How Johnnie Walker went from conquering the airwaves on pirate radio to much-loved BBC legend
RADIO legend Johnnie Walker knew he had conquered the UK airwaves when, late one night, he leaned close to his shipboard microphone and commanded: “Lights on!”
He later recalled: “The entire coast, as far as you could see, became a blaze of light.”
Thousands of listeners to his revolutionary Sixties pirate radio show, broadcast from an ex-cargo ship three miles off Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, had driven to the shoreline, parked up and awaited his order to turn on their headlights.
The DJ, who has died aged 79, weeks after broadcasting his final show, recalled: “I’ve never felt so powerful in all my life.”
It was a spectacular response to one of the presenter’s most popular segments on Radio Caroline, which he called “Frinton flashing”.
Fans parked along the shore with their radios on and replied to Johnnie’s questions with one flash for yes, two for no.
My trick is to make each listener feel I’m doing the show just for that person.
Johnnie Walker
Up to 20million people became firm fans of the broadcaster in those days, and his familiar, satin-smooth tones took that Sixties generation on to Radio 1 and Radio 2.
Johnnie, who had a debilitating lung disease, was broadcasting his much-loved Sounds Of The Seventies and The Rock Show on Radio 2 up until October 27 — even as he was told he had weeks to live.
His death was announced yesterday by his replacement, Bob Harris.
Wife Tiggy Walker said she “couldn’t be more proud” of her husband, hailing the “dignity and grace” with which he coped with his illness.
But Johnnie was always a fighter. He had soldiered through earlier challenges including alcoholism, drug addiction, broken marriages, depression, a suicide attempt — and his habit of enraging bosses.
‘Risking arrest’
Famously, he quit Radio 1 in the mid-Seventies after being pressured to play the Bay City Rollers, telling listeners the tartan-clad band was “musical garbage”.
And in 1990, he was sacked from BBC GLR after saying people would be “dancing in the streets” following the resignation of Tory PM Margaret Thatcher.
Johnnie was the first DJ in Britain to play The Eagles, Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers, while Lou Reed credited him with making Walk On The Wild Side a classic hit.
Pete Townshend said his support was key to The Who’s breakthrough, and the presenter was an early champion of Elton John and Led Zeppelin.
He once said: “My trick is to make each listener feel I’m doing the show just for that person.”
Born Peter Waters Dingley in Solihull, West Mids, on March 30, 1945, Johnnie was the fourth of five children to engineering sales rep Trevor and stay-at-home mum Mary.
After failing his O-levels, he left private school aged 16 to train as a mechanic, then sold used cars.
At 21, the music fan began DJ-ing at dances, and revealed: “I had bad acne, which made me shy. Being a DJ was a way I could be extrovert without people seeing me.”
After reading about a new pirate radio station, Swinging Radio England, he applied for a job and, to his amazement, he got it.
There was only one condition — he must call himself Johnnie Walker, because bosses wanted to recycle a jingle written for an American DJ of that name.
Days later, in May 1966, the newly named Johnnie was spinning discs from a floating rustbucket in the North Sea.
At the time, BBC Radio had a monopoly on the airwaves and only played four hours of pop a week.
Pirate station Radio Caroline, set up in 1964, broadcast offshore to avoid breaking any UK laws.
Johnnie landed its 9pm to midnight slot aboard the MV Mi Amigo after six months at Radio England.
As well as Frinton Flashing, he was famous for the “Ten O’Clock Turn On”, when he would play sexy soul music.
Lusty listeners wrote in with requests for his Kiss In The Car segment, where he would play as they smooched.
Radio Caroline even released Kiss In The Car licences to stick on the windscreen.
Johnnie said: “One of the few places where kids could do their heavy petting was in the car . . . so the licence was an obvious winner.”
At midnight on August 14, 1967, a new law made pirate radio illegal.
Twenty-two million people tuned in to hear Johnnie defiantly declare: “Radio Caroline continues!”, before he played The Beatles’ All You Need Is Love, risking arrest.
As the station’s other DJs, including Tony Blackburn, abandoned ship for Radio One, he and Robbie Dale stayed on until the boat was seized for unpaid bills in March 1968.
It had become a way of escaping my depression . . . away from work, I was completely miserable.
Johnnie Walker
For the next year, Johnnie worked as a delivery driver, before being offered a job at Radio 1.
But by the early Seventies, married to secretary Frances Kum and with a young son, Sam, he was struggling with depression and attempted suicide.
In 1976 — after the Bay City Rollers row — Johnnie headed for San Francisco with Frances, Sam and youngest child Beth.
But money was tight and the marriage fell apart.
Frances moved home with Beth, while Sam, four, stayed with his skint dad, who said they briefly “lived in my old Chevrolet estate”.
Suspension and addiction
By the early Eighties, Johnnie was back in the UK, working on local BBC Radio, before returning to Radio 1 in 1987.
His Radio 2 drivetime show, from 1998 to 2006, was an institution and he survived a suspension in 1999 over a cocaine addiction.
He said in 2007: “It had become a way of escaping my depression . . . away from work, I was completely miserable.”
He remained his charming, humorous self to the end. What an amazing man. He’ll be celebrating with a stash of great musicians in heaven.
Johnnie's wife Tiggy
Johnnie had been single since the end of his little-known second marriage to Alison McDowall, who he split with six months after their 1992 wedding.
In 2001, he met radio and film producer Tiggy Jarvis, who was 14 years his junior. They married in December 2002.
Johnnie was struck down with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma on their honeymoon, while in 2013 Tiggy survived breast cancer.
The pair became joint patrons of Carers UK, and Tiggy cared for her husband when he was diagnosed with an incurable inflammation of the lungs in 2020.
It left him on oxygen support and last June, Tiggy revealed Johnnie had been told by doctors to “prepare to go”.
But even then, the star — awarded an MBE in 2006 — kept broadcasting from their Dorset home, insisting it gave him “purpose”.
Yesterday, in her touching New Year’s Eve tribute, Tiggy said: “He remained his charming, humorous self to the end. What an amazing man. He’ll be celebrating with a stash of great musicians in heaven.”
Helen Thomas, head of BBC Radio 2, said station staff were “heartbroken” over Johnnie’s passing, adding: “The airwaves won’t be the same again.”
'I've known Johnnie since the 1960s'
BBC Radio 2 Sounds Of The 70s presenter Bob Harris has told listeners the “very sad news” of the death of the show’s former presenter Johnnie Walker.
Introducing Tuesday’s edition of the show, he said he had heard the news from the late presenter’s widow Tiggy.
Harris said on the show: “I’ve known Johnnie since the 1960s when I first started listening to him on pirate radio and we know what an incredible, wonderful, superb broadcaster he was.
“We also know how passionate he was about his music, went out on a limb many times to defend the music that he loved and he was passionate about radio, and as the 60s moved into the 70s he and I became increasingly close friends, a friendship that endured right up to the present day.
“We had many shared experiences, not least our support of each other during our various health experiences.
“In fact, Johnnie and I were exchanging texts through the time after I took over the show, he wished me well at the beginning of the first programme that I did.
“‘Sending you lots of love’ he said, ‘relax and enjoy, the listeners are lovely, and they’ll look after you, all the very best from Johnnie’.”
Harris opened the show with David Bowie’s Golden Years and also spoke about Walker helping him after his aortic dissection.