Thousands listened each day as SHB took to the airwaves
A MIX OF PANACHE, TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE AND PROFESSIONALISM COMBINED WITH DISTINCTIVE HUMOUR
Over the years, thousands of patients will have listened to it.
As they lay in their hospital beds, they’ll have taken in the sounds of Mungo Jerry, Dana, Elvis and more.
We’re talking about the Sunderland Hospital Broadcasts service, which brought radio to the people facing a stay on the wards.
And just under 50 years ago, the Echo put the spotlight on the people behind the scenes.
Let’s take another look at those 1970 DJs who did such sterling work – including one man who was an earlymorning award-winner thanks to a blackbird!
It was Ken McKenzie who helped to get it all off to a great start.
He helped to form Sunderland Hospital Broadcasts and was the chairman of the executive committee in 1970. But he was much more than that. He was also an awardrecording winner.
He won the music section of the British Tape Recording contest in 1969 with his of a blackbird in song. Ken got up at 5am one summer morning at his East Herrington home to listen for the perfect blackbird trill.
Then, he incorporated it into a recording which featured a folk singer. The end result was he won the “greatest tape-recording prize in the country,” said the Sunderland Echo at the time.
He also won the 1969 technical experimental section of the same competition thanks to his electronic version of Blaydon Races which he called On The Blaydon Beat.
The Echo in 1970 said: “Watching Sunderland Hospital Broadcasts in action is a little like being subject to an intoxicating dose of both contrasting tunes.”
Every night, hospital patients would put on their earphones. They got the hospital radio service every Saturday as well.
It was a classy affair which “comes over loud and clear and with panache, imagination, a portion of bedside-manner sentiment, and an almost unnerving professionalism that many an experienced radio journalist or producer would find hard to fault.”
The station’s studio was based at Havelock Hospital and the team behind it had
timing “fastidious
for technical excellence.” And
all that was combined
with a lighthearted outlook. Our story said a observer looking in on a broadcasting session might be forgiven for thinking it couldn’t be ‘any more mad, noisy or partylike’ than if the entire cast of the Goon Show, a Wearside jazz band, and smattering of national celebrities had wandered in. But that’s precisely why it was such a success, because the team behind it ‘manage to infect patients in Sunderland hospitals with their own distinctive form of humour and morale-boosting medicine.’
Sunderland Hospital Broadcasts started out as a sports coverage service called the Sunderland Hospitals Commentators Association 18 years earlier but it acquired a ‘new, more comprehensive format’ in 1968.
But how good was it and what did the patients think? Perhaps the best indication was the number of requests the station received for programmes from its audience.
A staggering 1,000 patients a night – out of 4,000 in the Sunderland area – would make a song request each night!
Handling it all was a 40-strong team of SHB staff and they would handled requests on the Rediffusion Channel D.
Music was most popular although sport, magazine and news items also got their share of listeners.
And the fans were fantastically loyal. For example, there was one night when SHB broadcaster Brian Alan (real name Brian Alan Woodward) announced on air he was having to have coffee without milk.
The next day, parcels of canned milk arrived from patients.
And when he said thank you over the air, he mentioned in the conversation that his car was dropping to bits around him.
The day after that, a gleaming model car turned up.
Ken said at the time: “All the work is voluntary but no one would do it if they didn’t enjoy it, believe me. SHB only attracts those who are keen and who remain really keen.”
Six of the original commentators who ran Sunderland Hospitals Commentators’ Association were still with the team in 1970.
If you remember the hospital radio service of 1970, email chris.cordner@ jpress.co.uk
“SHB only attracts those who are keen and remain keen” KEN MCKENZIE, 1970