stopping that except by phoning Torquay and getting someone to sort it out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Nick Johnson (Chief Engineer) move so fast!

Catherine Ogivie (formerly Cathy Thynne)
(DevonAir Radio Sales Executive):

As one of the first DevonAir employees, I recall with great clarity those early days leading up to launch day and that amazing first year. Along with Steve Snell (Sales Executive) and Martin Bowley (Sales Executive), I was one of the sales team charged with selling commercials and airtime to local businesses for whom commercial radio was a mystery to say the least. Equipped with a few demo tapes of what the DevonAir sound was destined to be, we set out in our brightly painted Talbot Sunbeams, cassette recorders and rate cards in our hands and proceeded to convince local business owners that this was a thing of the future and not some Londoner’s bright idea that would be here today and gone tomorrow. By the time the Launch party arrived, we had sold out the first 3 months but, couldn’t enjoy the party ourselves as we were dispatched to London for a course in selling by Maurice Vass (Managing Director) – he always knew how to make himself popular.

As an unofficial member of the engineering support team I was also busy at weekends and evenings miking for such celebrities as Peter Sarstedt, live broadcasts from Sidmouth Folk Festival and Paignton Zoo with David Rodgers and acting as PA for Keith Fordyce – I did enjoy chauffeuring Rolf Harris around Torquay, such a nice man!

The people I remember from those early days – Engineers of course, Nicky Bennett, Nick Johnson, Howard Pelling and Doug Ford; commercial producer Mike Jones, Traffic Manager John Brocks and assistant David Fitzgerald, Accountant Pam, Jeff Winston (Programme Controller) and assistant Gerri, the wonderful Sarah, receptionist extraordinaire; Newsroom Pete Barraclough (Head of News), Keith Cooper (Journalist), Mike Joseph (Head of Features), Mike Powell (Journalist), Helen Hughes (Journalist) and the inimitable David Willis (Trainee Journalist. Presenters Paul Owens, Bob Kingsley, Ian Waugh, John Reynolds, John Pierce, Mary Hardiman, Tim Arnold was was later together with Wendy Buckingham (Journalist). Later came the Dave Cousins era with new faces and a renewed enthusiasm after the Vass days came to a timely end.

I live in California now – I left Devon back in 1984, ties to DevonAir were still strong but ambition pulled me towards London. In 1989 I found myself in Knightsbridge, I was Head of Marketing at Harrods and Martin Bowley, my old sales colleague had become Head of Sales at TSW so we traded a couple of lunches and talked over old times. Then, after 8 years in Germany, busy with entertainment, technology and media consulting, I ended up in California working for Napster and I’ve been here ever since although now I’m out of the media and entertainment world but still in contact with Doug Ford who lives not too far away.

I enjoyed my time at DevonAir, it was a blast. Remember the day Torquay opened? the first DevonCare? the media race at the Marine’s assault course?

Happy days.