1. BEGINNINGS
A very primitive Radio Service had at one time been run by the Whipps Cross League of Friends, probably during the early 1960s, with a microphone and record player plugged directly into the main amplifier in the radio room. The service was worse than rudimentary and soon collapsed.
The idea for a more permanent hospital radio station came through a chance meeting between Chris Rowsell and Ivor Gilbert in 1969. Rowsell (a BBC TV cameraman) was helping to run a service at Chelmsford Hospital. Enquiring at a local office of Commercial Union Insurance about cover for their equipment, he met Ivor Gilbert, a committee member of the Walthamstow Lions Club. Gilbert, intrigued by the idea of hospital radio, thought that a service at his local Whipps Cross Hospital might be possible. After checking that there was not one already, he approached his local Lions' President. Rowsell was invited to address a Lions' Committee meeting and to explain how hospital radio worked. The Lions agreed to support the project and an initial £200 from the Wood Street Walk event went towards it. Thus Ivor Gilbert became the co-founder (with Rowsell) and first chairman of the station. That is also the origin of the lion's head in the station logo. Rowsell agreed to design and build the equipment and the station - housed in an 8ft x 6ft green shed within the grounds of the hospital - was constructed in three months. A shed was used as the Hospital was unable to provide accommodation and the green paint was necessary to meet Town and Country planning regulations. Relationships between the new radio volunteers and the League of Friends at this time were distinctly hostile - the League refusing to help at all unless the name used were to be The League Of Friends Hospital Radio!
The equipment in the hut comprised a 10-channel mono mixer, 2 turntables, 2 old tape machines, a microphone, a speaker and a clock! The station went on air for the first time (using the existing 100 volt line system) in June 1970. It broadcast for just three hours on Sunday evenings. The presenters then were Chris Rowsell (Station Controller), Ivor Gilbert (Chairman), Terry Martin, Tim Holland, Phil Webster and John Pinneger. The station was effectively run on behalf of, and sponsored by, the Walthamstow Lions Club and the full formal title was Walthamstow Lions Whipps Cross Hospital Radio - not a snappy name for radio presenters.
Shortly after going "on-air" the hut had to be moved as it had been placed on the site of a proposed hospital extension.