Shirley Bassey soon follows with luscious Goldfinger. Nostalgic and unashamedly sentimental, this is the sound of LM Radio. Every day, it ripples across Maputo β in taxis, cafes and government offices, even. By the time he was eight, he was building his own radios. He quickly became a fan of the original LM Radio β which he would re-broadcast from a homemade transmitter on medium wave to the rest of Fish Hoek, where he lived. Station manager David Davies who had been at Radio Normandy before World War 2 decided the original tracks should be played instead.
It was the first station in the world to do this. That was bigger than the listenership of the SABC. After independence, the station was then shut down. For Turner, reviving the station 50 years later has been about serving a baby boomer listenership that has long been ignored by youth-obsessed South African stations. In recent years, music from the s and 70s has scarcely featured on our airwaves β and he was determined to change that.
It can be streamed online or on its smartphone app and is available on satellite from both DStv and Open View. Gauteng listeners will soon be able to listen to it on AM, when its Welgedacht transmitter gets switched on later this year. Nobody else plays the music that we play β they all play this head-banging doef-doef. He was then promoted to the breakfast show.
Even on our small salaries that we got, we could afford to go out every day. He would dine at Peri Peri which still serves up its legendary chicken today or drink at hotel bars. In , disgruntled Portuguese settlers staged a coup against their own government in protest at its decision to hand power over to FRELIMO without elections.
They took over strategic points such as the airport and the radio palace. Along with station manager Gerry Wilmot and the newbie presenter John Novik, Megens took turns β three hours on, three hours off β to keep LM Radio on air. It was crap. The rebels gave them bags of oranges and occasionally a loaf of bread β as well as piles and piles of cigarettes.
