David Scarff from Royal Free Radio looks back at the origins of the hospital radio station

The original 'Radio Enfield' (left) and Tom Delaney (right) DJing for Royal Free Radio — The original ‘Radio Enfield’ (left) and Tom Delaney (right) DJing for Royal Free Radio

Royal Free Radio, which now broadcasts to patients at four North London hospitals, is celebrating 55 years on air on 24th May.

Based at Chase Farm Hospital, and operated entirely by volunteers, the service – previously known as Radio Enfield – provides patients with a unique service of record requests, quizzes, interviews, patient information and advice and is on air 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Sky News Centre provides an hourly two-minute bulletin and there is also a special programme aimed at helping patients with dementia and ward staff managing the phenomenon known as ‘sundowning’.

While we have now expanded to now cover Barnet, Chase Farm, North Middlesex and Royal Free hospitals, in the early days in 1970 when Radio Enfield started in a converted storeroom at Chase Farm, we were only on air at one hospital for just two hours a week, on Sunday evenings.

I’m not sure where those 55 years have gone, but when we started the country was still using pounds, shillings and pence, The Beatles had just broken up, Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel was a new release and it was four years before anyone had heard of Abba.

In the early days, Radio Enfield was run by a team of seven schoolfriends. All of us were interested in electronics, music and tape-recording and wanted to run a legal radio station. The idea came from the offshore radio stations of the 1960s such as Radio Caroline and Radio London and, after a letter to the then-matron at Chase Farm, the go-ahead was given to start the service in May 1970, which later expanded to Highlands and South Lodge hospitals in 1972 and North Middlesex Hospital in 1973. The Royal Free was added in 2016 and Barnet Hospital in 2024.

Gradually, more volunteers were taken on and broadcasting hours extended. The radio station re-branded from Radio Enfield to Royal Free Radio in 2017 after Chase Farm became a part of Royal Free London NHS Trust, and merged with the Royal Free Charity at the same time.

Station manager Andy Higgins, who has been with the station for 47 years, recalled that during the Covid-19 pandemic the station was able to stay on the air throughout with volunteers being able to present their programmes from home whilst visiting to the hospitals was restricted.

“We were able to pass on messages and requests to patients whilst relatives and friends were unable to visit,” Andy said.

Howard White added: “The Royal Free and Royal Free Charity have been very supportive of the station and we have never been more proud to support the NHS than in recent times with the impact of Covid-19.”

Another volunteer, Patrick Kingham, has recently returned to the station after a break of 35 years and produces information bulletins as well as presenting programmes.

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