Click on an underlined title to go to a report of that talk.

Date	Activity
15th January 2018	James Gilroy, Political Cartoonist by Ian Keable.
19th February 2018	Tax, Care and Toy Boys by Roderick Barr.
19th March 2018	My Life in Radio by Steve Scruton & Ian Wyatt.
16th April 2018	Artists Who Paint Horses by Paula short.
21th May 2018	The Witches of Elizabethan Essex by Kate Cole.
18th June 2018	AGM and strawberry tea.
16th July 2018	The Play What I Never Wrote by William Shakespeare.
20th August 2018	The Secret Life of a Wood by Roger Hance, Wildlife photographer.
17th September 2018	The Hidden Meaning in Nursery Rhymes by Vic Botterill.
15th October 2018	18th Century Essex Workhouses by Dr Jane Pearson.
19th November 2018	Crossword Setting by Tim Moorey.
17th December 2018	Christmas party with Steve Galler International Banjo Entertainer

A full house showed that U3A Members were pleased that the 'Beast from the East' snows had receded, and they packed the Wickham Bishops hall to hear a presentation by former BBC presenter, Steve Scruton and Ian Wyatt who acted as his sound man.

It was called My Life in Radio – basically the realization of the dream of Steve as a youngster to be on the radio in later life.

He started the story by saying he was born in 1951 - much to the amusement of all present who were born a year or two earlier! To refresh memories Ian played a series of high quality sound recordings which were the favourites of the BBC in the early years. Starting with Children’s Favourites with Uncle Mac and finishing with Family Favourites where you could smell the roast Sunday Dinner, maybe with burnt Yorkshire Puddings.

Then Steve required the audience to remember Radio Luxenberg on 208 Metres in the Medium Wave Band but as such could only reliably hear it in the UK after it was dark.

Next was the entry in 1964 of Radio Caroline positioned off the Essex coast on 199 Metres and staffed by a new generation of disk jockey playing nearly non-stop pop music – much to the annoyance of HMG and the BBC. Radio London soon joined Caroline until the HMG introduced the Marine Offences Act in 1967. Steve was fascinated by Radio Caroline as so were the young generation who continued to listen to Radio Caroline as an illegal transmitting station – serviced from Holland.

By this time Steve was leaving school and still wanted to be involved with radio but choose a career as a TV Repairman which he enjoyed for some 20 years.

In 1976 he joined Hospital Radio at St John’s Hospital and the slowly made inroads into the newly formed BBS Essex Radio running the Afternoon Show from 1990 for 22 years.

Ian had an idea of enhancing the BBC by staging BBC Pirate Radio in Harwich in 2004/2007/2009 and last year – culminated in meeting the Queen through their efforts of promoting Harwich.

Steve and Ian have been requested to compere the 2018 Clacton Air Show so if you go there and meet them, tell them you listed to this presentation today.