1964 Alan Thompson
I was a pupil at Mayfield from 1960 until 1964. I later worked for local newspapers as a reporter including a spell with the Ilford Recorder in the mid 1970s. It was here I wrote about my time at the school, and what inspired me to take the career path into journalism and broadcasting, in… Mayfield Memories (PDF file).
I have been a radio presenter, producer and writer for many years. Probably the best known documentaries I’ve been involved with were;
‘Something is terribly wrong’ about the Kennedy assassination broadcast on Radio 4 November 2003, ‘When pirates ruled the waves’ with Johnnie Walker broadcast on GWR Classic Gold Network August 1997, ‘Another part of me’ the Michael Jackson story broadcast on various commercial stations in 1997-98, ‘Rock around the box’ broadcast on Radio 2 in July 1996 and the ‘Jazz and Rock’n’Roll’ documentaries made jointly with Keith Skues who used to be with Radios 1 and 2 and is now on the regional service of BBC Eastern Counties. These programmes were broadcast between 2002 and 2004.

1996 – Alan, interviewing Marty Wilde
Alan ownes and operates the Golden Days Archive and Production facility some of which can also be found in broadcasting stations and broadcast museums in the United States and yet, as he tells us in this feature, the idea for the original “Hail! Hail! Rock’n’Roll” shows were only scheduled for six weeks on a local radio station. Today the programming can still be heard and it is highly likely that wherever you are listening in the UK the chances are something has come from the archive, Alan takes up the story in his own words in… HAIL! HAIL! ROCK’N’ROLL (PDF file)
Friday 29th December 2006. We linked my local radio programme directly with Carol Miller a presenter on station WAXQ-FM. I have known her for many years since we first met at station WNEW-FM in New York in 1996. She was telling us how New Yorkers were preparing for New Year. I used to link with her every Friday afternoon on the station for which I was Programme Controller, X-CEL-FM based in Cambridgeshire, between 1999 and 2001. There were three US bases who used to listen in to us. Later I managed to get her on to the BBC Eastern Counties network and currently she broadcasts a weekly newsletter on BBC South local stations on Wednesday evenings. If you can pick up Radios Kent, Surrey/Sussex, Berkshire or Oxford, she is on either the Charlie Crocker or Roger Day shows. She is married to recording engineer Paul Logus.
Pic of me during the Radio Yare link to New York. The smile belies the fact I was displaying all the symptoms of flu. But, being an old stager, I carried on. A drop of alcohol over the New Year weekend no doubt helped. The photo was taken by press officer for Radio Yare, Brian Frederick.
On a more serious note: on the afternoon of 9/11, we managed to establish a link with her – only one of two ILR stations in England – as those dreadful events unfolded. She was not aware that New York had been attacked until I told her as she was in bed nursing the flu. I still have the recordings of the programme, it doesn’t make pleasant listening. Copies of the tape we made are now archived at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York.
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