Stan's back to his radio roots
A FORMER radio presenter has been back to his old stomping ground as part of celebrations commemorating 40 years of the station being on air.
Hartlepool-based Stan Laundon is one of dozens of past and present BBC Radio Tees staff helping to celebrate the station's four decades of providing listeners across Hartlepool and Teesside with local news, weather, sport and music.
The 67-year-old, who lives in the Hartlepool Marina area, has been taking part in a number of features with local media and in interviews at the station, which is based in Middlesbrough.
The station was launched on New Year's Eve in 1970 at 6pm with a programme called Teesside Tonight, presented by George Lambelle.
Since then it has undergone a number of alterations, including name changes.
Stan, who was working at the station on the day it opened and was invited back on December 31 last year to read the closing credits of a show, said: "It started off on New Year's Day as BBC Radio Teesside, then in 1974, it changed its name to BBC Radio Cleveland alongside local Government re-organisation, then it became BBC Radio Tees in 2008.
"There has been 40 years of local radio on Teesside."
Stan said he remembers fellow station workers from Hartlepool, including former Hartlepool Mail news editor Ian Hindmarsh, the late John Watson,a former reporter with the paper and Jean Jacques, who did freelance work for the BBC and is married to ex-Mail sub-editor Dick Jacques.
Stan said: "I think Ian is living in the Yarm area now and John had moved onto BBC Radio Newcastle and BBC Radio Cumbria before he passed away.
"There were certainly strong links between the station and Hartlepool and the Hartlepool Mail."
Stan spent 23 years working at the station, presenting a country music programme, as well as a five-year stint presenting news and current affairs.
He said: "My time at the station was fantastic, without a shadow of a doubt.
"It opened doors for me and I met some really great people."
Stan, who got to meet legendary country singer Johnny Cash in London in 1967 and was a member of Hartlepool band The Trakkers, said he would love to hear from any other former colleagues he worked with at the station, as well as anyone who has pictures of 1960s Hartlepool music bands for the nostalgia section of his website.
Any of Stan's former colleagues can also contact him through his website, which can be found here.
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Weather for Hartlepool
Monday 28 May 2012
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