The Mark Hammerton Collection

Mark Hammerton was first heard on King Radio in 1965. King later gave way to Radio 390 and Mark stayed on with the new station. He later broadcast on both Radio Caroline North & South and Radio 355 as “Mark Sloane”. These tapes are from his private collection. Many thanks to Mark for his generous assistance.

MARK HAMMERTON'S KING RADIO TAPES.

Mark Hammerton has lent The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame some recordings made on Red Sands Fort more than fifty years ago. For the first time you can hear King Radio as it sounded in the studio.

John McGowan presenting the 15th July 1965 edition of Mail Boat the daily request show (duration 3 minutes 26 seconds)
 
John McGowan on an edition of Lunch Box (duration 3 minutes 20 seconds)
 
Roger Gomez presenting an edition of Lunch Box (duration 3 minutes 38 seconds)
 
Roger Gomez presenting the popular Lucky Numbers programme. The full tape reveals requests from a “Seymour Legg” and a “Mona Lott”! Either the King audience had a sense of humour or Roger was running short of requests and was resorting to a few inventions of his own (duration 3 minutes 24 seconds)
 
Pete Glossop on Our Kinda Folk, one of the station's specialist music shows (duration 1 minute 21 seconds)
 
The smooth sound of John Ross-Barnard on an edition of Melody Hour from the end of August 1965 (duration 3 minutes 20 seconds)
 
Stephen West takes a stroll down Memory Lane on Bank Holiday Monday 30th August 1965 (duration 2 minutes 46 seconds)
 
Stephen West playing some of the new releases on Up And Coming (duration 53 seconds)
 
Among Mark's tapes were two pre-recorded half-hour programmes he co-presented with John Stewart. Called The Hammerstew Show, they are identified as being “test recording”. Mark says: “The Hammerstew programmes were John and I learning to broadcast so in effect we were testing ourselves. I am pretty sure that they were aired but it was all such a long time ago.” John disagrees. He doesn't think they were ever broadcast. Does anyone remember hearing a Hammerstew programme on King?
Mark Hammerton and John Stewart on a pre-recorded Hammerstew Show (duration 4 minutes 10 seconds)

Copies of these tapes have now been passed to The Offshore Radio Archive and added to its database.

MARK HAMMERTON'S RADIO 390 TAPES.

Mark has kindly donated a selection of the theme tunes used in the early months of Radio 390.

The theme tune to Continental Cabaret (duration 28 seconds)
 
The theme tune to Intermezzo (duration 29 seconds)
 
The theme tune to Evening Serenade (duration 27 seconds)
 
The theme tune to Stateside '65 (duration 24 seconds)
 
The theme tune to Teatime Tunes (duration 28 seconds)
 
Goodnight ladies. It is time to close the pages of “Eve, the woman's magazine of the air” (duration 1 minute 3 seconds)
 

The voice on all these recordings belongs to the late Mike Raven.