DJ Frenchie

At a book launch in 2013

He joined PCRL in 1985 when the station was started and played Soul music. In early shows he joined in with people like Bee Jay & Kenny B.  In 1987, Frenchie aka Anthony Quailey left PCRL, being unhappy that the station wasn't playing enough Soul music, and decided to start his own station. So on the 1st May, 1987, Second City Radio (SCR) was born on 93 FM. SCR was a lot mellower than PCRL playing more soul and dance music, including house music which was new at the time.

The station was supposed to be on from 7pm on Friday till 5am on Monday but after its first weekend on air, the station was troubled with hassle from the authorities and technical problems. To get round these problems, on the 18th of July, SCR moved to 95 FM. However, they still seemed to suffer more problems than other stations with their signal varying from week to week, along with the amount of hours they were on.

On the 21st May 1988 a new station was heard on 95 FM, Fresh FM, which again played soul, dance and house music across the weekend. Most of the DJ’s on Fresh FM were previously on Second City Radio and they also had the same mailing address.

A wide variety of music was played, including obscure tracks and rare grooves. At one point, there was a show where new recording artists could get their records aired on Fresh FM. DJ’s heard on Fresh FM included DJ Frenchie, Dr Horse, Kash Money and Trevor T and the station aired adverts for a number of businesses, notably Summit Records of central Birmingham.

Sadly, like SCR before them, Fresh seemed to get more hassle than other stations. It is thought this may have been due to the frequency of 95, which is quite close to a number of BBC local radio stations. Indeed, reception of Fresh FM to the North of Birmingham (eg Handsworth and Erdington) was often difficult, due to receiver interference from adjacent stations. However, Fresh FM still managed to continue into early 1990. In 2013 Frenchie  helped launch the book Masters Of The Airwaves and did guest interviews with local Black radio stations in the Midlands area.  (pirate archive/nold)

Audio recordings from Pirate Archieve
Frenchie + BJ (30-06-85)
Frenchie + BJ + Kenny B (14-07-85)