Happy Anniversary Radio DGH

The foundations of Radio DGH were founded in 1951 at the Old St Mary’s Hospital in Old Town Eastbourne. It was here where serving trolleys were converted to support portable record players and volunteers would walk the wards playing songs of the day to the patients during their stay. This history book has long gone. Who were the pioneers? We would love to know. This was the start of “The Record Request” service. A simple idea that has stuck with us for the past 75 Years. We simply play your kind of Music. 

During 2026 Radio DGH celebrated two milestone anniversaries. This feature focuses on our 50 Anniversary which aligns with the opening of
the Eastbourne District General Hospital in 1976 of which the official opening was held by Princess Alexandra in 1977.

Radio DGH Eastbourne was established originally by Adrian Tongue andPhilip Bull in 1976 who were entrusted to provide entertainment and
information to the patients of the brand new Eastbourne  District General Hospital in Kings Drive Eastbourne building upon the success
of the  “Record Request” service that had previously operated in theold St Marys and Princess Alice units which had been running since
being established 1951.

The music of the 1970’s will continue to be debated as probably one of the most diverse decades ever, from the melodic sounds of The
Carpenters to Disco, through to Pop, and Punk. Many of these records, including Donna Summers “Love to Love you Baby” and The Sex Pistols
“God Save The Queen” being banned which often catapulted them to the top of the charts. Radio DGH has to purchase all of its music.
Predominantly in the early days our preference was to purchase 7″ vinyl records which were easier to store and to access for broadcasting to the wards via an internal system. Many of thoserecords can still be found in our record library today.  We also had atape recorder which we found to be incredibly useful.

As technology advanced into the 1980’s we welcomed and embraced the arrival of the CD player, Stephen Pilford became our project manager
and with some incredible financial support from the National Lottery, The Friends of Eastbourne Hospital and the Women’s Royal Voluntary
Service along with many fundraising activities from the team at Radio DGH we able to to refit the studios to an incredibly high standard
using some of the very best equipment available at the time.

During 2017 Radio DGH invested in computers and software which enabled us to broadcast on-line as well as to the patients of the Eastbourne
District General Hospital. Despite power cuts, covid, burst pipes from the floors above and  equipment failures we survived. Big and Better
than ever. Thank you to everyone for helping us reach the phenomenal milestones