Dying Breed

The 18th of September 1984, not much happened in the world that day but to Ben Denby it was the greatest day of his life. He could tell you what the number one song was on that day, to be entirely honest he could just about work it out for any day.  In this case it was Stevie Wonder’s I just called to say I love you. Not one of his favourites but it was the song playing as he walked through the doors of 1575 Radio Saltaire for the first time. He was carrying a hand typed CV and a cassette of his homemade radio show. The timing was perfect as just as he arrived the Programme Director, an old round bellied, bald headed, big bearded drunkard named ‘Taffy’ Gould had stumbled in from the pub over the road and nearly knocked the reception desk flying. The exasperated receptionist asked if a young Denby was any good at making strong coffee and said he could hang around the station if he kept everyone in hot drinks. This was the opportunity he needed and he didn’t need a second to think about it.

He loved it in that building. Nobody knew how he got there other than the receptionist but he made himself indispensable starting with making drinks, then replacing records and cartridges, then logging playlists, then answering phones and eventually playing out songs so the DJs could nip to the toilet or have a cigarette. Within six weeks he was part of the furniture and was there often from 5am to help the breakfast show to helping the late night DJ collect his records at 9pm. He would have stayed longer had they had a bed for him there. By Christmas they had started paying him to operate the broadcast desk for recorded programmes and the following Easter he was helping make the jingles and adverts. He carried on with this for most of 1985 up until that Christmas. Nobody wanted to miss the station Christmas party and the solution was a pre-recorded show for Ben to play out. It was at this point the drunkenness of the otherwise phenomenal ‘Taffy’ Gould got Ben his first show. When he turned up to play the show out he discovered that nobody had been asked by the boss to actually record the show and so there was the prospect of four hours of dead air. He used his initiative and presented the show himself. When the error was realised by old Taffy while listening to his station on a radio in a taxi taking him home his natural flare was noticed and from that point on he was first port of call when a presenter took a holiday.

Gradually he built a following who followed him from show to show and when the mid morning show presenter decided to leave The station had its first experience of needing to replace a member since Denby had been there. The regulars shuffled around and this left the late shift free, from there, June 1986 things did not go backwards. He went from late shift to mid morning, then drive and finally by mid August 1989 a confident and well known Ben Denby became the breakfast show presenter and this is where he stayed, beloved by the listeners who were endlessly supportive of the now very well known DJ.

Over the years his life became entwined with the station and its listeners. When he married the head of Sales in 1992 it was featured on the front page of the local newspapers and the amount of congratulations cards received exceeded anything the station had seen for promotions or competitions.  Offers from competitors and Television came and went and consistently high listening figures meant as he moved into the new millennium he was a part of the furniture of people's lives, and the radio station was his. When he lost his wife in 1998 the condolence card count exceeded the record from six years earlier and his ties to the station tightened.

August 8th 2018 the phonecall came, it was from a former colleague who had moved onto another station some years earlier. “Entertainment Media are about to buy Saltaire.  Be careful.”  Was the message. It was a message he heard, and understood, but he had no intention of changing course. He had survived the switch to FM, digital radio the internet and streaming, this was just another bump to hold on tight for. But the warning was right, they took over in September and within days announced that when the law changed in October the company would network all of the breakfast shows on all of their stations from London. Ben Denby at breakfast would come to an end after nearly thirty years with a whimper on October 30th.

The network made him offers to take on smaller shows in different cities but he politely declined. He also declined a big send off either on air or from the station. He simply turned up on the morning completed his shift and walked out of the station. The local newspapers were not satisfied with this and despite the expensive local advertising campaigns for the celebrity presenters of the new show they ran a front page story titled “Dying Breed” and petitions began demanding his return. What most people who knew him struggled to comprehend was just how calm he was, it was as though on the 31st of October he would be back in the studio again.

Taffy had retired some years earlier and there had been a number of programme directors who had varied in their competence since that point. Now, under the new organisation the role had been combined with that of sales director and it had been Jim Gibson who was now in charge. He and Ben had been at opposite ends of the ‘page’ as the latter had frequently referred to and it was abundantly clear they disliked each other. In fact the only time either had enjoyed an interaction was when Jim told Ben he was to be axed. Much of the public’s ire had been directed at him and he had laughed it off, in fact he somewhat relished it. The abuse and even death threats were largely ignored when they came into the station in the days running up to the new show’s launch but there was one call that did unnerve him. It arrived on his home telephone, at five thirty am on the 31st of October, half an hour before the launch. The phone was crackly but the voice clear and familiar.

“I’ll bury you Gibson!”

It was Ben, he recognised it straight away and there was something deeply visceral about the way it was delivered   It felt as if he meant it. Before he could reply his phone went dead and he was left standing in his hallway, phone to his ear wondering what kind of response this call needed. It wasn’t long though before he was back to his best preparing a cup of coffee waiting for the show. He tuned his radio as sharply as possible to the station and sat down looking at it.

“Good morning and welcome to Ben Denby at Breakfast,” came the noise breaking through the silence prompting Jim to slam down his coffee on the kitchen table and run to his telephone.

“Colin. Colin. What are you doing playing out Denby?”

“Sorry Mr Gibson, but we switched over to the network bang on six. The new breakfast show is being transmitted from the station.”  Came the startled response from the station engineer.

“But I’ve got Denby on my radio listen.”

He held the receiver towards the radio speaker and waited.

…. so as it’s Halloween today let’s play Trick or Treat here on 97.6 Saltaire FM call me up and answer my question and if you get it right you get a treat. But get it wrong and…,,”

“It’s not coming from here Mr Gibson I can assure you because I’m playing it on the radio in the office to check the processing. The new show is definitely on air.” Colin replied.

“Then how the hell is he coming through my radio?” The furious programme director roared.

“I don’t know but it’s one hell of a prank. Let me look into it.”

Gibson slapped the phone down and raced upstairs. Within minutes he was dressed and ready to drive to the station. As soon as he got into the car he checked the tuning on his radio. Sure enough it was tuned to 96.7. A song was playing as he turned on the engine and he backed off his drive.

“Welcome to all our new listeners here on your local station. We will have some entertainment news from Paula in just a few moments.”

The incredibly famous voice did not make up for her dreadful presenting skills. Jim cringed with every strangled word. He was relieved when the song began and began to relax believing that it was all a prank and someone from the station would be ready to have a good laugh when he got there.  It wasn’t long before the song ended and the microphones opened once more.

“Thank you for joining me Ben Denby…..”

Instinctively Jim shoved his foot down and the car juddered to a halt. What was going on? How was Denby still on air?  Starting the engine up again he quickly moved off and sped to the station.

Colin was waiting for Jim with a grave look on his face. He held a notepad out for him to look at.

“Look. I don’t know how he’s doing it but some people have the new show, some are calling in saying they are listening to Denby. There’s no logic to who or where. It’s just not possible.”

The reaction of sending a pile of CDs flying across the office might have been more impressive had he not hit his hand on the desk they were sitting on first. In embarrassment and rage he stormed into his office slamming the door shut and dropping angrily onto his chair before picking up his phone and dialling a number with such intensity it seemed like he was attempting to push the buttons through the line.

Nobody in any part of the network could come up with a satisfactory explanation of how Denby could have set up a transmitter more powerful than their own. Where was his transmitter? Was there someone in the station helping him? Was it one of their competitors trying to derail the new show?  The general resolution was to wait and see what the next day would bring and so still fuming he composed himself and rejoined the rest of the team who had by now arrived and had been quietly celebrating their colleague’s prank.

What started as a prank soon became something more concerning to the increasingly confused engineering team that had been sent up from London after a week of interrupted shows. That nobody could work out how he was doing it was one thing but what made it more difficult to understand was that Denby had disappeared. His neighbours had noted that his car had been driven away on the 30th of October and that was the last anyone had seen of him. In fact the only contact anyone had been having with him was the daily threatening messages that came into Jim Gibson’s phone every day. They were of varying degrees of violent language but always filled with hate. This had brought the police into the situation and they too were struggling to locate the elusive DJ whose pirate radio shows were creating something of a stir in the local area and leaving his former boss desperately fighting to keep his job.

Every morning without fail Denby was there. Fresh material, as funny and up to date as ever crackling over the distant, dull and increasingly desperate celebrity show. Weeks became months and by the following October it was not Jim Gibson who took the call from the police that Denny’s car had been found. The former programme director had been found a ‘new opportunity’ at one of the network’s smallest and probably least important stations. His replacement, a young and exciting Canadian who went by the single name of Z found himself talking to a very serious sounding man who informed him that while they had found his car in a popular tourist area, they had yet to track him down. However they were confident they would find his base of transmission in one of the holiday homes clustered in the highland forests.

There was no word for a few days and as the station began gearing up for its Halloween promotions only a few staff had noted that it was nearly the first anniversary of Ben Denny’s last official show.  It was on the 29th of October 2019 that two police officers knocked on the door of the old rusted static caravan at the end of a particularly treacherous road deep in the mountains.  There was no answer but the door was unlocked and they entered. There they found a simple set up that had been used as a getaway by Ben and his wife for many years. It was filled with memories and immaculately maintained. The living space was untouched as if it had been barely used, as was the kitchen.  But there was something else, something that made no real sense, this was undoubtedly Denny’s caravan but it can’t have been where he was broadcasting from. There was no computer, no CD players, no microphones and certainly no sign of a transmitter. The police, being thorough, made their way into the bedroom at the back of the caravan and opened the door. Lying there, dead in the bed was Ben Denby, his hands lying over a copy of the Newspaper with the headline “Dying Breed” and a letter explaining his suicide, which, it was explained at the coroner’s hearing, had taken place a year earlier, the day after his final show.