Johnnie Walker, who has died aged 79, had been a part of the radio landscape in this country for nearly 60 years. One of the most beloved names in British broadcasting, his death comes two months after he announced his retirement due to ill health.
Walker, who had been suffering from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, stepped down from his presenting roles on Radio 2’s Sounds of the 70s and The Rock Show on 27 October 2024, putting a full stop on a career that stretched back to the mid-1960s.
He was loved and admired not just for his encyclopaedic knowledge of music and his warm and engaging personality, but also for his controversial outbursts. His bosses may not have approved some of his targets – the Bay City Rollers, Margaret Thatcher et al – but listeners appreciated the bracing honesty of one of radio’s most authentic figures.
Here are some of the milestones in the life of one of the UK’s most treasured and influential broadcasters.
1966-1969: Pirate of the airwaves
Having changed his name to Johnnie Walker after hearing the name of the famous whisky company referenced on a tape of American radio jingles, the 21-year-old Peter Dingley secured his first presenting job on pirate radio station Swinging Radio England, later moving to Radio Caroline. When off-shore radio stations such as Caroline were outlawed by new legislation on 15 August 1967, most of the station’s presenters left, rather than risk prosecution, leaving just Ross Brown, Robbie Dale and Johnnie Walker on the roster.
“I was frightened to death,” Walker recalled to Radio Times in 2017. “I was exhilarated, excited. It was just incredible. I knew the moment that the second hand swept past the 12, that if I said a word I’d be a criminal, liable for prosecution for the next two years, living in exile in Holland. It was a huge moment.”
His expriences later led Walker to become an adviser for Richard Curtis’s 2009 comedy, The Boat That Rocked, about the evolution of pirate radio.
1969–1975: Going legit with BBC Radio 1
Like many of the former pirate DJs, Walker landed a job at the fledgling Radio 1, with his first gig presenting a two-hour show on Saturday afternoon.
A year later, he was given the weekday mornings slot, before moving to afternoons.
1975-1982: A swift departure and onto the US
In July 19775, Walker left BBC Radio 1 following a run-in with the station’s bosses. They had hauled him in, concerned that many of the deeper cut album tracks he was playing didn’t fit with the station’s daytime playlist.
He was also given a slapped wrist for describing the Bay City Rollers, then at the height of their fame, as “musical garbage”.
After upping sticks to the US (“I couldn’t face the idea of two years of playing the Bay City Rollers and the like,” he said later), Walker worked for various stations including KSAN in San Francisco, KPFA in Berkeley, California and WHFS in Maryland, where he became involved in the nascent punk movement.
“I definitely did feel freer in America,” he later said. “It was a combination, I think, of less government interference in individual lives, and I was English so they expected me to be a bit different. So I felt more free to be myself over there than I did here.”
“Seven years at the BBC and you get institutionalised and moulded, it’s a very subtle process. Then, here I was, suddenly with these long-haired, dope-smoking freaks on headphones in these American radio stations, and I loved all that.”
1982-1987: Going local
Upon his return to Britain, Walker got a gig presenting Radio West’s evening show The Modern World. The next year, he would join Wiltshire Radio.
1987-1990: Return to the BBC
After 12 years away, Johnnie found his way back to Radio 1, fronting the Saturday afternoon show The Stereo Sequence. Shortly after, he moved to a new London station, BBC GLR (now BBC Radio London). However, he was sacked in 1990 after commenting that people would be “dancing in the streets” following the resignation of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister.
“I knew a lot of people really hated her,” he remembered years later. “I said, ‘It’s unbelievable to think she’s going to go. There will be street parties’, which is an exaggeration,” adding he didn’t have anything against the former Tory leader personally.
1990-1994: Joining the new Radio 5
Despite being dismissed from BBC GLR, Walker secured a job on the Beeb’s newly-launched fifth station, Radio 5, remaining there until March 1994 when it was rebooted as BBC Radio 5 Live.
1991-1995: Return to Radio 1… again
While still working for Radio 5, Walker moonlighted at his old haunt, Radio 1, taking over from Richard Skinner on afternoon show The Saturday Sequence.
He would stay with the station until October 1995.
1997: Enter Radio 2 and allegations of drug use
Walker made his debut on Radio 1’s sister station (nicknamed ‘The Nation’s Favourite’) in 1997, first filling in for other presenters, and finally securing his own show in April ‘98, first on Saturday afternoons, before landing the 5pm to 7pm Monday to Thursday slot.
That show was suspended in early 1999 when The News Of The World printed an expose detailing the presenter’s drug use. “I’d been a social coke user at the weekends,” the DJ told The Mirror in 2012. “But I was going through a difficult time so instead of being a social user I became an escapist user.”
He was subsequently fined £2,000 for possession, but was allowed back on the station later that year.
2003-2004: Cancer diagnosis and treatment
After being diagnosed with cancer, Walker informed his Drivetime show listeners in June 2003 that he would be taking time off for treatment and recovery. Noel Edmonds and Stuart Maconie stood in for the presenter before he returned to the station on 1 March 2004, with his first record being Eric Clapton’s Hello Old Friend.
2012-2021: Joining the podcast revolution
Walker entered the new age of audio broadcasting in 2012, launching The Alternative Johnnie Walker Podcast, a series designed to – in his words – “open the door to an alternative view of the world”.
He would later front another series alongside his wife, Tiggy, titled Consciously Coupling, offering up “stories of desperation and inspiration, heroism, compassion, pain, pride and joy with a shared musical soundtrack at the centre of it all”.
2004-2024: Part of the Radio 2 furniture
Walker remained with Drivetime for two years after his return, before he took over from Ed Stewart on Sunday afternoons. Other slots he filled during this period included Sundays 5pm-7pm and a gig deputising for Brian Matthew on Sounds of the 60s. In 2006 he was made an MBE in the New Year Honours and in 2007 published his autobiography.
Walker began presenting Sounds of the 70s in 2009, taking over from Steve Harley. It would become the show the DJ was most associated with towards the end of his career. Even when he was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, he adapted to his health challenges by broadcasting from his home in Dorset instead of the BBC’s studios in London.
Despite this new set-up, established at the same time as the first COVID-19 lockdown, the fact that people were stuck at home saw ratings rise not just for Walker’s shows, but Radio 2 in general.
6 October, 2024: Closing a 58-year-long career
Walker announced on his Sunday afternoon show that, in light of his health issues, he had decided to bring his career to an end, with his final show scheduled for 27 October. Helen Thomas, Radio 2’s boss, described the presenter as “quite simply a broadcasting legend,” adding: “We are in awe of his incredible legacy which speaks for itself.”
Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme ahead of his final broadcast, Walker said he was sad to say goodbye to his audience: “Over the years, we’ve done an awful lot of living together, and so, you know, we’ve been through a lot of experiences, so we’ve developed a very close bond. Really, I get cards from people saying, ‘You’re the friend I’ve never met’ and things like that. So it will be sad to say goodbye.”
27 October, 2024: His final broadcast
Walker signed off for the last time on 27 October 2024, introducing his final Sounds Of The 70s with the words: “The day has come I’ve always dreaded, really, my last ever radio show.”
For his final show, producer Liz Barnes and executive producer Paul Thomas joined the presenter at his home in Dorset, along with his wife Tiggy and Sally Boazman, who worked with Walker on Radio 2’s Drivetime for seven years from 1999.
Addressing Boazman, Walker said: “This is my last ever radio show so I just wanted to say hello to you and to thank you.”
“Johnnie, it was my absolute pleasure,” she replied. “I just want to say thank you for everything. We had such good fun. And Johnnie, I will never, ever forget you.”
Tiggy said of her husband of more than two decades: “I know it’s been really hard for you. I’m the one person who knows how hard it’s been for you, and I just want to say well done for keeping going as long as you have, because you make a lot of people very happy.
“And I know there will be a lot of tears out there today, including mine.”