Stephen Williams (Radio Luxembourg)

Shortly before his death in 1994, Williams gave an interview to Roger Bickerton about his work at Radio Luxembourg which was published in The Historic Record and AV Collector, Issues 39,40 and 41, April, June & October 1996.

When, on 1 January 1992, Radio Luxembourg's English service closed down as a terrestrial radio station, the last words heard, "Good luck, good listening ... and goodbye" were spoken by 83-year-old Stephen Williams, who had been the first person ever to say on the air "This is Radio Luxembourg" over 58 years earlier.

Williams was awarded the Order of Merit of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg by the Grand Duke of Luxembourg in 1992.

Radio Luxembourg closed down on the outbreak of World War II in September 1939. Stephen Williams resumed his duties there when the station restarted in 1946. He left Luxembourg in 1948, and worked until 1975 as a freelance broadcaster.

In December 1933, Williams thus became the first English radio presenter in Luxembourg as well as serving as manager of the station.

At the beginning of 1932, Williams was sent to France to join Max Staniforth at the IBC's new Radio Normandy service, broadcasting to the south of England.

Recordings of two commercials read by Stephen Williams on Radio Normandy in 1932 are said to survive.

During his university vacation in 1928 he got a job as announcer on a "broadcasting yacht" sponsored by the Daily Mail newspaper group. This vessel went round the coast of Britain, transmitting music on records and advertisements for the Daily Mail, from just outside territorial waters, an early precursor of the 1960s "pirate radio" ships..

Born in London and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, as a young boy he was already, in his words, a "wireless fanatic": he said, "I was able to listen proudly to the debut of the BBC on 14 November 1922, and from the moment I heard the announcer say "This is 2LO calling, 2LO, the London station of the British Broadcasting Company", I was seized with an ambition to have a job like his."

Stephen Williams (31 March 1908 - 23 November 1994) was a British radio announcer, presenter and producer, and a pioneer of commercial radio for the UK.