Those were the days: Radio station crackles into life

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

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