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For years the BBC had been the only major company broadcasting on the radio in Britain. Then, in March 1964, a new station began to broadcast and as it transmitted from a boat out in the North Sea it didn't need a licence. Soon there were about 10 offshore pirate radio stations as they were known. Unlike the BBC, they could broadcast adverts. Soon millions of people, me included, were listening to these stations. The pirates would broadcast chart music and new releases all day, every day while the BBC only had a couple of shows like that a week. The BBC decided it had to do something and so it completely changed its own radio stations and they became very similar to how they are now. There was Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3 and Radio 4. The government helped the BBC by passing an Act of Parliament making it an offence for any British citizen to work for a pirate radio station. They couldn't actually stop the stations but they could stop people working for them. Pirate radio began to die. Radio 1 and the other BBC stations began on 30 September 1967. It was a Saturday and I was listening. The first DJ was Tony Blackburn, still broadcasting somewhere, who had been on both the major pirate stations, Radio Caroline and Radio London. The first record was by a group called The Move and was called Flowers in the Rain. Here it is and I'm 18 again. Where did 50 years go?
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