Episode 5. Authentic Lifeline

In this episode Mark Quinn explores when BLB's listeners needed the local community radio station most, it answered the call. At a time when there was no internet or mobile phone services, BLB became the communication channel as Bray suffered two severe weather events in the 1980's. The worst was Hurricane Charley in August 1986 when the River Dargle overflowed, flooding some houses up to a depth of 1.5 metres and forcing 1000 people from their homes. Providing an all night broadcast with up to the minute information for the flood stricken areas of the town and relaying Emergency Services messages, Bray Local Broadcasting was a lifeline.

Credits: 

Sound recording by Mike Quinn 

Sound mixing by Luke Conlon 

High Wire Post Production, Dublin, Ireland 

www.highwire.ie  

Artwork by Jody Hogg Design 

www.jodyhogg.com  

Produced and presented by Mark Quinn 

The copyright for this podcast series is owned by Mark Quinn and is hereby reserved.

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Bray Talking Heads – Stories from a Seaside Town. A podcast celebrating the stories, history, and people of Bray, past and present. Whether you're a lifelong Brayite or just discovering this special town, join us for conversations that connect, inspire, and bring our community to life - wherever you are in the world. Hosted by Mark Quinn, Leah Kinsella, and Pat Hannon. Connect with us on Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky @braytalkingheads, or email us at braytalkingheads@gmail.com

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Transcript

 A Radiogenic production.



 (Music)

BLB, Sounds from the Past, Memories of Pirate Radio and Stories of Bray Local Broadcasting. Episode 5.



Bray Local Broadcasting weathered the storms of the 1980s and as we shall hear later in this episode, in more ways than one. This was a period dominated by the rise of the powerful pirate radio stations like Radio Nova. Gar the raids on many illegal broadcasters, repeated failed attempts by successive Irish governments to introduce licensed stations and the constant disappointment of seeing hopes for legal radio dashed. Despite these factors, BLB persevered, continually flying the flag for the establishment of community radio.

 (Music)



 We're on the air now.



 They were the authentic voices of the people of Bray. Yesterday afternoon on the seafront.

 I would like to wish BLB a very happy and successful future.

 I don't think any community is truly that without having its own radio station.

 The request is starting to flow in at the moment and if you would like.

 I think it's just communication and I think communication will open things up for everyone.

 There was

 the Meath Road listeners, there was the Wolfe Tone Square listeners, there was the Bogal Road.



 A sad little ditty, a bad salad, sorry, a sad ballad.

 Sitting on the dock coming home and saying,

 "I liked your program this morning." What on earth was that rubbish you put? It was wonderful.



 It was a service that it provided at the time. It really was the voice, the glue that made us what we are today. I think the town rediscovered its vibrant identity.



 (Music)

 Throughout its existence, BLB attracted local talent in many forms. Like this jingle given to me one day on cassette by my school classmate and musical genius, Jodie McStravick.



 (Music)

 Now

 Jodie didn't want anything in return. My memory is that he just said, "Here, have this. It's something we put together in the studio."



 Now we've a bit to go before we pull the plug on BLB and as I've been saying throughout this series, the radio station Pirate Though It May Have Been was democratically structured and in its latter years it actually had registered as a cooperative so that we would be ready to apply to the powers that be when radio licenses were going to be up for grabs. But more of that later, the democratic structure that we held dear wasn't without its challenges. Here's former station manager Sally Reynolds.

 The way that BLB was structured and the democratic engagement of everybody meant that people felt they had a voice. That was its great strength but also its great weakness because everything had to be decided democratically.



 And it gave me a great respect for the democratic process because you had to argue things, you had to make your case for things. It wasn't until somebody came along and said, "This is the way that we do it." And that's a very fundamental lesson to learn early in your life.

 And everything was decided democratically at the monthly general meetings held in a local hotel.

 Because we were a co-op, it was run by everybody and we would have the monthly meetings in O'Shea's hotel, smoke field rooms. 50, 60 people with an agenda and it would go on for hours.

 John Matthews. There would be talks backwards and forwards. Some people had criticisms that we weren't doing enough. Some people felt we weren't going the right direction. There was, I'd say, a lot of different views would come across.

 The order of business would usually be what was going on, the coordinator would give his report and then the AOV, the most anticipated part of the night.

 Pat Hammond recollects one particularly dramatic general meeting.

 And out of the smoke field room, up pops Nick Ugan. And Nick said that he had discovered in the premises in BLB itself, on the holy ground of BLB and he held up a condom. And the condom by the way was in the packet, okay? So there was gas from the assembled crew and audience as Nick emotionally told the story about how he found it and how the station probably could be involved in things that shouldn't really be discussed. And if this got out of air, the station, not only would it suffer its license, potentially not being able to get it, but we could be visited from priests and bishops and everything. We'd have to nearly get the X's in to get whatever was in the place out of the place.

 Oh, the drama of it all. Well, whatever about the internal machinations on the airwaves, BLB seemed to chime with its audience over its nine year life. It wasn't slick or polished, but its appeal was its authenticity.



 The listeners would

 hear local voices, people who were just ordinary people from the community.



 They wouldn't be hearing perfection, you know, they might hear mistakes, they might hear people say something they shouldn't. There was no political correctness because you could actually go on radio in those days. And, you know, you could say a lot more than you could say now. So the listeners were hearing a complete sense of freedom on the media. They were hearing people speaking about whatever they wanted to speak about. They were hearing about surprising things. They were hearing about everything local. Hi there, this is Ariel Sullivan.

 Hi, this is Elaine Keogh.

 Hi, girls. I'm Mike Phelan. BLB as a local station, the output was very varied. Doug McGuire. And with such a mix of broadcasting, you also had an incredible mix of broadcasters and presenters. But they had something to say, and it was important that they be allowed to say it. Why? Because their heart was in the right place. When you're listening to the shows, you're picking up what the person is saying, not how they say it.

 It's just after a quarter, after midnight.

 Yes, authenticity was the name of the game. There was an unfounded paranoia among many other pirate radio stations around disc jockeys using their own names on air because of the technical illegality of pirate radio broadcasting. So a whole generation of DJs used made up two Christian names like, I don't know, Tony Johns or Paul Nicholas or Brad James. I always thought that this was false and created these on-air personas that weren't real. So when I was recruiting in the early days, I encouraged new presenters to use their own names and speak in their own accents. And I actually distinctly remember one aspiring broadcaster telling me that my name was great and where did I get it from? I said, well, it's my actual name.



 Well, there you had Paddy Riley and the Flight of the Arrows, and I hope you enjoy that.

 Back then, when we only had one studio, any broadcast training was carried out live on air with me mostly encouraging newbie presenters to try and relax and just speak. This wasn't without its challenges. When one presenter, who we won't name, was struggling to get the hang of communicating on his music program. So I said, just relax and speak as you normally would in conversation. I opened the fader and I heard my new presenter say live on air. That was such and such and some effing lovely effing playing there.

 Whoops! When I was talking about Bray, I was delighted to find so many businesses owned and successfully run by women. So I decided to talk to a random half dozen of company owners.

 Through our growing contacts in the media business, we set up out of studio training for BLB members. And this helped with things like program structure as Freddie Morghan, who presented Uncle Bob's children's program, remembers.

 The radio station organized a fellow called Tom Savage and a group of professionals to do a course on presenting a radio program.



 And it was down in the tech.



 And this was a revelation to me.



 Basically one thing he said was and I always thought it was very very good. He said, if you're doing an air program, imagine the air is like a segment of an orange.



 So you have these segments.



 You know you have looked through and you say you've placed 16 records if you didn't speak at all. So then that's four records each quarter of an hour. So then you pace yourself for that hour. So you'd be able to play the first record, the last record. And you'd know it all day beforehand. So I went home then and I drew the circle and I put the model around and I said say well what will the pilot do start off with first. And then I say I'll do a Thomas the Tank Engine story. And then we put on their request for young children. You go down to the woods today or whatever it is. And then I'd have a sort of a funny song. And I worked out there was a sort of a formula to it. And by doing that each week then I was able to just fit in requests or whatever I had to do. So before I went even down near the radio station I had 99% of it already prepared.



 That's the song from the live Fleetwood Mac album recorded in 1980 and 1981 in Chicago. It's three minutes in front of ten. Time for myself Brian Graham to go.

 It

 didn't matter where you came from or who you were. And it really didn't. That wasn't even discussed. It was as true to the station as the seafront down the front. It was just as much part of the furniture.



 And obviously

 everyone was the same. Regardless of whether they had a very nice accent or where they were from. It was what they had to say and what they were able to contribute that mattered. This

 has been BLB Radio News with Peter Carroll. It's four minutes past six o'clock.

 Informative community radio. Bring local broadcasting. Where your friends are. All day, every day.

 So there we were. BLB. A passionate, volunteer run pirate radio station in Brey. We weren't just playing music. We were offering a source of connection and comfort. Through a mix of talk shows, sports, local updates and real involvement with the people. It was all about giving a voice to the community and in the days when immediate communication was only really available in person or by landline phone or radio. Slower communication took the form of posted letters or newspaper and television.

 Cyril Don, you're welcome to the programme. Thanks Joe. Now Cyril, I've got to say first of all I've had tremendous reports about last Monday night in the Sunnybank. Oh you missed a great night, Joe. I believe so.

 At standout, extreme weather events took place that we in BLB implicitly realised were times when our listeners, the people of Brey needed us the most and we stepped up. The first was in January 1982 when Ireland was brought to a complete standstill by a massive snow storm. Over 100,000 homes and businesses were without electricity. Transportation stopped and there were even bread riots.



 A 17-year-old newsreader on BLB, on Brey today and JJ's show at the time and now lives in Illinois will never forget that snow storm.

 I remember my sister and I fighting to get down through the snow to the studio and we got there just in time and I would scribble down some notes off of whatever news I had gathered and then JJ would give me the sign and I'd read the news. I started to read the news and all of a sudden realised my lips were completely frozen and I couldn't pronounce any words at all and I was blubbing and slurring through and JJ, the consummate professional that he was, was furious, absolutely furious but he didn't yell at me or anything. He sort of waited until I was finished and he turned off the mic and he turned to me and he said "If ever you feel you can't go on again, let me know. We'll postpone it." And that was that. It was done. But he really was just so upset that his show had been disturbed like that. But I remember going home that night because as I was leaving, a lot of the regulars were coming in with supplies and with sleeping baguettes and everything and I was thinking why are they bringing their sleeping bags in because I was 17 and naive and it hadn't occurred to me that people would be staying up to give information. So when I got home I turned on the radio and I started listening to BLB for the rest of that night and it started off sort of benignly enough with listen, somebody would call in and say "Listen if you're trying to get up Herbert Road, don't go as far as Ardmore Hill because the hill up to Ardmore is completely blocked and there are cars blocking, you're just going to get stuck." And then people calling in of course saying "I'm stuck in this and that pub, would you tell my wife if she's listening I can't get home?" Which was hilarious. The number of people stuck in pubs that night, I don't know how the pubs could accommodate them. I also don't know how they could manage to call BLB but not call home but we'll give them a pass on that one. But as the couple of days afterwards went by, I think was when BLB really came into its own because it literally became the hub for the whole town. People were calling up asking for things, telling things. I can remember listening to a woman calling up saying she was a new mother, she was stuck inside and did anyone just have any nappies that they could loan her to tide her over the couple of days and of course floods of calls coming in saying "Get the address to us, we'll get her the nappies." There was this huge connectivity, there was this huge sense of community and as I listened and listened over those few days it started to occur to me that this wasn't just about fun, this was something that really mattered, it really made a difference in the community and it really made the whole town focus on this fantastic resource that we had and see how wonderful it was.

 That was 1982 and then in August 1986 BLB played another vital role when an even more catastrophic event struck Bray, Hurricane Charlie.

 The main job flood was caused when the dam up at the Paddock Lake broke.

 Louis O'Rourke was not only a member of BLB but also of Bray civil defense.

 And it released a huge volume of water down the river. The fact that we had a local radio station running that noise was a tremendous help to the town and particularly to the people of Little Bray who were involved in the flooding.

 It was the Lower Dargle Road area of Bray that was hit worst with gallons of water flooding into people's homes.

 That was one night where BLB worked very hard bringing information about the events that were unfolding as they were unfolding in Bray.

 Harry Shaw was captain of Bray Golf Club in 1986.



 The highlight of my captaincy was Hurricane Charlie which happened during the captain's prize. There was an isolated expanse of water to one side of the second fairway and a young fellow caught a salmon in it. It was a scene of devastation. Barry Nevin.

 Hurricane Charlie has all sorts of memories for me because I was also in civil defense as a volunteer and we were actually out that night in boats going down the Dargle Road to see did people need rescuing. The water was literally up to the bedroom windows.

 Lower Dargle Road, Dargan Street, Maitland Street. All around that area from where the laundry used to be, the one-story houses, they were all completely flooded out.

 The devastation caused by the Dargle River overflowing and flooding houses was now making national headlines.

 A lot of the Little Bray area of the town has been flooded. A lot of property has been damaged. A lot of people are going to have a very traumatic experience.

 For some reason I decided to take myself out of the house to go down towards the Dargle to see how bad it actually was. Mark Nevin. And I remember driving towards the end of Superquin. The water was brimming over the top wall at an enormous rate.



 And I just decided this isn't the time to be here.

 Of course in those days mobile phones were unheard of and a lot of people didn't have a phone at all. So they had no way of letting people know they were okay. If they had any way of communicating at all, they got in touch with us.

 We would normally close down around midnight or one o'clock because of the emergency. And it really was an emergency in the town. The station remained open.

 At that point we had arranged technology so as to become live from pretty much anywhere in our area. John Murphy. I remember sitting in a car broadcasting live from the Dargle where the water was flooding in. For some reason the power stayed on in our studio and it went off in most of the town. Maura Byrne and I happened to be in the studio when the things got really bad and the weather was really bad. And we were there for the night. Maura Byrne.

 We realised by seven, half seven, eight o'clock there was no way we've gone home. There was no way to get home. Sally Reynolds.

 The station then took on for me a whole different role in so far as it was so important for communications.

 We relayed messages from people. There were people that were caught in the floods.

 If they were in difficulty who to call, what phone numbers to call, if they needed sandbags where they could get sandbags, weather updates and if people needed help. So Civil Defence was using the radio station as a broadcast for information. Again that proves the importance of local radio and the use of local radio.

 That night was incredible because people just kept ringing. Nobody can imagine what it was like. Now they couldn't imagine what it was like that you couldn't contact people. And unless somebody had a landline there was no way you could talk to them. People that were in the north side of Bray and couldn't get home to the south side. Yeah I'm okay. I'm staying with Auntie Nellie tonight or I'm staying with my cousin Jim, whatever it might be. And I'll be okay. And that meant a huge amount to people. John and I went out at kind of first light as we knew the tide had receded a bit. And a lot of the flooding had receded. And John was very brave with him going out in the car the way he did. But we drove just a little ways down to the harbour. And it was just incredible. I don't forget we couldn't go very far because it was great big enormous trees in our way on the road. It was like something that you see on the television from a typhoon. It was just incredible.

 That was one of the moments that people in Bray realised, oh this is a good thing. This is something we need. Adrian Kennedy. It was a lifeline. The whole community of Bray came together and focused around the radio station.

 Nick Uggen. It was unbelievable radio at that time. That was, I suppose, the highlight of what local radio could do for the community.

 I think it brought it home very much to John and I. What we had been doing that night, I don't think while it was happening, that we realised the significance of it until we saw what was outside.

 That was definitely a proud moment to be involved in the station.

 I was on the council at the time and we got the then T-shirt guard for Stearl to come out the next day. Mark Mortell. And he went around the town, went down to Little Brave, remember people's houses, destroyed all their furniture and their carpets and everything being flung out. It was really, really awful. And I think the BLB outside broadcast even got a chance to interview the T-shirt.

 No one thought about the fact that none of us had a licence. He was the T-shirt. This was a disaster. We were the communications channel and it went on as normal.

 We had the caravan down there. We gave information for a couple of days and you realised just how important the station was. And during that night in particular when it was very scary, you know, and you didn't know what was happening. And as I said, there was a question whether somebody had died or not died. The radio station was the only means of communication. And people said that afterwards in the area that if without BLB, they would have been just a bit more scared. They felt that there was at least a communication going on here because it wasn't of interest to RTE particularly. It probably was on the news at nine or whatever. But there wasn't a dedicated service as we were providing all the way through the night and over the following days. Because the houses were destroyed down there, there wasn't just a case of a little bit of water in the living room. It was up the walls and, you know, it was dirty water and the equipment had to be thrown out and the fridges had to be thrown out. And families were really very badly affected by it.

 I think thanks to BLB, there were a mountain of volunteers came out to help the people of Little Bray. In all the things I've ever done, being involved with my community, then I live in a moire. Hurricane Charlie really stands out as being somewhere where I personally made a difference.



 Throughout 1988, those of us in the station were aware that the end of BLB was imminent, as pirates were to make way for licensed local radio. However, 1988 wasn't the first time we faced closure. For the sake of accuracy, it's important to note that BLB had already shut down before in 1983. That emotional closure was driven by a poorly considered government directive, which was essentially a knee-jerk reaction to the growing power of large pirate stations who were threatening RTE's revenue. Here's John Murphy remembering me calling him in America with the news that we were to close.



 I was in California working that month. So Mark rang me to say all the stations had been closed. So I, the naivety, right, I phoned up Ted Neland, who was the, I think was the junior minister of communications. And I got straight through to him, right? And I told him who we were. And I asked him what was going on.



 And he said, you'll be OK. Just close down for a little while. So I rang back and Joe Bonner did a tearful shutdown. And after two weeks came back on again.

 Tonight on New Year's Eve this year, BLB Community Radio, Ireland's longest running and best known community radio project, will be closing down after almost 10 years on the air. But that won't mean the end of community broadcasting in this area because very soon the campaign for a new permanent radio service for North Wicklow will be launched. This is where you can become involved by becoming a member of the North Wicklow Community Broadcasting Cooperative. Staff and volunteers from BLB are fully committed to this cooperative, but it will also involve people from all walks of life in North Wicklow. For more information on the future of broadcasting in North Wicklow, look out for the announcement of a public meeting to explain all.

 As we move closer to the end of 1988 and the inevitable real close down, BLB went on a fundraising campaign on two fronts, funds to finance the bid for a license and shares in the North Wicklow Community Co-op, which was the umbrella under which BLB was applying.

 Can Nick Uggen broadcast for four and a half days?

 As part of the fundraising campaign for the BLB license application, intrepid BLB presenter Nick Uggen decided he was going to try and break the world record for the longest continuous broadcast by a local radio presenter.

 The radio marathon that we did in 1988 with Nick Uggen and the reaction that we got from people where he was on the radio for five days on the trot. There was a great community spirit and bray around that.

 And the man himself, Nick Uggen.

 That was a huge highlight for me. That was 110 and a half hours of broadcasting from Friday morning at nine o'clock to Tuesday night at half eleven.

 The entire marathon became the ultimate outside broadcast as much of Nick's nonstop transmission took place in the window of the then pizza land on Bray's main street. And some of it was recorded on video by local videographer Jack Finley.

 We're in our, what are we in now? Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, fourteenth hour.

 As you can hear, it was hard to keep track of the hours, even for those who'd had a night's sleep, but particularly for Nick.

 Half eleven. Yeah, we are in our fiftieth hour. We're in our fiftieth hour.

 VLB's Colin Dempsey provided some of the commentary for the video.

 He's allowed five minutes every hour and he's built that up and he intends to take a rest tonight around about twelve o'clock or maybe even a little bit later. So he's got to catch about four hours sleep. He has to go all day tomorrow. He has Monday and then Tuesday come six o'clock. Hopefully Nick will be breaking the record.

 He kept going and going. I don't know how he managed. He was brilliant. And lots of people came along and waved in the window out of it and everything.

 So sure enough, with Nick barely able to stand, six o'clock on Tuesday came round and he'd done it.

 We open the world record for the longest continuous broadcast by a local radio presenter. Are we ready? Ten, nine, eight, seven,

 six, five, four, three, two, one.



 One hundred and ten and a half hours.



 You'll not meet many people who's done that. And I'm glad that I'm one of them.



 That paid for our license application. All the costs. So fair play to Nick.

 It didn't get into the Guinness Book of records in the book, but I have the certificate and that's my pride and joy at home even to this day.



 Well, in the immortal words of many a radio presenter, we've got time for one more. So in our next episode, we're going to hear about the profound lasting effect that involvement in Brey local broadcasting had on its members.

 I give BLB probably the biggest star I can give. There's no, no education I ever got out that I would actually compete with that.

 I think it was the feeling of being part of something.

 I absolutely adored every moment I spent in BLB.

 The personal impact it has had on me is immeasurable.

 My sincere thanks to all of those who participated in this series and my particular thanks go to Peter Carroll for his investigative help in this episode. Sound recording was by Mike Quinn and sound mixing by Luke Conlon, both of HighWire post-production Dublin.



 BLB sounds from the past, memories of pirate radio and stories of Bray local broadcasting was produced and presented by me, Mark Quinn and is a radiogenic production.