Anyone growing up in Crawley would of been familiar with this picture! It was in every rear window of the cars on our roads!
Radio Mercury WAS Crawley and the surrounding areas local radio station and most of the people presenting on the station were from Crawley and knew the area and what local people wanted to hear. It broadcasted first from Broadfield House before moving to Manor Royal and was eventually owned by the same group that own Heart FM and what happened was Mercury was merged into Heart Sussex (Formerly Southern FM) leaving us with a radio station whose only shows that are for the region are Breakfast & Drive the rest are syndicated shows across the whole of the Heart Network. Now I use the term local loosely as its very Brighton centric.
Radio Mercury was the place we went to as kids on a snowy morning waiting to hear if your school was open or closed, it was what was on in the car to hear ACTUAL traffic news for Crawley (Imagine that now you could actually hear on the radio that Tushmore Gyratory was at a standstill and go another way!).
The adverts on the station were for local companies that wanted the business of people from Crawley and as residents we were more likely to use as they were local and easy to get to! Mercury attended every charity event going on in the town and were fantastic at getting people going prior to a charity run or at a Fireworks Event.
Since Mercury was closed down I have heard a few things that suggested a new radio station was on the way but nothing has ever come of this. I have very fond memories of us having this radio station when it was independent and enjoyed Graham Torrington's late night love on many occasions.
I would love for someone to bring back a truly independent radio station for the people of Crawley as I think the town and surrounding areas could certainly do with this and are surely big enough to sustain it the same as we did for Mercury for so many years.
Radio Mercury was the place we went to as kids on a snowy morning waiting to hear if your school was open or closed, it was what was on in the car to hear ACTUAL traffic news for Crawley (Imagine that now you could actually hear on the radio that Tushmore Gyratory was at a standstill and go another way!).
The adverts on the station were for local companies that wanted the business of people from Crawley and as residents we were more likely to use as they were local and easy to get to! Mercury attended every charity event going on in the town and were fantastic at getting people going prior to a charity run or at a Fireworks Event.
Since Mercury was closed down I have heard a few things that suggested a new radio station was on the way but nothing has ever come of this. I have very fond memories of us having this radio station when it was independent and enjoyed Graham Torrington's late night love on many occasions.
I would love for someone to bring back a truly independent radio station for the people of Crawley as I think the town and surrounding areas could certainly do with this and are surely big enough to sustain it the same as we did for Mercury for so many years.
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