Click
here for our 2011 holiday pics
July
2007 was the 40th anniversary of my first broadcast on Manx Radio
and for this, I produced a two hour documentary in which I traced some
of the people I worked with in the 60s. (audio links) The studios were then located on Loch Promenade, Douglas.
I
hadn't planned a career in radio, it happened quite by accident, more
details on that below.
My love of radio can be
traced to my earliest childhood, a time when everyone was glued to the wireless for the latest
news from the battlefields of WW2. We were certainly well
informed by the BBC, I remember dad and my brother plotting the allies advancement on a
giant map in our living room. With an Irish mother, Radio Eireann was
also a popular choice in our house. There were so many good music
programmes presented by people like Henry Hall and of course, the comedy shows like ITMA, or "Much Binding in the
Marsh" Dramatic serials like "Dick Barton, Special
Agent" which was one of my favourites.
Dad loved tinkering with gadgets, our cupboard under
the stairs was filled with radio valves and all the other paraphernalia
to make them work, but that was just his hobby. He was a qualified master carpenter
and was in business with partner Bill Callister, trading as "Callister
and Quayle, Joiners." One of his jobs was to construct a
"radio shack" in the grounds of the home of T.H. Colebourn
in Ballasalla. As part payment for the work, dad was given a short-wave
transceiver which meant he could communicate with the
world. So my earliest radio memories were of my father
broadcasting to the world from our attic at 9 Upper Church Street
Douglas in the early 1940s. For me, life has come full
circle with people tuning in to the Late Show on Manx Radio, around
the world via the Internet.
Click on the links below for stories, anecdotes, audio, video and
photographs of my lifetime connection to the "Wonderful World of the Wireless."
