In its early days, Trent was a landmark station which hit new levels of presentation and formatting professionalism, largely thanks to its original Programme Director, Bob Snyder, who I had previously worked with at Manchester's Piccadilly Radio. Most 1970s ILR stations tended to sound like 'the BBC with adverts' but Trent was an exception (as were Piccadilly, Beacon and Radio210), with a music policy which ditched the reliance on the chart obsessions of BBC Radio 1, and employed slicker 'cheeky chappie' DJs. I was very proud to be part of that original line-up, albeit as a 'creature of the night' with my free-form evening album show. Imagine: three (later four) hours a night, five (originally six) nights a week, to play whatever you wanted! I programmed everything from heavy rock to jazz to electric folk to blues, along with dozens of interviews with the album stars of those days like Ian Gillan, Mike Oldfield, Robert Palmer, etc. A recently-found copy of one week's music for my shows (loyally typed-up by Janet) from 13 Feb 1976 makes interesting reading for its display of 'genre-busting'. Click the thumbnails below to read them. It then started go wobbly, though, as the rift between Snyder and our Managing Director, Denis Maitland, became greater and greater and finally unbreachable. Much unrest had already ensued with two separate camps emerging: Snyder had hired all-but-one of the DJs, with Maitland insisting on a job for a former Luxembourg colleague, Kid Jensen. Jensen left, Snyder left, and Maitland decided, in desperation, that we should now compete directly with BBC Radio 2. So, out went Phillysound and Bad Company and in came, errr, Acker Bilk (remember 'Aria'?)! That didn't last long and eventually a new Programme Director arrived in the form of Neil Spence (aka Dave Dennis from the 60s pirate Radio London). Yet more changes were planned but I got a job offer that was too good to refuse and moved to rural Dorset where Snyder, Tom Maddocks and Guy Morris were regular visitors. Jeff Cooper RADIO TRENT audio page