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Mandy spent her formative teenage years listening to London's
legendary landbased pirates of the 1970's and 80's and, once
bitten by the bug, she was soon helping out at various stations.
It didn't take long before she was presenting programmes under
various on-air pseudonyms and from these humble beginnings she
graduated to ordering the boys around and running her own station
as well as some very brief work on BBC local radio and the famed
United Biscuits Network (UBN).
From a start in radio she progressed to hanging out with London's
underground
punk movement of the early 80's and danced and sang on stage with
several bands such as UK Subs and The Addicts.
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For a while
she fronted her own band - a Blondie look and sound alike. Along the way
she worked closely with people like Max Splodge of Splodgenessabounds, and
Chris Difford and Glen Tilbrook of Squeeze.
One day she appeared as an audience member of BBC's "Top Of The Pops"
where her
dancing skills were noticed by the programmes choreographer. This led to
an offer to be part of the new on-set dance troupe replacing the recently
disbanded Legs and Co. To this day she regards a studio dance routine to
Duran Durans "Girls on Film" as one of her pinnacle career moments.
1984 saw her take a trip to the Radio Caroline ship "Ross Revenge" on the
North Sea, where she had been offered on-air DJ position. However, being
the only girl at that time on a ship full of guys did not overly appeal,
and she declined the offer. A relatively "normal" career in
insurance/banking/finance was to become her chosen path through life and
during the 1990's devoted family life became the norm.
Now, in the noughties, life has turned full circle and she is back in
radio where she started out all those years ago though she has no plans to
put the wellies back on and tramp round those muddy fields! |
