In the grounds of Erith Cottage Hospital is this ramshackle building (next to the WWII X-Ray air raid shelter). Ive nicked this from the brilliant Arthur Pewtys Maggot Sandwich Blog, Google it, loads of local info! ...a chap called Derek Smith, who was deeply involved in the station. These are his recollections:- My involvement started in about 1973 when I was given contact details for the Chairman. I rang him and was invited along to the studio in the old surface air-raid shelter just inside the gates. The building had been used as a storeroom but at some time the radio equipment rack for the BBC had been put in to supply the three bedside channels. If I remember correctly the channels were Radio 1, 2 and 4. I could never really pin down when Radio Erith actually started - there was a sort of vague about 5 years ago. The station was run by a committee headed by the founding member Dennis Burrage, who I seem to remember lived in Slade Green. He must have been well into his 40s when I joined and I believe he has since died. There was also an elderly lady named Joyce, who lived in a very dilapidated house in Queens Road while waiting for re-housing. The engineering member of the committee was Terry Brett, a BBC engineer who had been building a new studio mixer (when time allowed - which wasnt often). In terms of presenters other than Joyce and Dennis there was Brian Lee, another chap who was OCD about Johnny Mathis, and Alan. The last named was a great experimenter and would often sit at home getting steadily drunk making up tapes to play on his show. His piece de resistance was to mix Pink Floyds The Dark Side of The Moon with The Clangers - interesting but not quite sure what the patients made of it! Finally there was Peggy, the hospital switchboard operator, who presented the Wednesday night request hour. I was interviewed and sound checked and given the job of engineering the request show. The studio was small and consisted of a small green room, the studio control room and a presenters booth. The control room was set for both engineered and self op programmes. Peggy was a great laugh but always presented her programmes with style - the patients loved her. Together we revamped the hour long request show as a two-hander before Peggy disappeared and I carried on with a general music programme for another hour. Normal broadcasting was carried out from 7pm to 9.30ish, with extra hours on a Saturday afternoon and Sunday. We gradually attracted more young presenters but these were not always welcomed by the Chairman - who had very set ways. Erith being a small hospital, had very few listeners so we decided to spread our wings and raised enough money to rent a post office line to Dartford West Hill. This enabled us to broadcast to both hospitals simultaneously but relied on the hospital engineer at West Hill switching us on at set times. Unfortunately our Chairman had rubbed the guy up the wrong way and he could be less than co-operative, so we were broadcasting to nothing as far as Dartford were concerned most evenings. The friction between some of us younger members and Dennis came to a head in early 1977. There were big changes in the world of hospital radio but Radio Erith wasnt keeping up. Brian and I suggested we should move our studios to Dartford and broadcast back to Erith - Dartford being the much bigger hospital. This suggestion was met with mounting anger from Dennis, and at a hostile committee meeting Brian and I announced we were moving to West Hill and were in talks with the Hospital Administrator to find a suitable building to house the studio. West Hill were delighted and allowed us to use an old store room over A1 ward as the studio - one great benefit was that it had a couple of large windows that looked out over the hospital, which made us feel a bit more part of it. In July 1977 we attended the Dartford Show as the fledgling Dart Radio, and received a lot of support. Part of the money raised from the show was donated to us to buy equipment and by September 77 Dart Radio was operational. I left after about a year to join the local cable station Greenwich Television, and Brian went on to become a star in local politics. with the destruction of West Hill, Dart Radio moved in with Radio Joyce Green and has now been absorbed by Valley Park Radio at Darent Valley. Radio Erith continued on after we left but not for too long. Dont have a date for closure but it was winding down by the end of the 70s and with the closure of the operating theatres in the early 80s the need for a dedicated hospital radio station had gone. Unfortunately I dont have any pictures - there was an article about the station in the Erith Times in about 1975 I think, with a photograph of some of the presenters. Funnily enough the sign outside the old studio that you featured was made by me in 1974 - so it has survived OK (probably better than me!)
Posted on: Wed, 11 Jun 2014 18:11:13 +0000
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