Aircheck Tracker
Profile: Peter Tait: Peter
came from the Surrey town of Croydon, born as Peter Clark. Upon leaving school his first job
was processing motor insurance claims, but, out in the North Sea, the offshore
stations were gathering and the sheer amount of entertainment flowing from those
waters, 24 hours a day gave Peter the DJ-ing bug. So, he attended club DJ
auditions in London and he was lucky enough to be selected from 11 other
wannabes, a 30-minute warm up spot being his prize, lining up before the main DJ
started.
Radio 1 was a major choice of listening
for Peter back then, and it was listening to Jimmy
Savile one day that he heard an interview with a man who was on the look out
for DJs. And so the 'audition' circle began again, and again, he was
successful, beginning part time DJ work but now working the entire
evening. However, late nights and the clash with the day job didn't go
down very well with the insurance company bosses - so Peter went professional as
a DJ, holding residencies in Leicester, Southend-On-Sea, Richmond, Brighton,
East Grinstead and finally after a long wait, his home town of Croydon.
The first radio work came in 1977, working for the United Biscuits Network (UBN)
entertaining a national factory workforce of many hundreds of thousands, but for
a very low wage. But the training and experience was priceless with UBN
going on to create the careers of almost 50 DJs for local and national
independent and BBC stations. Eighteen months later,
Nottingham's Radio Trent received Peter's application to work as a DJ, and, he
was successful here too, being offered the weekday afternoon show which he
presented for almost five years.
The offshore bug was still in Peter's system and in 1983 Peter caught wind of
the fact that Radio Caroline was returning to the North Sea. He was
too young to present in the heady days of the 1960s, but this wasn't the case
anymore, so off went an audition tape - once again, continuing the success
pattern previously enjoyed. And so, reversing a trend for offshore jocks
to move ashore, Peter went out to sea to present the Radio Caroline breakfast
show, serving over 3 million people.
New offshore broadcasting laws meant
there were no commercials aired on Caroline, therefore very little money, and
after three months, Peter moved back on to dry land and West Yorkshire's Radio
Aire in Leeds became his home on 2nd January 1984 on the station's breakfast
show.
Five years later and he was offered a slot on a new AM sister station, MAGIC
828, a gold station covering the music of the 50's, 60's and 70's.
(Nowadays, MAGIC forms part of a network of same name stations but offering a
more modern easy listening format). Peter spent almost a decade on
the breakfast show helping the Magic 828 station to achieve the status of Number
1 AM station in the country as market share listening figures have
shown.
Over this time, Peter fondly recalled his club DJ beginnings, teaming up with
local businessman Tony Sykes to run over 25s party nights across West
Yorkshire.
After what is believed to be a period of illness, Peter died in the Autumn (September/October 2002)