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Radio Trent 945 / Trent FM (Museum Page 5)

New memories from Rob Lubbock now added (14/02/2003)  Why not send us your memories of Trent 945 / FM?

(This page was formerly on the main AIRCHECK GOLD section)

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Radio stations come and radio stations go.  On this page, as part of the Radio Trent 945/Trent FM section, we honour a service that in it's essence, has gone, due to the passing of time, a revamp and a takeover.   We'd love to post your memories of the features of radio stations, past or present on our main AIRCHECK GOLD page which is viewable via the link above.  If you'd like to contact me and give your own special tribute to any station from the past, please e-mail ianmsperry@hotmail.com.

1987: I was sixteen years old, and the launch of Radio Trent 945 across Derbyshire & East Staffordshire was the most exciting radio launch I've heard so far.  But I was naive and stupid.  Too stupid to actually keep decent recordings on decent recording equipment.  Stupid enough to merely aircheck the test transmissions instead of recording vast copious amounts of the stuff.  (I've since learnt my lesson!)  I eventually inherited a copy of Andy Marriott's first breakfast show a long time afterwards.  Tuesday 3rd March 1987, the alarm woke me from my sleep at just before 6:00am - It was cold, dark and I needed the toilet & you know what it's like at that age!  By this stage, the test transmission tape (and they were tapes in those days) had been withdrawn and there was just an occasional brief tone to remind the transmitter that something was still there in case it felt like shutting down and making a mess of things.  The excitement and trepidation was immense!!!!  I still needed the loo - but I wanted to hear every tone - every beep and that start!  At around 5:59am, the bladder pressure was so bad, I just had to go.  There was no turning the radio up full blast unless I wanted to miss the entire show and wake the house!  So, with an ear craned for the slightest noise, I went - with the aim to get back to my bedroom yesterday!.  For years, I was convinced there were two openers aired somehow - but the log tape I now cherish proved otherwise.  Andy Marriott: (clunk click) "...good morning, it's six o'clock.  You're listening to the first broadcast of independent local radio for Derbyshire & East Staffordshire, Radio Trent 945; which will now be declared open by his Grace, the Duke Of Devonshire."  Duke Of Devonshire: "Well, thank-er -you Radio Trent, very much, for the single honour you do me in-in coming to open Radio Trent's new headquarters and new studio (edit) and it is, er, marvellous news for all of us in Derbyshire that Radio Trent is extending it's services, er, into Derbyshire.  Would it be rude of me to say, high time too? .." giggles fade into David Lloyd opener ".. in the beginning ... there was gas ..... in the beginning ... there was electricity .... NOW ..... a new source of energy for Derbyshire ... the energy .... of Trent." The Stereo mix of the same word then repeated from left to right of audio, into a montage of excerpts including Andy Marriott, Andy Miller, Danny Cox, Rob Wagstaff, David Jensen, Helen Costello (more recently IRN news reader), and Keith Daniell (now Sports reporter for Central News East) which tailed by a mix out to the Trent word again - and David Lloyd's outcue.  "... Trent - a new stereo radio station for Derbyshire on 102.8 Mhz FM", (I presume there was a different one for AM) followed by the now famous, 'Radio Trent, 24rour news" news jingle. (which was later re-sung to sing 24 hour news!)

Mike Blair (now a news exec at Central News East) then read the 6am news with the first story regarding Ronald Reagan and the last regarding Roland Rat!  Andy Marriott then played Simply Red's The Right Thing, came out of it commenting on the fact that everybody had been asking him 'what will the first record be - well that was it, I trust it did', introduced the station quite succinctly and played Louis Armstrong's Wonderful World.  Then came the first ad break, introduced as only Andy could, "...on Radio Trent 945, which is, of course, a brand new commercial radio station.  And as if you needed proof ...'", and so came the first ad for Bennett's of Irongate, followed by Baskill's Electrical Shop on London Road and Boyden's Fashion Extravaganza at Boyden's Vauxhall Showroom, Pentagon Island.  The third song out of the ad break incidentally was George Benson's latest release from the time, 'Teaser', followed by Dionne Warwick's Heartbreaker "..or Heart-something or other...." and into the 6:30 headlines with Percy Sledge's 'When A Man Loves A Woman'.

Other breakfast show highlights included Andy starting a jingle over the end of an advert, adding, 'whoops, that's £2 off me wages', wo-woing out of Johnny Tillotson's Poetry In Motion, the 60's club at 7:30 and 8:30, then later referring to the 'dalek' who sang 'nine-forty-five' on the sonovox jingle, and joining in over the top of the '945kHz' shout just prior to 9am.  Outside in the Market Place, it was the great 945 Pancake Race.  Myself and a school mate, armed with ludicrous amounts of Radio Trent 945 stickers, tried to bunk off school to get to see it.  We got there when it had finished & packed up!   Gutted I was!

I later joined Rob Wagstaff's NIGHTLIFE gang - (I've still got the badge!) and won a Radio Trent 945 pen by ringing up the Newshound line (291919 - wonder if it still works!)  Over more recent years, I came across an 'Andy Miller Morning Show' mug in the works canteen, which needless to say, I inherited.    (Talking of phone numbers, 292945 was the main number, and apparently, 291028 was always in the news room somewhere.  A reversal has now happened, with the latter being used on Trent's successor today with a strategic 'point' put in between the two and eight.  If you ever come across a phone with a 'point' button on it, I'd be fascinated to see it!)

The next time Andy's breakfast show would be aired again was on Trent's Fifth Birthday in 1992, with Dick Stone starting his breakfast show by playing a copy of the original log tape, with the last syllable of Mike Blair's out word 'fahrenheit' and the first two records, albeit it with a bit of Andy's link cut out where it didn't fit!.  Dick then went on to keep playing excerpts throughout his show plus original jingles from the launch - from extremely dodgy CARTS!

On that first day in March 1987, the schedule looked like this:

6am-9am      - Andy Maarriott

9am-10am    - The Music Jam

10am-1pm    - Andy Miller

1pm-1:15pm - Report at 1

1:15pm-2pm - The Music Jam

2pm-5:45pm - Danny Cox

5:45pm-6pm - Report at 5:45

So there you have it.  The station that 'reached a new peak' as the publicity said.  It worked for me.  From there, Trent was still great - at least compared to what we've got now.  I appeared on Trent-FM 102.8 during the early 1990s in a simulcast with hospital radio from the Market Place during a hospital radio broadcasting marathon I was running.  I was on air with Dick on Trent, and other hospital radio jocks, including a man who is now on Trent himself - one James Daniels - but that's not as I know him.

And so, what goes around, comes around. Along came some group to take over, one GWR group, busy acquiring anything that moved and another launch was imminent.  Monday 28th February 1994 was the last day for Derby's Trent-FM 102.8, which kicked off with 'Dick In The Morning' for the very last time.  During Dick Stone's show, the archives were dredged for the best of the breakfast show since Dick started presenting it.  Then at 6am, the following morning, the last Trent-FM news jingle was heard, and Anne Marie-Minhall read the news on the station with no name (at that time anyway!).  The jingle out of the news said that the 'frequency had been seized on behalf of the people of Derby.'  WOW I thought, Derby was finally going to get it's very own radio station that didn't live in the shadow of Nottingham, which turned out to be RAM-FM (which we apparently picked the name and the music for (sounds familiar?))  - DLT appeared first whispering 'I know you're out there' and then introducing my old mate 'James Daniels' (who must have been as nervous as hell bless him!) as the breakfast show presenter, and music from Simply Red, Talk Talk, Phil Collins etc etc etc.  But the less said about that particular station, the better.  'James' later rang me at hospital radio, and asked me what I thought.  So I told him!  Sorry!

Ironically, RAM-FM started on what would have been Derby's Trent-FM's 7th birthday!

Rob Wagstaff later took control of the Programme Controller at RAM, but has since left GWR completely, whilst Dick Stone is now PD at Trent-FM in Nottingham (they swapped), Andy Miller was, until recently,  hanging on in there for grim death on Derby's Breakfast Show, but I have no idea what he's doing now or if he's still on RAM or TRENT.  He's probably continuing with his stage hire business 'Crowdpullers', who incidentally, provided staging and the sound system for Ockbrook & Borrowash's OCKASH FESTIVAL 2000 in Derbyshire.  As for Andy Marriott and Danny Cox, click the names to visit the TRACKER.

Come back TRENT 945, all is forgiven.

Ian Perry - December 2001.

(Copies of the 945 launch, 90mins of Trent's Fifth birthday, a TRENT 301 documentary, my own double cassette package 'TRENT GOLD', the last Dick In The Morning, and jingles galore, plus more Trent stuff, are all available in the AIRCHECK ARCHIVE. If the Archive page doesn't have anything on it, or the link isn't working, please e-mail ianmsperry@hotmail.com to discuss more.)

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Pat Sissons from Southampton writes: 'I used to collect in my younger (anorak) days but my collection is probably similar to yours in some respects - except a lot worse quality - I lived in Sheffield so 945 sounded great - until twilight!  And 102.8 was awful until I got a decent tuner in 1991!  Also I never really looked after the tapes so most got scattered to the four winds!  However I remember geting up at 6am to hear that first great morning as well - glad I did it now!  Trent was the station that really got me excited about radio - and thanks to accommodating people like Rob Wagstaff who let me pester them into visits to the studio, publicity shots, etc.  I now work for a small station here in Southampton and I can honestly say Trent 945 inspired me into this career!  PS: I was on Dick Stone's advent calendar one year!'

Rob Lubbock from Loughborough, Leicestershire, recalls: 'I am a good friend of Danny Cox, I have known him since 1991, when I first moved up to the East Midlands from East Anglia, before I moved up I listened to Trent FM 102.8 for Derbyshire, instead of Trent FM 96.2 for Nottingham, Danny was doing the Morning Show and also The Weekly Top 30. I was staying in Hathern in Leicestershire, I preferred Derby's Trent as it had great line up Dick on Breakfast, Danny on Mornings, and Andy Miller in the afternoon squeezed in between that the Music Jam' of course!   When Danny left Trent to go to SGR Colchester in August 1993, to be Station Manager he did the 10am-2pm show, and also I believe Saturday Breakfast Show 6-9am for a while.  I last saw Danny in 2001 at Fox FM where is still today, I am hoping to see him again soon, as we still Jingle swap and anorak!  Great website Ian and excellent Trent FM 102.8 Pages Great stuff!!!!!

Have you seen on Media UK in the Radio Nostalgia about Trent/Leicester Sound Memories which Simon Parry started off?  I have put a few comments on there. ( www.mediauk.com/t/3345/muk.html )  Including the time I was shown around Radio Trent 945 old studios on the Market Place in Derby by Danny Cox, the studios and building compared to Trent in Nottingham were smaller but I thought it was rather nice and cosy.  Hard to believe now as the premises now houses a Derbyshire Police office.

Jane who used to work on reception always used to give me freebies, pens, keyrings etc.  She was really nice and she always knew who I was when I used to get updated programme schedules and things.'

If the above 'mediauk' link does not work, it's probably been removed as a topic of discussion - if so, please let us know at ianmsperry@hotmail.com !

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TRENT MUSEUM PAGE 6 - THE FINAL GEM-AM LINE UP - Can you help?