The Radio Luxembourg Story

By Nathan Morley

Travel on an epic journey through the history of Radio Luxembourg - the 'Great 208'. Nathan Morley traces the origins of Luxembourg, celebrating the early pioneering spirit and unearthing long forgotten characters and programmes. Featuring exclusive contributions from stars of the golden age of music and broadcasting, including Vera Lynn, Pete Murray, Teddy Johnson, Gerry Marsden, Desmond Carrington, David Jacobs, David Gell, Ray Orchard, Alan Freeman, David Attenbrough, Don Wardell, Shaw Taylor, Arthur Brown, David Hamilton and many others. The book looks at the brutal war-years and the transformation of the channel into a Nazi propaganda station, then as a US psychological warfare channel. It provides an insight into key events, personalities, programmes, internal problems and its magnificent successes. The Cold War years are recalled by songstress Connie Francis, who became a popular entertainer on the channel, which was banned in the Eastern block and USSR, but attracted over 35 million listeners. In one of his last interviews before his death and subsequent exposure as one of Britain's most prolific sex offenders, Jimmy Savile spoke to the author about his Radio Luxembourg career, the station that had made him a legend; as he cascaded to fame as a purveyor of pop, spouting nonsensical catchphrases and innuendo. Faced with a hostile BBC and the pop pirates, Radio Luxembourg managed to survive the 60s and 70s. Personal memories are shared by Noel Edmonds, Paul Burnett, Kid Jenson, Roger Day, Benny Brown, David Symonds, Colin Nichol, Timmy Mallett, Tony Blewitt, Alton Andrews and Emperor Rosko, who all give their take on the era, in addition to contributions from pop stars including David Soul and Dave Berry, and former Controllers Alan Keen and Ken Evans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nathan Morley
• Release date: Oct 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223310112

Nathan Morley

Nathan Morley is a journalist and author. He has written for Deutsche Welle, ORF, Best of British and History Hit from across Europe for the last two decades. He is the author of The Radio Luxembourg Story, The Naafi Story and Hitler's Home Front.

Book preview

FOREWORD

Sir Cliff Richard

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Radio Luxembourg was the station my friends and I listened to back in the 50s.

Through Radio Luxembourg we were introduced to the wonders of Rock ‘n’ Roll.  Who would have guessed that by the age of 17, I would be joining my hero’s in the charts and being asked by the Great 208 station to do a weekly 15 minute show with The Shadows! 

I’m so happy to have been a part of that musical scene.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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My sincerest thanks go to many people, not least the exceptionally efficient staff at the Luxembourg National Archives, the British Library, and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. Vanessa Goossens, whose keen mind and flawless command of French and German, proved exceedingly important on several occasions, as did the tremendous help provided by the staff at the National Archives in London, who, more than once, displayed unending patience. In the early stages of this project, Colin Nichol kindly provided a wealth of written material, as well as helping to arrange several interviews which proved essential to the narrative, in addition to sharing his own valuable insights. The Ministère-Direction de la Santé in Luxembourg, the current occupants of the Villa Louvigny, kindly let me explore the premises, which was a double edged sword, as on the one hand it’s a historic place; but sadly gives few clues to its glorious past.

Then of course, there are the many stars of our story, including Sir Cliff Richard, Vera Lynn, Pete Murray, Teddy Johnson, Desmond Carrington, David Jacobs, David Gell, Ted Scott, Ray Orchard, David Hamilton, Gerry Marsden, Dave Berry, Alan Freeman, Don Wardell, Shaw Taylor, Colin Nichol, Noel Edmonds, Paul Burnett, David ‘Kid’ Jensen, Graham Bonney, Alan Keen,  Ken Evans, David Soul, Connie Francis, Benny Brown, David Symonds, Roger Day, Emperor Rosko, Tony Blewitt, Alton Andrews, Mark Page, Timmy Mallett and the many others that gave their time to contribute to this book. Sadly, some of those folks are no longer with us, but their memory will live on. And lastly my father, Bernard Morley, who kindly assisted in  correcting  the 2023 edition.

Chapter 1

Stormy Weather

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RADIO LUXEMBOURG belonged to another era, emerging from a time of singalongs, genial patter and holiday camps, in the time of Ramsay MacDonald’s premiership.

Throughout its early reign, it set the standard for popular entertainment, blossoming as a Mecca for variety during the Depression years when movie stars reigned and music was played on shellac discs. This is the story of a unique station that spanned nearly a century, and more than that became an institution.

So how did a radio station based in another country gain a unique place in the British national psyche, influencing many lives and launching the careers of dozens of household names?

The story is simple. For its founders, the Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Radiodiffusion (CLR), setting up Radio Luxembourg was far from a pipe-dream or an act of folly - it was a meticulously planned venture and sprang into life when the concession to build a radio station in this sleepy little country was advertised in the late 1920s. CLR was made up of mainly French entrepreneurs, all men who saw the financial potential of radio and together formed a pressure group to win the licence.[i] For several years, they focused on momentum building – promising huge profits which would reap rewards for the state. CLR members signed petitions, sent letters, and made sure that their vision seemed like a win-win idea for the country and the economy.

Given this was a period when Luxembourg, like the rest of Europe, was reeling from the Wall Street Crash and ensuing Depression, the activities of CLR were taken seriously at the highest levels of government. Back then, state coffers were filled primarily by the agriculture sector, where there was little in the way of mechanization, with additional revenues coming from steel exports to Germany, which had fallen dramatically.

CLR’s breezy confidence and sweeping vision was hugely successful and they were awarded their prized licence in 1930. The Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Radiodiffusion was formed with a capital of 15 million Luxembourg francs and registered offices at a two-story townhouse at 53 Monterey Avenue, across the road from the Municipal Park, the building is still there today.

The original incorporation papers show most investors came from Luxembourg, France and Belgium and included the Havas news agency, which also acted as an advertising broker in Paris, the French-owned Compagnie Generale de Telegraph, an organization specializing in developing new radio-telegraph applications, and the Compagnie pour la Fabrication des Compteurs et Material d'Usines a Gaz, a firm making gas meters. By 1932, the pace quickened when the group leased the plush Villa Louvigny across the road in the Municipal Park, where, with the help of local builders they put together an orchestral studio, production area and small broadcasting room.[ii] Their new home was spread throughout an old fort, complete with a moat and beautiful grounds with flower-beds dotted around it. A cobbled drive curled to the station entrance, where the high double doors were ornamented with the CLR coat of arms.

Over the coming years, vast sums of money would be spent on the villa and early visitors remember the thickly-carpeted reception, an enormous glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling and walls covered with silken panels. Mahogany furniture was upholstered in red leather and heavily draped windows gave visitors the impression they had walked into a palace. At the heart of the CLR strategy was money, and as their new licence granted them the use of a hugely powerful transmitter which could be heard for hundreds of miles in every direction. And given there were no commercial radio stations in United Kingdom, where big business spent their entire advertising budgets in newspapers and periodicals,  Britain, it seemed, was ripe for rich pickings.

To reach homes in the UK, engineers – alert with excitement and anxiety - were busy at the new CLR transmitter site in Junglinster making tests under the cover of darkness by beaming sporadic bursts of music into the ether to gauge reception. Even before the tests were over, the transmissions began to bear fruit as letters poured in from across Europe.

In April 1932, Wireless World reported, ‘The most formidable move yet towards the establishment of pan-European advertising over the ether will be made within the next few weeks when the new Luxembourg 200-kilowatt transmitter begins testing. The journal learnt that the station authorities ‘are establishing a network of agencies for the collection of advertisements and sponsored programmes from all parts of Europe’. Six months later, on Wednesday 14 September 1932, CLR’s intentions were unmasked in the British press:

Radio Luxembourg is a station which has been built with the avowed object of broadcasting publicity programmes at such power that they will be heard over all Western Europe and the British Isles. Strong objection is being taken to the proposals by the International Broadcasting Union on the grounds that such power is not needed for a state of this size; and that, obviously, it is simply a commercial undertaking without any other real purpose than money making. The whole position is simply another anomaly which cannot be dealt with by any other body than the Government of the country concerned. [iii]

As expected, CLR’s plans were enough to provoke the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the official British radio station. It was obvious that an organisation with five million radio sets in the British Isles tuned to their wavelength were not going to stand idle and let some foreign upstart muscle-in.[iv]

Others were consulted, including the President of the International Broadcasting Union Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Carpendale, a former Deputy Director-General of the BBC, who objected that Luxembourg’s transmitter was too powerful for such small country, and was ‘under no illusion’ about CLR’s true intent. The mood at BBC Broadcasting House didn’t improve after overtures by the British government to Luxembourg’s authorities to persuade CLR not to broadcast in English struggled to make headway.

Unsurprisingly, news of CLR’s plans travelled quickly. The view from Berlin was equally acidic, where given the amount of French money invested, the new venture was branded a ‘mouthpiece of French capitalists’ and a propaganda tool. However, such salty criticism did nothing to slow the project and soon after, on a bitterly cold March evening in 1933, the worst year of the Great Depression, a column in the local Luxemburger Wort newspaper reported:

Attention, Radio Luxembourg officially broadcasts! Official and regular broadcasts begin today - the 15th of March at 7pm on 1191 in kHz. Today's programme includes two concerts, as well as the latest news in Luxembourgish, German and French language. A lecture in French at 8.15pm promises to be interesting titled: Visite au Poste geant de Junglinster, which will finally tell you more about the radio station. The opening announcement will begin: ‘Attention, here is the Luxemburger Experimental Transmitter.’[v]

That night, driving to the broadcasting site at Junglinster - where Prince Felix had presided over the ceremonial laying of the foundation stone two-years earlier – executive engineer Maurice Besnard was anxious that this meticulously prepared occasion would run without a hitch. As he approached the transmitter on that dreary, rain-soaked evening, the three graceful 800-foot pylons he had helped to design could be seen from miles around (Besnard used to claim that it took a trained man thirty minutes to climb one of them).

Outside the main building, three decorative lakes acted as water coolers, while a monstrous 800-horse-power engine chugged-away in the transmitter hall powering the entire operation. An observer noted, ‘If you are not technically minded, you can only stare with awe at the shiny grey instrument panels, at the enormous valves, the racks of tools and the gigantic engines.’

Then it was down to business. Besnard flicked two switches, which was all that was needed to set the whole vast machinery in motion. Suddenly, a wavelength which had been battered by atmospheric noise sprang into life with such astonishing force that the author of the British ‘Wireless Whispers’ newspaper column was left aghast:

The new giant transmitter, Radio Luxembourg, blossomed out into the open with vengeance last evening and is on a par with Radio Paris as regards strength and quality. It is occupying a spot on the long-wave band between the Moscow Trade Union station and Reykjavik, or approximately 1220 metres. The announcements are made by male and female staff, the former being responsible for the English and the latter the German and French.[vi]

As noted, the new channel was identified as the Luxembourg Experimental Station and broadcasts were directed at a different country each evening. Within a fortnight, Mondays became reserved for Italy, Tuesdays was designated the Belgian evening, Wednesdays were for Luxembourg and on Thursdays, German listeners heard programmes targeted at them. Friday was exclusively for the Dutch, Saturday for the French and Sunday was directed at Britain. This rather simple formula seemed to work: it comprised of minimum speech, lots of classical music and a soloist performing with the studio orchestra. Typically, programmes began at 7pm with a short light music feature followed by a weather forecast for Luxembourg and the Ardennes. At half-past eight, orchestral music was followed by a ten-minute talk show, usually about culture and then a music programme continued until 11pm. During the first English broadcast on Sunday 19 March, a picturesque description of the station’s geographical position was given at 7.35pm. 

As the weeks passed, everyone seemed suitably satisfied with the new venture but trouble from Britain was anticipated. The first alarm bell rang when the BBC made their displeasure clear in both rhetoric and intentions. ‘It is well known that BBC detests the thought of a rival,’ The Birmingham Weekly Mercury noted in a feature titled: ‘Trying to clip the wings of Radio Luxembourg. European Broadcasters Alarmed at the Menace of 200 Kilowatts’.

In fact, an internal BBC memo outlined a plan for a boycott of Luxembourg by national newspapers: ‘It is suggested that we should endeavor to prevent publicity with regard to the Luxembourg station in every way possible’. It continued:

Obviously, we refrain from mentioning it in World Radio, and there is also the question as to whether we can persuade some of the leading newspapers to do likewise.

I am not quite sure whether it would be advisable to defer our action with the outside press until Luxembourg actually starts sponsored programmes, or whether we can approach the press on the basis of trying to get them to co-operate in discouraging anyone who jumps a wavelength.[vii]

The BBC effort was especially impressive. Six-days after the memo was sent, a barrage of noisy stories against the upstart station were splashed across the press. ‘Luxembourg is the latest offender dump the slop barrel of unwanted radio programmes into the already none too pellucid European broadcasting muddle,’ noted the Cornishman. ‘The sudden placing into nightly operation of the Luxembourg giant transmitter came as a bombshell’.[viii] The Bucks Herald opined that Luxembourg had ‘elbowed its way into the midst of an already overcrowded company to a wave to which it is not entitled.’[ix] Such reaction wasn’t surprising given newspaper proprietors feared commercial radio would wipe out growth and eat into existing advertising revenues. Ultimately, the BBC mustered together a blanket ban on mentioning Luxembourg, which was endorsed by the Newspaper Proprietors Association and adopted by the Times, Daily Mirror, Daily Mail and Express but ignored by the Sunday Referee.

Still defiant, Luxembourg emerged relatively unscathed through the boycott. In fact, ‘Wireless Whispers’ reported the station was ‘proving extremely popular’ among British listeners on a Sunday night due to the continuous popular music from seven o'clock until eleven. ‘So far, Luxembourg has been free from advertising matter,’ the column noted. Even though these first broadcasts were fairly amateurish, they were readily embraced by listeners as a source of light relief from the gloom of the Great Depression. The impressive signal strength was also praised in comparison with the weak and patchy reception of other continental stations.

So, the die was cast. The ground was fertile for sponsored programmes to commence and duly, Jehan Martin, the affable director of the CLR made contact with Leonard Plugge, an audacious visionary with an unrivaled nose for smelling an opportunity. As well as being a millionaire, he owned the grandly named International Broadcasting Company (IBC), an organisation arranging sponsored broadcasts. Plugge’s charm was complemented by political acumen, and he enjoyed a parliamentary career as MP for Chatham between 1935 – 1945.

To those he met, Plugge relished in describing himself as an inventor, which wasn’t far from the truth given he had devised an early form of a radio-telephone for cars, a stereoscopic cinematograph and ‘television glasses,’ an device he later acknowledged had the lowest likelihood of success.

His adventures in broadcasting began in 1925 when the London department store Selfridges was persuaded to sponsor a fashion talk from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Store owner Harry Selfridge was a close friend, and with Plugge’s help, managed to obtain the number ‘1’ as his office telephone number from the GPO. Plugge was thoroughly delighted with his Paris broadcast, especially given there had been no publicity about the event, but three listeners in the UK wrote to confirm that they had heard his transmission.

The realization that a radio signal from France could be clearly received in Britain planted the seed which would form the model for the future European radio scene. Soon after, Plugge began arranging broadcasts from Radio Normandy, a tiny station based in the coastal village of Fécamp which could be received well in the home counties, southern seaside resorts and the Isle of Wight. Ever cheerful and optimistic, he used a well-trodden route to the top by knocking on the door of every advertising agency from London to Glasgow. Occasionally, he clashed with clients over prices, content and schedules but always won. His colleagues observed that he was not an able talent spotter, but he knew how to exploit almost any singer, dancer or comedy-turn for use on the airwaves. His hard work led to the backing of a number of big advertising agencies, some of them American. In turn, they provided recorded programmes of a ‘US type’ - such as soap operas, comedies and dramas. With the central