25 Years
Just realised it will be 25 years on Thursday since Centre Radio opened (and 22 for Leicester Sound!) Any memories of the station that anyone wishes to share, please feel free!

22 for Leicester Sound?? wow!! as i may have said elsewhere, i was involved in clearing out all the stuff Centre had left behind, and then in the launch at Abbey Park, where we had a fabulous fireworks display, with me playing the 1812 overture to them!! But 22 years......where did they go to.....?

centre radio
Well I stumbled onto this site by accident and found the reading good. I still have a Centre Radio mug ~(used to collect mugs) and went and dug it out and sent a pic. Now looking for other pictures I had from circa late 82. This then young 14 year old loved Centre Radio from the 1st -*test*-('") transmissions, again stumbled onto by accident,, and dial tunning. When the station started it was even better. It really was "brighter every way" :D Let face it radio way back then had as much choice as 4 channels of TV. You either listened to Radio 1,2 or BBC Radio Leicester Now no disrespect to them but none of them appealed to me. All my mates listened lemming style to Radio 1,,and Radio 2 and BBC Leicester were mainly for anyone over the age of 65 as far as I perceived. So Centre was a breath of fresh air which I identified with. This youngster promptly got a car stickers even though he was too young to have a car and put them on his bedroom window and his bike ( sad or what). Collecting them from reception was a pleasure as the receptionist (Leona) was an atrractive "older woman" of early 20 something and my hormones were kicking in. :wink: I didn't stalk reception to much but did manage to pop in for presenter pics or batteries one christmas morning that were being given away. 8) I also seem to recall some sort of charity auction that took place with people bidding on different stuff and the station was open all day. What other memories: Met Mark Williams at at launch of a double glazing company on Uppingham Road that he attending and got the picture signed. Jesus was I that sad ?? I actually won a competition once and got The Musical Youth LP can remember which show though. Think it was Tony Blewitt All this got me quite interested in broadcasting and I asked for a tour of the station and one Saturday morning John Evington showed me round the studios after his breakfast show. ( I have pics somewhere which I will try and find). He was brilliant with me and very informative. There was a brief period where I thought this is for me,, but it never happened. Poor career advice at school meant I never got into broadcasting,or sound engineering, and I am now in the motor industry via the hosiery industry. Still for me as a listener, the demise of Centre started when the 1983 jingle package came out. It was a different identity and "cheesy" The writing was probably on the wall and that was an attempt to freshen the station up. History shows it didnt work. For me the presenters I liked the best were Timmy Mallet, John Evington, Tony Blewitt, Rob Wagstaff, Kenny Hague. So Centre eventually closed and I had to join the lemmings listening to Radio 1 again. Leics Sound came along took a long while to win me over. It was just radio trent wasnt it!!! , and more to the point it WASN'T Centre. Leics Sound has had some crap times looking back at your website jingles and soundbites,,.. Was it really that crap late 80-s early 90's? . to be fair Guy Morris was good (Damien St John now re-incarnated?) , and so was Nick Murden, but for me it didnt get back on the rails again until more recently with GWR in the late 90's when it stopped trying to be the commercial version of BBC Radio Leicester and went totally music based with its own identity at last.. I cant believe it used to have on air farming news. :shock: right then off to look for those pictures. and wonder If Leona is married with 6 kids.. :wink: :roll: