Metro Radio 261MW and 97FM Tribute Site: A 1974 NOSTALGIA-FEST FROM LEN GROAT!

Wednesday, 28 May 2014

A 1974 NOSTALGIA-FEST FROM LEN GROAT!

It's October, 1974 and who's going to Prime Minister? Will it be Ted Heath (left); Jeremy Thorpe (centre) or Harold Wilson (right)? Meanwhile, Metro Radio is still in its infancy with a huge variety of news, drama, sport, motoring, quiz and music programmes.

ByANDY FLEMING

WEBMASTER

Well it's back to 1974 now and time for a great tranche of audio from Len Groat, one of the original line-up of presenters at the Metropolitan Broadcasting Company when it started

transmissions earlier that year. Many of the clips supplied by Len were produced in-house by Metropolitan Broadcasting itself and are of jingles, programme trailers, promos or commercials.

To set the scene, you will recall that 1974 was the year of Miner's Strikes, three day weeks, two General Elections, and a Lib-Lab Pact. Television's hours were cut to 10.30pm closedown by government edict in order to save electricity. There were power cuts, bakers' strikes and there was the first of a couple of major oil price shocks, the result of an Arab-Israeli War, the Yom Kippur War of October, 1973.

Ted Heath was Tory Prime Minister, who called a snap election in February, 1974 under the title of "Who Governs Britain". Blatantly, it wasn't going to be him as Harold Wilson came to power with a Labour minority government in coalition with Jeremy Thorpe's Liberals. By October and a second General Election, Wilson was firmly back in control in his own right.

Strikes were called off and as Britain returned to work we were treated to The Generation Game on television with Bruce Forsyth and of course impressionist Mike Yarwood, who was a better Heath, Wilson and Dennis Healey than the real people! And then of course there was that very likeable duo, The Likely Lads, on the TV, created and written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais.

Also on regional television in the north east, Neville Wanless became a well-known face as an in-vision continutity announcer on Tyne Tees TV. Meanwhile Mike Neville presented Look North on BBC1, and Tom Kilgour presented Looks Natural, a programme about local natural history and wildlife.

Regarding local news in the north east, the John Poulson corruption scandal broke which eventually led to the imprisonment of both the architect himself and the former leader of Newcastle City Council, T. Dan Smith.

Internationally, the Watergate Scandal was only months away from claiming the biggest scalp of all, the by then impeached President of the United States, Richard Nixon, along with fellow conspirators in burglary H R Haldeman, John Mitchell, John Ehrlichmann, Howard Hunt and Charles Colson.

That puts things in perspective! Anyway, many thanks Len for the following great audio.