There’s currently a small exhibition at the ICA looking at the history of London’s pirate radio. The Guardian recently ran a great photogallery on the subject.
Not coincidentally, I’ve been reading a new book on pirate radio, London’s Pirate Pioneers by Stephen Hebditch, who formerly edited a magazine dedicated to pirate radio. It’s a great book, crammed with detail and utterly absorbing.
My knowledge of pirate radio was restricted to the 1960s offshore stations, and then the 1980s dance stations. I knew about the latter because I sometimes stumbled upon them while retuning from Capital Gold to LBC in search of football results. There would be a javelin of static, a man shouting, booming bass and a general feeling of chaos. I also diligently watched Lenny Henry, so knew all about the illegal broadcasting activities of Delbert Wilkins, who ran the a pirate radio show in Brixton.
Hebditch’s book mentions Henry, who was a supporter of probably London’s most famous pirate, Kiss FM, which like many others broadcast using transmitters stuck above shops on Westow Hill in Crystal Palace. But he also talks in detail about aspects of pirate radio that are much less well known. The book looks at developments in the pirate scene year-by-year from the 1960s, starting with a general overview taking in major shifts in technology, approach, licensing laws and law enforcement, followed by a longer look at a couple of the year’s most important stations, and then a round-up of all the other stations that broadcast that year – some of them only surviving a week.
The detail is astonishing and what really fascinated me was the range of stations that existed. Many were playing jazz, dub, soul, funk and reggae – and the story of the way Black Londoners embraced pirate radio in the 1980s is an important one. Hundreds were later playing dance music, but there was also stations for heavy metal, classic rock, pop, and rock and roll as well as for local community groups: Poles, Greeks and South Indians all had stations. There was even said to be a far-right station, Radio Enoch, broadcasting in the Midlands, which was shut down after members from one London rock station went to pay a visit.
From these stations came numerous DJs we know today – Tim Westwood, Gilles Peterson, Annie Nightingale, Pete Tong, Judge Jules and Steve Lamacq – but also a hint of the variety of music and programming that the radiowaves could support. Many paid their costs by charging advertisers; some even charged the DJs for the right to present.
A station like Phoenix (1981-1985) would play early indie – Ellery Bop, Nightingales, Inflatable Boy Clams – mixed with “dub, jazz, industrial and African”, with guest presenters like Robert Wyatt and The Monochrome Set. Similar was Network 21, that played alternative rock and dance, while also covering news, cinema listings, concerts, plays and exhibitions.
Then there’s Radio Concord, which grew out of the west London squatting scene between 1972 and 1976, sometimes broadcasting from the house in Maida Vale where Joe Strummer lived with the 101ers. This was a politicised counterculture station, and would comment on issues like Northern Ireland and housing rights. “They have even been critical of the Queen,” the Daily Mail reported. One time, they were busted while broadcasting so stuck a mike through the letterbox to try and interview the law live on air.
Then there was Radio Amanda, that lasted from 1982-1984 playing a pre-Resonance diet of space rock and electronic music. At roughly the same time, there was Our Radio, a station started by anarchists that had shows devoted to feminists, gay groups and Brixton-based anarchists. It had few listeners but the police hated it: in one court case it was described as an “anarchist, terrorist, homosexual” radio station.
Radio Wapping broadcasting briefly in 1986 to support the printworkers striking after News International’s move to Wapping. And in 1983, comedian Keith Allen launched Breakfast Pirate Radio, which was broadcast “using helium-filled balloons over Notting Hill” (ahem) and featured “comic-characters, malicious celebrity gossip, radio outtakes and the names of supposedly bent coppers.” Robbie Coltrane also featured and you can listen to it here.
Best of all, though, was a station called The Home Of Good Baking which broadcast for a few weeks in 1989 using a jingle from United Biscuit Network, the 1970s in-house radio station at United Biscuits in Hayes.
The Great Wen 
The exibition’s been on my list of things to do since I read about it a few months ago (when it hadn’t opened yet), but that book sounds great too. I do remember when pirate stations ran a bit more like legal stations, with different regular DJ slots playing and saying different styles, then at some point in the 90s all the pirate stations seemed exclusively to play one kind of music across each station instead of the variety. I got a lot of my musical education from a pirate station called Reflections — I found it after school one day when I found a show playing house and techno, but was delighted to discover that the breakfast show consisted of rare groove, jazz and reggae, which became my alarm clock for a while. Best. breakfast. show. ever. There was also DJ who played loads of Caribbean carnival music (zouk, mostly) which was unlike anything you’d ever hear anywhere else on the radio. Pirate stations were great!
Great piece, Pete. I got into pirate radio as a kid after tracking down our local “community’ radio station. They eventually gave me a show, broadcasting from a back bedroom on 242 medium wave. It was run by a load of CND campaigners and hippies, with the smell of mung bean stew hanging in the air. On visits to London, I’d tape the sound of the FM dial, hearing that shouty Steve Walsh-style R&B on Sunrise and LWR. The other, forgotten, aspect of this story was the impact of competitors to Radio 1 broadcasting pure pop from the North Sea or Ireland: Laser 558 and Atlantic 252.
Radio Concord criticism of the Queen referred to a play by Heathcote Williams broadcast by the station which described the rape of the Queen in the aftermath of civil unrest. Roads around the transmission site were blocked by the police while they attempted to raid it, the station switched sites 3 times that evening although they were raided eventually. I was on site that night so I can confirm it. Also the linked site has closed for Radio Concord has closed, Arnold Levine’s site https://www.tommysholidaycamp.com/pirate-radio-england-1970s/ has more information, or you can read about my time on the station scroll down to Radio Concord, and see some pictures in the 70’s Pirates gallery https://skyportradio.com