Radio

Even as far back as early as 1977 Derek was always finding new ways to promote Derann and in doing so he established its name in the minds of the people of Wolverhampton and Dudley. There was an large annual weekend fete that was held in Wolverhampton’s West Park and Derann was there selling film and making new friends. There were regular small adverts in the Express and Star as well as the occasional feature article, all keeping the name in the minds of the local public.

By 1976 we were having regular spots on the local radio and in particular Beacon Radio, Wolverhampton’s own spot on 303. They were for the most just simple sales pitches, with special offers and the like. During this time Derek became very good friends with several of the DJs, one of them did the voice over on ‘Movie Magazine #2: Hammer House of Horror’, I think it may have been Mike Baker. He had been the DJ at the opening of a new wine bar in Stourbridge High Street’ which had hired Beacon Radio to create a very noisy and busy opening evening. As Derek, Anne and Myself entered the crowded bar, the DJ saw us and made a loud announcement… ‘and now ladies and gentlement we can have ourselves a filmshow, for we now have the pleasure of Mr Derek Simmonds of Derann Film Services and his lovely wife’. All great free publicity!  Anyway back to the main story, remember at this time we were cine and still specialists with two popular film libraries and stockists of cameras, projectors and raw film stock, it would be another 6 years or so, before we sold hi-fi and the like, so they were for the most part just run of the mill radio ads and every week Derek would receive a phone call from a girl at Beacon Radio’s advertising office’s and they would discuss what was going into the next advert. Some times they would have a ‘new’ idea, and it was one of these ideas that ended Derek in hot water. The advert seemed innocent enough, and it had made us all smile when we received an audio cassette of the proposed advert. It went something like this ‘Psst! Want to buy a blue movie? Well Derann don’t sell them, but they do offer you the biggest choice of home movies anywhere in the Midlands. Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Westerns, Horror and Norman Wisdom, so why not pop in and see their range of home movies for yourself’ Then it gave the address and phone number. It had been running for a few days when Derek received a phone call from a very irrate lady head master at a large school in Wolverhampton. “What a disgusting advert” she shouted down the phone, “Filling the heads of my young pupils with this nonsense, they spend all day asking their very embarassed form teachers ‘Miss what’s a blue movie?’ I’m unsure how Derek handled the call but I can recall his discomfort afterwards, but I know we didn’t pull the advert from Beacon, as it was obviously catching the publics attention!