Richard Spendlove

Spendlove was born in Carlton in Nottinghamshire. He worked for British Railways for 35 years, and in 1963 was appointed Relief Station Master at Ely in Cambridgeshire. He retired from the railways in 1989 at the age of 50.

With David Croft wrote and created a BBC TV comedy series, Oh, Doctor Beeching!.

From 18 March 1989 until his last show on 6 May 2017, Spendlove worked for BBC Local Radio as the host of his long-running music and phone in show, which was simulcast from BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and also broadcast on the Eastern Counties radio stations, including Radio Norfolk, Radio Suffolk, Radio Essex, BBC Three Counties Radio, Radio Northampton and Radio Kent. In 1994, an Early day motion tabled in the House of Commons after a break in its broadcasting received a total of fifteen signatures. It was believed to be the longest running phone in chat show on UK Radio.[1]

Since then, the show has returned on and off. From December 2017 to March 2018, the show was broadcast on Mildenhall, Suffolk based community station Zack FM. Since late 2018, the show has been broadcast online on and off, through MIXLR and Mixcloud, with a dedicated facebook page.

Spendlove was awarded the MBE for "Services to Regional and Local Radio Broadcasting" in June 2000.[2][3]

In 2016, the BBC was critical of his use of his show to gain support for a convicted Royal Marine murderer.[4]