Cracker factory records: the surprising story of United Biscuits' radio station

[snoop1130]

Cracker factory records: the surprising story of United Biscuits' radio station

By Kieran Morris

 

Taking the biscuit … the very young Dale Winton entertains the factory workers on UBN.

 

Unless you spent your summers packing Jaffa Cakes into boxes in the 70s, you are unlikely to have heard of the United Biscuits Network (UBN).

 

It was a radio station for biscuit-makers, broadcasting around the clock to factories in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow.

 

One part industrial psychology, another part community radio, UBN was intended to make factory life more bearable, but over its nine-year lifespan, it emerged as one of the most daring, anarchic and pioneering stations to hit the UK airwaves.

 

Music has long been a point of contention in the workplace. 

 

Full Story: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/nov/05/cracker-factory-records-the-surprising-story-of-united-biscuits-radio-station

[simon43]

Good heavens!  - that takes me back to my teenage years in the UK.  I knew all about UBN, but was more interested in getting my radio station signal out to more than just biscuit factory workers ????  Together with some friends, we put together a music studio and started our own land-based pirate radio station.  I was responsible for building the valve transmitters, which could give you a lethal 600 volt electric shock (they had no casing to save on weight and money).

 

Based in Leicester, I would often travel down to London to meet up with other radio fanatics on stations such as Radio Jackie, Kaleidoscope, Concord and Dynamite 235.

 

Happy days to remember - there are still tapes of me as a DJ - dreadful!! ????

[andychk]

Many famous Radio 1 and particularly Capital Radio DJ's had their starts on UBN - one of the most well known controllers of UBN was the late Roger Scott, a long time DJ on Capital, and responsible for introducing London to the great Nicky Horne.

I too worked for a pirate station in London in 1984/5 called Skyline Radio, operated by former members of Caroline, Jackie and many others. I made it into the last years of Pirate radio and will never forget the fun and games, and almost getting arrested twice!

These days, I present the weekday breakfast show on Surf 102.5FM in Hua Hin...