Those were the days: Radio station crackles into life

RADIO SHEFFIELD Breakfast presenter Everard Davy in the studio at Radio Sheffield. November 07 2001 radionb

Exactly 49 years ago next week, a local institution that has soundtracked our lives for five decades crackled into life for the very first time.

It was on November 15, 1967 that BBC Radio Sheffield first took to the airwaves - and since then, a host of presenters have come and gone and love it or loathe it, chances are that you’ve listened in at one time or another, be it for Toby Foster’s lively breakfast debate show, the mid-morning meanderings of long-serving presenter Rony Robinson or the station’s famed Praise or Grumble football phone in show.

Radio Sheffield came into being as the result of a 1966 Government White Paper which created nine BBC local radio stations.

BBC Radio Sheffield's breakfast team, Toby Foster and Antonia Brickell.

Radio Leicester came first, followed by Radio Sheffield a few days later.

A team of 15 launched the station on a trial basis for two years at first, broadcasting for just four hours a day. By 1974 the team had grown to 35, broadcasting programmes for 12 hours.

Radio Sheffield now has a city centre base on Shoreham Street but prior to that it was based in a Victorian house, Ashdell Grove on Westbourne Road, now part of the independent Westbourne School.

Pictured outside Radio Sheffield, where presenter Toby Foster met up with a group of young people from Hinde House, and City schools, who were launching their comedy contest for young people from 14 to 16.

Tony Capstick of Radio Sheffield and the Lord Mayor of Sheffield, Cllr Peter Horton, pictured with the Radio Sheffield 20th Anniversary cake in the Mayor's Parlour at the Town Hall, Sheffield - 13th November 1987

BBC Radio Sheffield Comic Relief stand in the Frenchgate Centre, pictured l-r, Sophie Mei, Bellydancer, Gareth Evans,DJ, Katherine Taylor, owner of Seen/Homeboy, Hannah Wilson: Picture Michael Ford