Monday 22nd October 1979 saw Gary of dxarchive.com in Bishop Auckland Magistrates Court on several counts relating to illegal broadcasting on a shortwave station called Radio Solent City International. A young Jonathan Marks, who at that time was UK reporter for the Austrian Radio Shortwave Panorama turned up on his moped to watch, and also record an interview with the three accused. The interview was to be used as part of a series of cassette based documentaries about pirate and clandestine broadcasting in the UK, the sales of which would raise money for the Handicapped Aid Programme. Showing how backwards and paranoid the UK authorities were at the time, these cassettes apparently had to be produced in Canada because they ‘promoted’ pirate radio, which was allegedly against UK law.

One of the cassettes that Jonathan was hoping to produce, highlighted free radio in and around Liverpool. Outside London, this was one of the more active areas. After leaving us, he had apparently set up a meeting with Rick Dane of Radio Jackie North, who was pioneering Saturday and Sunday broadcasting. Even the bigger stations in London at the time were only managing a few hours a week. Having already attempted 7 day broadcasting, Rick was currently operating both days at the weekend and also used higher power than most other stations, and operated from tower blocks. This gave him a large coverage area on 217m across North West England. Little did Jonathan know that he would be visiting Liverpool the week another pioneering free radio station, Merseyland Alternative Radio was about to commence transmissions. We do not know if this particular cassette by Jonathan was ever released, and if it was, would welcome any information on how to obtain a copy.

In a later conversation with Dave Simpson, he recalled the circumstances which brought about the start of Merseyland Alternative Radio. Dave had noted the success of Radio Jackie North throughout 1979 transmitting for entire weeks and later weekends, with very little post office attention. He had also learned from another source that in fact, the Post Office Radio Investigation Service was going through a lot of internal changes meaning they had little time for tracking pirate stations. At the same time he had also been listening to Bert Williams over the air asking for 'real' presenters for his own station Radio 252, as he himself was just an engineer. In previous years, Dave had been involved with John Dwyer and others operating a night time MW station during the winter months. It was coming to that time of year when this station was about to recommence. Dave discussed with John Dwyer the lack of post office activity and the fact that Bert was after presenters, and the idea of a weekend long broadcast instead was born, with Bert being paid for the use of his transmitter. Money to pay for the station would be raised by the use of commercials. John approached Bert Williams with the suggestion of payment to him for suppling and operating the transmitting equipment. Bert had been broadcasting to Merseyside since the closure of Radio Caroline North in 1968 and by now had some high powered equipment at his disposal. The new station would need to be regular and powerful enough to attract advertisers, and Bert's transmitters were ideal.   This use of a substantial number of commercials to pay for the station was possibly a first in landbased free radio. It didn't take long for Bert to take up the offer, and during the weekend of 20th/21st October 1979 he was heard broadcasting on 1197kHz announcing a new station would start operating the following weekend.

The history in the following pages has been compiled in date and time order from the programmes listeners heard on the airwaves, between October 1979 and August 1981, which was the original incarnation of Merseyland Alternative Radio.