ON September 30 fifty years ago Radio 1 was launched, and on the same day Alan Banks married Brenda Williams at Christchurch Priory. The link between the two, DJ Tony Blackburn.

Tony Blackburn was Radio 1's first breakfast host, he had already worked for offshore pirate radio stations Radio Caroline and Radio London, before joining the BBC in 1967. Born in Guildford, Tony and his family moved in 1946 to Bournemouth, then in Hampshire, where his sister Jacqueline was born. Tony attended Castle Court School in Parkstone, before he received a scholarship for Millfield School in Somerset.

Tony's father Dr Kenneth Fleming Blackburn worked as a GP on Longfleet Road, Poole, where Alan and his family were patients. Dr Blackburn must have been proud of Tony but didn't talk about his son at the surgery.

Alan and Brenda first met at George Hartwell Ltd, the Rootes Group motor dealers, in Holdenhurst Road, Bournemouth, in 1961. Alan was an apprentice motor mechanic and Brenda worked in the Cost Office.

The TV programme Songs of Praise was being filmed at Christchurch Priory the day after their wedding so they were lucky to have the church flooded with flowers and TV cameras on their special day.

Brenda's parents were also married in the priory, as was her younger sister. Alan's father Fred Banks, a lay preacher at Hill Street Baptist Church, Poole, would have played the organ at their wedding but sadly died three months earlier.

Their wedding car, a beautiful restored 1934 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost convertible was driven over from Swanage, and the bride and groom enjoyed a long ride around Christchurch before the ceremony, all free of charge.