Dave Cash was DJ at start of Radio 1
One of Hollingbourne’s more famous residents, DJ Dave Cash, died suddenly from a heart attack on Friday, October 21, aged 74.
Mr Cash, who was one of the country’s first pirate radio DJs, lived with wife Sara at Sandhurst on the Ashford Road, not far from the Parkgate Inn.
Dave Cash was born David Charles Wish in Bushey, Hertfordshire, in 1942.
When he was four, his family emigrated to Canada, although he was sent back to Britain for his secondary education.
He served in the Merchant Navy in Canada, picking up a north American accent that he never entirely lost.
He started broadcasting in Canada, with CFUN radio, but returned to London at 21 to join Radio London – where he used the pseudonym Cash after singer – Johnny Cash.
He teamed up with Kenny Everett in the Kenny and Cash Show, but switched to Radio Luxembourg, the BBC Light Programme, finally joining Radio 1 at its launch in 1967, working alongside Tony Blackburn, Ed Stewart, Alan Freeman and Jimmy Young.
In 1969 he had a Top 30 hit, with the novelty song, Groovy Baby, featuring the gurgling threeyear-old son of a BBC colleague.
He later worked for Capital Radio, Radio West, and Radios Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Solent, Berkshire and Oxford.
The multi-talented Mr Cash hosted several episodes of TV’s Top of The Pops.
He wrote and performed The Radio Programme, for HTV, a 26-part sitcom/music show that featured Sammy Davis Jr, Richard Harris and Terry-Thomas, and he appeared in the movies Quadrophenia (as himself) and in The American Way.
He also wrote three novels with the first one, The Rating Game, making the best-seller charts for four weeks in 1991.
He was married three times, having a son and daughter with his second wife, actress Monica Evans.
His last wife was Sara Davies, who had appeared on his Radio Kent show as Emily Email. They married in Florida in 2011.
His last radio broadcast was on October 15, for BBC local radio, in a tribute to Bob Dylan.