“This, for the very first time, is Capital Radio”. Phew, my alarm clock had gone off and I was able to hear these words live on the radio station I’d been working at for the last six days. I’d been worried that I might miss the momentous moment because I’d only had a few hours much needed sleep after the most hectic and exciting few days of my life. It was October 1973, and commercial radio was about to become a reality in the United Kingdom. LBC had already gone on air providing news and talk for London, but I’d landed a ‘temporary’ job at Capital, the music and entertainment station due to start broadcasting at 5am on Tuesday 16th October. “It won’t be glam, and it’ll be hard work” I was told as I pitched up for duties at Euston Tower early on Wednesday morning, the 10th. My first job, take a taxi to Capital’s temporary headquarters in Piccadilly to collect some office supplies, a box of records and various other things. Back at Euston Tower the carpet tiles for the as yet unfurnished studios and offices were arriving at the back door by truck. My job, count the boxes as they were unloaded. So far no ‘glam’, but wait, I’d just spotted Dave Cash in a corner area surrounded by heaps of 539 t-shirts! Dave was and still is a radio legend and at that time was also a big telly star with his weekly Tuesday afternoon show.

By now it was lunchtime and someone had asked me to supervise the distribution of lunchboxes to the staff. Sandwiches, chocolate biscuits, crisps and apples were the order of the day to keep everyone going, but the two coffee machines struggled valiantly to keep up with the much-needed caffeine breaks for the various engineers, producers, workmen, directors, secretaries and presenters who demanded sustenance. Not that I knew exactly who was who that day, but as everyone from Chairman Richard Attenborough, Managing Director John Whitney through to Programme Controller Michael Bukht was on first name terms it wasn’t long before I felt I’d joined the Capital ‘family’. Anyway, as my next task was to stick two-line biographies onto the back of all the presenters’ 10 x 8 inch black and white photos to go into hundreds of press packs I was soon familiar with the likenesses of Tommy Vance, Joan Shenton, Dave Symonds, Roger Scott, Nicky Horne, Tony Myatt and other more well-known names and faces such as Kenny Everett, Tim Rice, Marsha Hunt, Peggy Mount and Dirk Bogarde.

All around me there were people making phone calls, listening to records, and unspooling miles and miles of wires for the obviously nowhere near ready on-air studios. Carpenters were hammering away erecting cupboards and shelving, and then another consignment of desks arrived to be temporarily set up before the aforementioned carpet tiles were laid down. One office belonging to press and publicity lady Edna Tromans was stacked to the ceiling with cases of champagne, and in an area away from the offices and studios were several camp beds and a stack of sleeping bags for people who were too tired to go home and needed some sleep! Evening quickly came on that first day of mine and again people needed feeding. My task was to order up a couple of dozen kebabs from a local Greek restaurant and ferry them back to the Tower in, you guessed it, a taxi. Subsequent evenings saw me bringing huge buckets of curry and rice from the local Indian, hamburgers and chips from another nearby café, heaps and heaps of Chinese food (very popular!) and so on until all the neighbourhood options had been exhausted. (Luckily, Ricky, the owner of the Rambler Café on Euston Road soon came on board to provide round-the-clock refreshment so my nightly excursions swiftly came to an end). And so a pattern was established. As the 16th grew closer the pace inside the tower increased and the excitement levels rose. I got to know some of the guys and girls who would soon become part of the on-air output and I also made some lasting friendships in that week with behind-the-scenes guys like Clive Smith who first shared a cab with me from Piccadilly to Euston Tower that week in 1973 and has remained one of my closest pals ever since. Everyone pitched in as the days and hours ticked away, and although the main foyer area on the ground floor still had an unfinished sweeping staircase up to the first floor, the offices and studios upstairs were beginning to take shape. The carpet was laid, people were in place, typewriters clattered and music came from every corner. Every hour brought another delivery of promotional items like little cube radios with the Capital logo on all four sides, and even some ‘stereo’ radios with detachable speakers lest anyone forget that Capital Radio ‘Broadcasting on 539m. Medium Wave’ was also available on ’95.8 VHF Stereo’.

The magic day soon arrived. As I mentioned I wasn’t at the station at 5am but made it into the building soon after 9am. Dave Symonds’ show had passed without a hitch and Tommy and Joan were on air. Someone needed help in the phone room and I was soon up to speed on answering listeners incoming calls, passing on their ‘Swop Shop’ details to the programme producer, and contributing to a real live radio show. I still had to sort out the lunchboxes, but when I paused for a breather I discovered a rather lovely note on my desk next to a small bottle of champagne. It reads

“This is just to wish us all good luck and to thank you for everything that you have contributed in making today possible. We have a slightly more permanent little gift which we would like you to have at a party that we are planning for Sunday, October 28th when we hope that you and your family will join us for luncheon. We will be sending you an invitation within the next few days. With every good wish,

(Signed) John Whitney & Richard Attenborough.”

And of course the party was wonderful, and I ended up spending the next twenty-five years as part of the Capital Radio family.

MIKE CHILDS