Manchester’s Piccadilly Radio is inviting listeners to share their memories of the station for a book celebrating its 50th anniversary.
For the Record – Piccadilly Radio’s 50th Anniversary, is scheduled for publication next year, ahead of Piccadilly’s birthday in April 2024, and will tell the story of the people who helped make Piccadilly Radio one of the most successful mixed news and entertainment radio station in the country, listened to by millions of people every day.
The book will be written by Piccadilly alumni Brian Beech, who incongruously began his career at the station as ‘Road Safety Officer’ before becoming a producer and eventually rising to head of promotional development and Tony Ingham, who joined the station before its official launch in 1974 as promotions manager, rising to programme controller in his 11 years at the radio station.
The presenters, journalists, producers, engineers and, most important of all, the listeners will all feature in the comprehensive tome which will follow how the station, and its earworm jingles, become the soundtrack to millions of North West lives and part of the fabric of life in the region.
The station, which now operates as Greatest Hits Radio Manchester 96.2 FM under the Bauer Media umbrella, spawned the careers of national personalities such as Chris Evans, Timmy Mallett, Gary Davies, Mark Radcliffe, Andy Crane, Steve Penk and Andy Peebles, plus a host of journalists, TV and film producers, businessmen and women and entrepreneurs.
Ingham said: “For the listener, Piccadilly Radio was their music and their friend. Mention it to anyone of a certain age and immediately they are back under the bedclothes with Dave Ward. We’ve got lots of stories from colleagues who worked there, but a major reason that Piccadilly was so successful was that it broadcast to the most responsive and the very best of audiences. We want to hear what Piccadilly Radio meant to them.”
If you have a story from the Piccadilly Radio days, just email piccadillyat50@gmail.com.
