When BBC Radio Leeds started in 1968, there was a determination by the manager that we should provide a news service – he thought that was an important part of BBC local radio. It was part of an experiment to the BBC, to introduce local radio across the country, and it lasted for two years.

There was great hostility from the Yorkshire Post newspapers, particularly the Yorkshire Evening Post, who were annoyed that the monopoly that they’d had for news coverage would be broken if there was a competing news collection from BBC Radio Leeds. Added to this, the manager spoke to the local National Union of Journalists and managed to persuade three of their key people to come and join the BBC, so they were a little bit hostile. In fact, they were so hostile they refused to ever mention BBC Radio Leeds, at the beginning.

In response to this hostility, we decided to buy a greyhound - the radio station brought a greyhound and named it ‘Radio Leeds’ and ran it down at the greyhound stadium, which was then down in Elland Road.

So then the newspaper, in their sports coverage, had to name the words ‘Radio Leeds’ as one of the runners, and we used to encourage people to go down to Elland Road, so people from the terraces down at the greyhound stadium would be shouting “Come on Radio Leeds!”

So this was the response to local hostility - and it managed to make sure that Radio Leeds got off the ground. It was one of the outstanding stations and after two years it was decided that the BBC would go ahead with a local radio network across the country - and it has expanded since. But really, part of the success of that was this greyhound that we bought that we called ‘Radio Leeds’!