The Deke Duncan show on Radio 77 had it all — the latest hits, bouncy jingles, and a DJ who was born to be on the airwaves. In the 1970s it ran around the clock, several days a week, playing to the smallest audience in the world: Deke’s only listener was his wife. Radio 77 was based in a shed in Duncan’s backyard in a small English town, and everything on the show was a figment of his imagination. “My ultimate ambition would be to broadcast my radio station to the rest of Stevenage,” he told the BBC’s Nationwide TV show, when they visited his shed in 1974.
In a new podcast episode from Snap Judgement and Narratively, Duncan, now 75, reveals how he made up the news, the weather, and even the commercials — and kept Radio 77 alive for over forty years. It was Britain’s ‘pirate’ radio stations that inspired him, he said, recalling the rock’n’roll ships that broadcast illegally from international waters in the 1960s. But the young DJ’s dreams had been dashed when the BBC turned down his job application.
“They said, ‘I suggest you go away and get yourself a real job,’” Duncan recalled. (Check out an original Radio 77 show, recorded in 1974.)
Instead, he carried on “broadcasting” Radio 77 in his back yard. He was joined by friends Richard St. John and Clive Christie, and the trio took turns in the “air chair.” They ran Radio 77 like a professional station, filling space between the pop hits with fake ads for the Radio 77 record store, which of course didn’t exist. “It was just so much fun,” Duncan recalled. “I just wanted to do it forever.”
Duncan’s radio aspirations quickly took over his life: He traveled to the United States to try out as a radio jock, but failed. His friends moved on, and his wife left him. The only constant in his life was his make-believe radio show, where he could slip on his headphones and enjoy his imaginary world. Somehow, he kept the station running, on and off, for forty years.
Then, in 2018, something amazing happened that would make Deke Duncan’s wildest dreams come true.
Listen below to the “Radio 77” episode of Snap Judgement by Jeff Maysh, co-produced by Narratively. (Our story starts around the 3-minute-30-second mark of this episode.)
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