URY 1350AM: Autumn 2003 - The Station That Respects The Dead

October, November and December 2003.  The country is still reeling from the Iraq War fallout and the opposition are in disarray.  On television, Dirty Den has risen from the dead and it's just been announced that Doctor Who will shortly be doing the same.  On the radio Sara Cox is about to leave the Radio 1 Breakfast Show and Chris Moyles has been announced as the next host.  In the charts the Black Eyed Peas have had their first hit and The Darkness are limbering up to fail to hit the Christmas number 1 slot.

More important than any of that was my fourth term at the University of York, controversially following on from my first, second and third.  I'd been on University Radio York since January 2003 and regular readers will know of my discovery of masses of cassettes of various bits of output, which have formed the basis of my compilations of each term's output.

Freshers' Week flyer

I'd hate to say these recordings are in any way representative, and certainly not the best bits - indeed this term seems to mark the point where my clips of other people's shows begins to decline - but, as I always point out, it's quite possible this stuff doesn't exist anywhere else.  Any after listening to it, you might wonder why I bothered keeping it.

Freshers' Week 2003 schedule

A reminder that the quality of these clips vary hugely due to mostly being recorded on C90s from medium wave. However for the first time during this compilation there's also some AM audio logger, as when we were given access I'd generally choose to download it in that format.  It just seemed...right.

Largely illegible URY Breakfast flyer. "No cheesy crap" - advice not passed onto the presenters

So here we go with 43 minutes of student radio from Autumn 2003.  After a long summer off the air I remember being incredibly excited about getting back in the studio and particularly about my breakfast show debut.  Enjoy!

My presenter contract

00:11 URY Breakfast with James Brookes (04/10/03)
URY returns after 14 long weeks off air.  A special Freshers' Week schedule operated although James was as ever in position on Saturday breakfast.
01:38 Weekend Early Breakfast with Jonathan Bufton (05/10/03)
7am and 8am openers from my return to the air, in my summer term Saturday and Sunday early slots for one final week.  Listen out for a remixed URY News jingle which launched that week and the first time I used the Pearl and Dean theme which eventually opened all my shows, including (naturally) my Alumni Takeover show fifteen years later.
03:11 URY Freshers' Week Breakfast (09/10/03)
Some of the special breakfast show that ran all week, here from the morning after "Fresh" featuring Eurovision 2003 no-hit-wonders Jemini and 90s legend Pat Sharp.  With James Wickham, James Dickin, Simon Taghioff and Lizzie Whitebread.
05:50 URY Live from Freshers' Fair (11/10/03)
James Brookes is live from the Exhibition Centre, interviewing Station Manager James Dickin and keeping fingers crossed people would sign up.  I on the YSTV stall a couple of metres to the right.
08:25 URY Breakfast with Michael Brothwell (12/10/03)
Michael's first Sunday breakfast show - a slot he was made for, and indeed over the next two years Sunday's Freshly Brewed became something of an institution.  He was quite good at spotting future stars, here bigging up the debut record from someone called Amy Winehouse.
09:48 B&Q advert
Voiced by Adam Leith, and running throughout this term.  Considering we all lived in rented furnished accommodation, I imagine B&Q's appeal to students was limited.
10:38 URY Breakfast with Adam and Jonathan (16/10/03)
My first breakfast show proper, which Adam Bell and I mainly spend talking on top of each other.  Here's some incisive chat about the toilets in the just-opened Roger Kirk Centre.  We did get better.
12:14 Soldier of Hell with Spencer Vale (07/10/03)
Despite the graduation of the Soldiers the previous term when they graduated, the singular Solider (here feeling very old at 23) was back.
13:32 The Source at Six Special (29/10/03)
URY's news programme stayed on air to cover the no confidence vote in Iain Duncan Smith live.  Campus Conservative Iain Lindley - a nice guy who was the go-to-Tory for campus media as he was always happy to come on and chat - is interviewed by Jameses Doughty and Gallagher.  Here he correctly predicts Michael Howard will be the next leader, and incorrectly thinks his popularity isn't an issue.  Apologies for the particularly grotty audio quality.
15:52 URY Breakfast with Adam and Jonathan (30/10/03)
The following morning, Adam and I indulge in some "satirical comedy" around the same issue.  Watch out Rory Bremner.
16:20 URY Breakfast with Sam and Simon (11/11/03)
It's the 85th anniversary of the end of World War One, and Sam and Simon observe two minutes silence in their own inimitable fashion.  You can hear the disdain for the Student Broadcast Network sustaining service throughout this, which although giving us a lot of funding was often pretty shoddy.  Now into their final year as a going concern, they even forget to do the Armistice Day silence.  Sam (or is it Simon) links out of their (edited down by me) silence with a compelling new slogan for URY.
20:54 URY Breakfast with Adam and Jonathan (06/11/03)
When I was parachuted into Adam's breakfast show I suggested a feature parodying Challenge Anneka called (yes, you guessed it) Challenge Adam.  Most of my features were based around an old TV theme tune and this was no exception.  Adam gamely went along with it and here, with help from Owen Murphy and James Gallagher, he's sent to sing at a porter in Langwith.  Just to date it even more, listen out for the Bo Selecta audio at the start.  Followed by me closing the show with another old theme tune and an accidental whopping double entendre which got me onto the URY Quotes Board.
25:08 Sunday Early Breakfast with Jonathan Bufton (16/11/03)
Although Michael and I were both placed on the breakfast show this term we were still quite fond of our early slots, and so he took on Saturday Early Breakfast whilst I kept the sabbath.  The appeal wore off quite rapidly with colder weather and a longer walk onto campus, and you can definitely hear that in our voices here as Michael guests on my perennial "week in news" feature.  What was that I was saying about old theme tunes?  True to form this started as the Lottery of News, became the Wheel of News and finally here was Play Your News Right.  Listen out for "news" of the URY AGM.
27:36 URY Breakfast with Jonathan and Tom (20/11/03)
Taken from a week when Tom Hughes was standing in for Adam, a few clips from where "Challenge Tom" became "Challenge Jon and Tom", with new Station Manager Owen Murphy taking control to resolve the bickering by setting me the ultimate challenge: talking to women.
32:37 James Wickham (10/12/03)
Some technical problems are resolved by Terry Withers followed by one of Mr Wickham's jingles.
34:06 & 41:25 Christmas jingles 
Made for use during the final fortnight of this term.
34:26 The Block (11/12/03)
A big selling point of URY this term was the station's very own soap opera, The Block, set in the fictional Vanbrugh D block (geddit?).  A lot of effort went into it and it was actually quite good, although as heard here during this short edit of the Christmas special it got surreal quite quickly.  We used to play it out during the breakfast show which meant as well as being able to listen to it we got to put our feet up for a bit - 25 minutes in this case.  Look out for my shameless theft of an old 1FM news jingle at the start...
41:43 URY Breakfast with James Brookes (13/12/03)
The last show of the year, and Santa Brookes is here with his little helper to see the station off the air for the final time in 2003.

The Block flyer

Coming next: fire up your Top Up TV box, it's Spring 2004.