Radio Victory

When we moved to Gosport, from Southampton, in December 1975, local independant radio was just gettng started.
Victory was the station given the license for the Portsmouth area. [It had a 0.2kW transmitter on the top of Portsdown Hill apparently - but it managed to cover the Portsmouth area and Isle of Wight quite well.] It started transmitting in 1976......but later lost its licence to Ocean Sound when the licensing authority put the licenses up for auction. Wikipedia has a pretty good history of Radio Victory.

Now, when I first left college, I didn't really know what I wanted to do for a career. I got a job as a cashier in a Portsmouth petrol station which was on the main road out of the city.

Needless to say, quite a few of the radio DJs popped in for their fuel and we all got to know them quite well. One of them was Guy Morris (drive time DJ) who went out with the boss's daughter (Caz) for a while. I remember winning a Radio Victory Mug for phoning into his show for some reason or another! Here's a clip of Guy when he was a DJ on Leicester Sound.

Each year, Radio Victory used to have a charity auction with items donated by local comapanies. I got carried away with things one year and ended up sucessfully bidding for a crystal glass tankard!! Some thirty years on I still use it for my beer!!Oh!, before I forget, Radio Victory used to have their studios in a disused school on Fratton Road in Portsmouth, at the junction with St.Mary's Road.

I didn't know at the time, but this school was attended by the one time Labour Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan. (The road across the top of Portsdown Hill is called James Callaghan Drive in his honour).

Apparently Jim C was born at Funtington Road, in Conor, Portsmouth. (See GoogleEarth, right).

I actually worked for Radio Victory as a sales rep (selling advertising) for a whole six months!! It was a pretty poor job.....I was technically self employed and had to rely solely on commission!

Within a year I had got into the ambulance service (30th September 1985!) ...... and the rest is history!