T&A READER Ray Banyard has this week triggered memories of a much-loved radio station.

Launched in 1989, Classic Gold was a network of three ‘Gold’ music formatted stations which broadcast on AM in Bradford, Hull and Sheffield. They were the sister stations of Pennine Radio, Viking Radio and Radio Hallam respectively and they were part of the Yorkshire Radio Network.

Ray sent a newspaper pull-out from the launch week announcing ‘All Gold Hit Radio Comes to Bradford’, ‘with an unbeatable combination of all the golden greats of pop music.

‘Memory-making giants - from the Beatles, Cliff, Elvis and Abba to Motown, Rock & roll and the most tuneful music of your life…loud and clear on AM 1278 MW.’

Presenters included Brian Cooke, top country DJ Tex Milne, David Hamilton, Dorothy Box and Peter Fairhead who hosted tea time treat.

Each station had its own, local, breakfast show presenter - in Bradford it was Roger Kirk, in Hull it was Chris Bell and in Sheffield it was Gerry Kersey.

The station’s Bradford headquarters were in Forster Square.

Four months after Classic Gold’s launch, Ray won the week’s ‘Clip of Gold’ competition, asking listeners to identify a song. His prize was a Don Williams album. Along with a letter of congratulations he also received a signed picture of Brian Cooke.

‘It’s nice to know you listen to the programme and that you obviously enjoy the music...Please tell your friends and relatives about Classic Gold and ask them to listen in to us’, the hand-typed letter said.

“I used to listen to it a lot and I am sure a lot of other people in Bradford did too,” said Ray, of Four Lane Ends. “I recently came across the letter and other cutting about Classic Gold which I had kept.”

After being taken over by the Metro Radio group in the early 90s, Classic Gold was relaunched as Great Yorkshire Radio, and in 1993 as Great Yorkshire Gold.

The station continued in all three areas, even after the sale of the Bradford-based station (along with its FM sister station The Pulse of West Yorkshire) to the Radio Partnership in 1996.

The Classic Gold brand continued in West Yorkshire until 2007, when it was rebranded as Pulse Gold taking programming from the GCap-owned ‘Gold’ network; being relaunched again the following year (2008) as Pulse 2, which remained on air until September 2020 when the station was replaced with a relay of Bauer-owned Greatest Hits Radio.

Ray also sent in a list of weekday programmes from the early days of Pennine Radio, the original name for what became Pulse 1 in Bradford, the independent local radio station for West Yorkshire. It was launched on 16 September 1975 and based in St James Business Park.

It is billed as ‘Bradford’s very own Independent Radio Station owned and operated by Bradford people for Bradford people.’

The breakfast show was presented by Steve Merike. Others included Peter Levy, Liz Allen and Roger Kirk.

Earlier this year Pulse 1 left Bradford and moved to Leeds.