Calling All Listeners: Central Library needs your Piccadilly Radio tapes!

Members of the public are being called on to help preserve the legacy of one of Manchester’s most iconic radio stations by sharing any home recordings of shows from its golden era.

Piccadilly Radio was the city’s first commercial radio station to hit the airwaves in April 1974 with DJ Roger Day playing the Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations. In September 2024, it was announced the archives from the now closed station would be digitised after securing a £99k grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. 

With the support of The National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Manchester Libraries Trust, over 1,600 Piccadilly Radio shows have been preserved in digital format since January 2025 and are now available to explore on the Library’s Sound + Vision listening pods.  

But many broadcasts remain missing to complete the archives. These much-loved shows include James Stannage’s late-night shock jock antics, Susie Mathis and Dave Ward’s daytime shows, Mike Shaft’s soulful ‘Taking Care of Business’ and his yearly ‘Best of’ guest DJ mixes. 

Stu Allan’s legendary hip hop show ‘Bus Diss’ and even Steve Penk’s infamous wind-up calls are all missing from the Piccadilly Radio Archives. 

These are the kinds of live recordings that weren’t kept by the station – but may still exist in attics, cupboards, on old cassette collections. The library is especially keen to find episodes of the children’s show Tripe & Onions with Judith Weymont, Chris Evans and Michael Gates’s Gambon and DeFrietas detective series and the Last Radio Programme with Tony Michaelides (Tony the Greek). 

Listeners with tapes at home are invited to contact the Library and can have their tapes digitised for free, so that their favourite shows can be saved for posterity. The call-out comes as part of the Piccadilly Radio Archive: Nobody Did It Better! exhibition, running at Manchester Central Library until 31 December 2025. The exhibition celebrates the station’s rich history and the voices that shaped Manchester’s airwaves from 1974 to the 2000s. 

The project has worked with the Manchester Digital Music Archive to create a space for listeners to search the archive and curate their own Piccadilly Radio memories. The project funding has also facilitated archives workshops for young people with the Greater Manchester Hip Hop Archive, delivered radio skills training with ALL FM to enable older listeners to create their own shows and collected oral histories with Piccadilly Radio staff. 

Councillor John Hacking, Executive Member for Skills, Employment and Leisure, said: “The Piccadilly Radio Archive project is doing incredible work to preserve Manchester’s broadcasting history, and this public call-out is a chance for all of us to be part of it. If you’ve got old tapes of your favourite shows from back in the day, now’s the time to dig them out and help fill in the archive. The exhibition at Central Library is a must-visit, and it’s amazing to see how volunteers, young people, and older listeners are all contributing to this living history.”  

Helen Featherstone, Director, England, North at The National Lottery Heritage Fund said: “Local radio holds a special place in the hearts for many people in the North of England, so it has been fantastic to see the archives digitised and preserved, thanks to National Lottery players. The project has already enabled more people to learn about our rich musical heritage, and we hope it will be a valuable resource to inspire the next generation of broadcasters.”