[Lancs Lad]

I can remember when I got my first VHF radio in 1980. It was a Binatone 'Royal' alarm clock radio. I was ten years old.

I'd never had VHF (FM) before, having been brought up through the 1970s listening to my Mother's battered old Medium Wave transistor radio (wrapped around with yellowing Sellotape to keep the battery compartment cover in place!) always tuned to BBC Radio Blackburn (on 351 metres) every single morning. Radio Blackburn eventually became BBC Radio Lancashire in 1988, and gained three FM frequencies, to cover the whole county.

I remember tuning very slowly up and down the VHF waveband on my new radio to see what I could find.

I definitely heard police radio communications very regularly. But the best fun was listening to the local council house repair men, talking to their base, and each other, from their vans.

Sometimes it was too easy to recognise who they were saying uncomplimentary things about! Such as when one of them had gone to such and such's house on a certain road and the occupant was 'too idle to get out of bed' to let them in to do the repair work.

It was fascinating, but gradually stopped happening. I suppose they eventually realised they could be overheard and changed the technology for privacy reasons.