Neil Spence

From 1980 to 1985, Spence led intensive three-month courses to train music radio presenters. The school's aim was to develop talent for ILR, but many also went on to work for the BBC and in television as well as overseas, including in pirate radio. Alumni from his presentation courses included BBC presenter Jeremy Vine John Leech and the musician Mikey Dread. When the school closed in 1985, it appears Spence refused offers of work and was believed to have returned to farming. He resisted all invitations from former colleagues to attend reunions, particularly those from his pirate radio days. He died in Lincolnshire in 2007.

He was disparaging about presenters from his pirate days who went into ILR without changing their style to reflect a different audience and different times, telling one trainee in the early 1980s that if she listened to his old Radio London colleague Dave Cash, at that time a presenter at ILR's Radio West, she would never find an audience. Any trainee who mentioned Spence's own pirate radio past was given a cold stare and a cold shoulder. He told a former Radio London colleague who invited him to a reunion that he refused to get involved in "this dated, rebarbative and otiose subject." The actor-DJ who had thrived on a comedic onslaught by Dave Cash and Kenny Everett was careful to tell trainees that the only result if they did this to their own colleagues would be to make the butt of their jokes more popular, and their own ratings slide.

Spence also gained a reputation for talent spotting, and for developing the careers of DJs, who frequently moved on to regular broadcast stations. Among those whose early careers he helped to forge were Graham Dene, who he discovered in the BBC Gramophone Library, Adrian Love, and Roger Scott. As Independent Local Radio (ILR) began to expand, many UBN presenters left to work at the new stations. In 1977 Spence himself moved to ILR, taking over as programme controller at Radio Trent from former UBN presenter Bob Snyder. At Trent, Spence developed formats to appeal to a broad local audience, and continued to find and develop new talent. Among his hires there was Dale Winton, another DJ who had been at UBN.

In 1970 he was appointed the first programme controller of the United Biscuits Network, UBN, a station which began broadcasting by landline to two of the UK factories of United Biscuits in September that year. The aim of the station was to keep workers entertained and productive, reducing staff turnover and absenteeism while providing safety and hygiene information. A year later UB chairman Hector Laing announced the station was achieving its objectives despite many doubters, and would expand to other factories. Spence told the Financial Times with some justification that the station's quality equaled BBC Radio 1 and was "a great sound." Spence developed a station which provided a top-40 format during the day, a middle-of-the-road MOR format in the evening, and a soul, blues and reggae format at night.

At UBN in the early 1970s he ran in effect a different radio station for each factory shift. A morning top-40 format gave way to an evening middle-of-the-road feel, and then a soul, blues and reggae station at night. "The whole station is run on tight commercial lines," he told trade magazine Billboard, but added: "Unlike US Top 40 we allow much scope for a DJ's personality - and for factories in England this is just what is needed and indeed, required. This does not necessarily mean more rap [i.e. chat] - just better rap."

Radio London closed down in 1967 with the introduction of the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act in 1967, and BBC Radio 1 began broadcasting the same year. On his return to England, Spence began making jingles and trails for Radio 1, where many of his pirate radio contemporaries were forging on-air DJ careers. Kenny Everett in his first BBC broadcast in May 1967 jokingly named the Double-D as one of his "best friendships." Spence later said he had worked for all four BBC Radio networks, including the classical station BBC Radio 3 and the speech based BBC Radio 4.

He was not the only DJ broadcasting to the UK to develop the American top-40 format for a British audience, but he was the first to master it, and he took it further and faster than his contemporaries, making early pirate radio colleagues like Earl Richmond and Tony Windsor look stuffy in their turn. In doing so, he helped prove to the British government that British audiences had a thirst for something other than the staid BBC approach. In the event, in 1967 the British government introduced the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act, and the BBC established its national pop music station Radio 1. Once commercial radio had been ruled out by the British government, interest in Spence in the US was nil.

In April 1966 Spence took his holiday in New York, where he was influenced by the high-pressure presentation style of DJs such as Bruce Morrow and Jack Spector, and the formatting skills of WABC's Rick Sklar and WMCA's Ruth Meyer with her team-radio approach to presentation known as the 'Good Guys.'

Spence quit Radio London in December 1966. His parting shot was a hit single which reached number 19 in the station's own chart, featuring his sickly-sweet reading to music of a Victorian newspaper editorial, 'Yes, Virginia', reassuring a young girl that Santa Claus did indeed exist. He went to live in Southern Ireland with Jo Spence, then a photographer's assistant and later a pioneering feminist photographer of the 1970s and eighties, who changed her name to his by deed poll.

In April 1966 Spence spent his holiday from Radio London in New York, where his reputation gave him access top radio DJs and programmers. On his return, his presentation style was even faster than before, as if to eliminate any possibility of dead air, and his microphone technique was adapted to cut through mush by making maximum use of the station's transmitter power. "DD's on-air style became machinegun-like with the volume at+3dB," said fellow London Radio DJ Duncan Johnson. "I made a comment and he said the top man in New York says you have to push the compressor to hold the listener. I didn't bother to ask why."

During Spence's 1966 trip to New York, the editors of the trade magazine Billboard were interested not only in his ability to build and hold a large radio audience, but in his views on the regulatory environment and the likelihood of commercial radio being introduced in the UK. Spence was demonstrable proof to the US industry that British audiences wanted more than the BBC was prepared to offer, and that US top-40 format commercial radio could be adapted to attract large advertising spends while still being authentically British.

Spence began his radio presenting career with the pirate station Radio Atlanta, which began broadcasting in May 1964 from the motor vessel MV Mi Amigo off the east coast of the UK. When Radio Atlanta was taken over by Radio Caroline in July 1964, Spence resigned and left the station. At some point that year he worked briefly as a DJ at Radio City, which broadcast from an old army fort at Shivering Sands in the Thames Estuary. A short time later he was as at Radio Invicta, a "sweet music station" which broadcast from a second world war fort at Red Sands, near Whitstable in Kent.

Late in 1964 a demo tape won Spence a lunchtime spot on Radio London, which was due to begin broadcasting in December that year from the motor vessel MV Galaxy. Along with the other launch presenters he adopted a new on-air name, Dave Dennis. Among his early colleagues were Earl Richmond, Kenny Everett, Dave Cash, and senior DJ Tony Windsor, who had been with Spence at Radio Atlanta. Later arrivals included Tony Blackburn.

Moving to Radio Invicta, Spence maintained his actor-DJ style. However, by the time he arrived at Radio London in late 1964 his performance was still considered "stuffy" by senior DJ Tony Windsor and programme director Ben Toney. Windsor was tasked with turning Neil Spence the announcer and presenter into Dave Dennis the DJ, and was asked by Toney to "break in" Spence and "give him a few tips on how to present a proper deejay show." Spence, who had grown up with little else to listen to except the BBC, responded poorly to Windsor's direction. "In the end I could tell he was about to drive Dave around the bend," said Toney, who then asked Spence to use his acting training and in effect to create "Dave Dennis, the Double-D" as a character to be played on air.

Spence's first training job was in the late 1960s at the "London Broadcasting School" run by his ex-colleague Earl Richmond. Among his first trainees was James Whale. Spence developed a strong commitment to training and development during his years at UBN and Radio Trent, and that, together with his ability to talent spot, led Michael Bukht, then programme controller at Capital Radio, to ask him in 1980 to join the newly established National Broadcasting School as head of programming.

The veteran radio presenter John Peters has described his own broadcasting style as bright, tight, brief and real. Peters was trained and mentored by Spence at UBN, and these were precisely the qualities Spence emphasised to trainees from the late 1960s to the mid 1980s. Spence's own presentation style when he left Radio London at the end of 1966 was far removed from the style he encouraged in later years as a radio executive and trainer. But despite his abandonment of what he later called the "disc jokey" style, his approach was entirely consistent in having respect for the audience. If the audience had moved on, then so should the presenters.

Neil Spence (?1937-2007) was a British pirate radio broadcaster of the 1960s and an educator of the 1970s and 1980s, with a fine ability to spot and develop radio broadcasting talent. As Dave Dennis, from 1964 to 1966 he was the "Double D", the fastest-talking and highest-rated DJ on Radio London, operating from the pirate ship MV Galaxy and broadcasting alongside future household names such as Kenny Everett and Tony Blackburn. As Neil Spence, from 1968 to 1985 he oversaw the early radio careers of James Whale, Roger Scott, Adrian Love, Graham Dene, Jeremy Vine and Dale Winton, among many others who would reach the top of the UK broadcasting industry.