WE ARE NEVER KNOWINGLY UNDERSOLD

(Monitor number 5)

By Steve England

Here we are once again facing the snow-white Croxley Script Personal Typewriting Paper (50 sheets, 14½p.), and it's time for another S.E. Loonabout on the keys. Well, this month's subject is Me, or rather the lack of Me, on the air. What's my excuse??? Eh????::

Well kids, Debbie and I returned to Holland in October last year and spent the first few days in a recording studio preparing, and producing jingles for Radio Mi Amigo, the project that has taken over the use of the spare TX from Atlantis. I hope you get to hear those jingles, and the Sonovox I did, I think it was rather together.

Debbie England   (Photo:- Steve England)

The story continues when I was offered the job as studio technician in Caroline House, where the Mi Amigo project was building and renovating the existing studios... It all seemed rather good, especially financially-we had had rather a difficult year, and they were offering me a £50 a week, 3 monthly contract It sounded just great. I won't pretend that we were happy after that; I have always rather different ideas regarding production (the preparation of pre-recorded presentation for use in the show, i.e. jingles, commercials, promos, etc.), and the overall sound of the station. Being in the position of studio technician, I was a little frustrated at having no control over the studio's sound, which is wrong on my part, as I should really have had no say in the station policy anyway. Well, I wasn't very happy at the job, and on top of that I was finding it extremely difficult to work and live with the same people (we had a communal flat in The Waaldorperweg). The situation was ridiculous, not a day went by without us ordering a taxi to take us to the station for the ferry home, then cancelling it when it came It was costing us a fortune in unused taxis!.

At the end of the third week, it became obvious that if I didn't leave soon, I would be fired, so Mi Amigo and I decided to part on good terms, and Debbie and I came back to the UK. On the ferry we met, purely by chance, Ian Anderson and his girlfriend Barbara, who had also been on the radio-ship and were returning home. We all went back to Deal together, then rented a flat in London for a few weeks before Christmas, whilst I took a temporary job at John Lewis, Oxford Street, Ian got a job at Tooting Bec Hospital, and Debbie and Barbara went to work at CBS Records. Then just before Christmas, Ian and Barbara went home to the Shetland Isles, and we came back to delightful Deal. That's it.... over Christmas, we were working in a hotel in Folkestone, running the discotheque, and after that .... well, who knows?-Your guess is as good as mine: Sorry this column isn't as hairy funny as it usually is, I thought it would make a change for you, plus the fact that I couldn't be bothered to think up any jokes (and Buster wouldn't let me look at his Christmas cracker mottos). So until next time, when I shall be starring on Sunday Night at the London Palladium, Radio Jacket, or the Deal Labour Exchange, this is Steve England, on behalf of the entire crew and staff of Steve England wishing you Goodnight and Godbless..... Goodnight. XXXXX..

(Editor's Note: Since writing this Steve has joined Radio Atlantis).