Deke Duncan: DJ who broadcast to an audience of one gets BBC radio show
“I genuinely thought this was a well-crafted parody, something that the likes of @serafinowicz & @robertpopper would conjure up, but no…it’s 100% genuine – All hail Deke Duncan from Stevenage,” tweets John Morter. A video from the BBC archives takes us back to 1974. We meet Deke Duncan, the producer, presenter and pretty much most other things at Stevenage’s Radio 77 his wife Teresa can’t or won’t do. With no licence, Radio 77, based in a shed at 57 Gonville Crescent in Stevenage, can only be beamed through a speaker in his living room, where Teresa listens. It might be the most romantic thing ever.
I genuinely thought this was a well-crafted parody, something that the likes of @serafinowicz & @robertpopper would conjure up, but no…it’s 100% genuine – All hail Deke Duncan from Stevenage pic.twitter.com/One7dMM1Zr
— Jon Morter (@JonMorter) November 19, 2018
This week, Deke Duncan, now 73, was invited to present a show on BBC local radio. He fulfilled his “ultimate ambition” to broadcast to the rest of Stevenage.
“We used to record all the shows and play them back and think – that’s cool – but we couldn’t afford to keep buying spools of tape so recorded over them,” he said. “That house was our ship. We took the fantasy so far we said we must not go out the front or back door because you’ll fall in the sea.” The nautical theme followed his love of pirate station Radio Caroline, which broadcast from a boat off the coast of Essex in the 1960s.
Mr Duncan, who has since moved to Stockport, Greater Manchester, still broadcasts Radio 77 to “the smallest audience in the country” – his wife.
He said he felt “emotional” when station editor Laura Moss invited him to present his own one-hour special over Christmas.
Back in 1974, Deke Duncan ran a radio studio in his garden shed which broadcast to just one person – his wife. His lifelong ambition was to broadcast to the whole of Stevenage 📻
This morning he co-presented a show with @justindealey and there was a very special surprise… pic.twitter.com/PGVWLhuN2k
— BBC Three Counties (@BBC3CR) November 18, 2018
Spotter: Flashbak
Posted: 21st, November 2018 | In: Key Posts, News, Strange But True, TV & Radio Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
