On The Radio

Hello There

Although you may know me from my television appearances, I am occasionally asked about the short time I spent working in radio. This was many years ago, and I was a much younger man - a teenager, even. In an exceptional display of rebellion (a trait I now understand to be surprisingly commonplace in young people) I selectively absconded from lectures at University for almost an entire year, to work on a boat. I say selectively because I managed to continue my studies without interruption and convince my lecturers that I was still a regular attendee. I discovered later that this was because my contribution to lectures on the one week in three I did attend was considered so overwhelmingly intense that the tutors were still reeling from my presence over a fortnight later. I was awarded a double First by the end of my second year for the same reason.

So why one week in three, and why a boat?

Well, this was the mid-sixties and that rebellious streak coupled with my interest in contemporary music prompted me to apply for a job on one of the pirate radio stations that were springing up around our sceptred isle at the time. In March 1966 I joined “The Big V” - “setting The Wash alight on 288 metres” -, admittedly not one of the biggest pirates, but receivable in Cambridge, where my programme “Tad Ventura’s Spin Cycle” developed an eclectic following. I loathed being ‘Tad Ventura’ but station management were keen to pursue a transatlantic presentation style. Fortunately, even though my clipped English tones were as pure then as they are now, the epithet created a welcome anonymity which has sustained me within the corridors of academe ever since.

They were heady days.

Every third Wednesday we would set sail from King’s Lynn on a two hour voyage to the MV Dysnomia, a converted coastal freighter anchored off the Norfolk coast, to spend the next fortnight tossing on the heaving swell of a cheerless North Sea and playing records. Sea-sickness was not a problem for me although my shipmates did tend to succumb to it, usually whilst I was on the air. Despite my particular programme (or "show") being scheduled between the pre-recorded tirades of two American evangelists, I did have followers of my own. “Tad Ventura’s Spin Cycle” was special in that it featured music that hadn’t quite made it into the Hit Parade and nor was ever likely to. Yet as with all things, this music had unique qualities which I spent my time analysing in depth. Although many provincial listeners didn’t have a clue what I was talking about, I regularly received letters from London - often from the musicians whose discs I had featured, or perhaps their legal representatives.

I left "The Big V" in January 1967 when, inexplicably, I was taken to Esjberg* in Denmark rather than King’s Lynn. Fortunately time is a great healer. I still have my ‘Big V’ promotional pac-a-mac and, as you’ll remember, I thrive on the profound scrutiny of popular music.

I listened recently to an interview on the radio in which the African singer Youssou N’dour spoke about his new reggae-style album which he recorded in order to raise awareness of the continuing problem of malaria.

On "The Big V", I would have announced it as someone from the Mali area using music from the Marley era to sing about Malaria.

Heady days indeed.

With warmest regards

Vernon Thornycroft


*To be precise, the life-raft blew ashore at Fanø Bugt, several miles to the south.