BBC Radio Leeds features

BBC Radio Leeds burst onto the airwaves on Monday 24 June 1968 from its Merrion Centre studios.

The station was the seventh, of eight, experimental BBC local stations to start broadcasting.

The new radio station made front page news in that Monday's Yorkshire Evening Post. Viewed from the perspective of 40 years on some events can seem very distant.

Some things, however, never change because on that launch day the country's rail system was facing up to travel chaos as the National Union of Railwaymen announced a work to rule.

Cricket at Headingley was also making the front pages with the shock revelation that Yorkshire spinner Geoff Cope was to be reported for 'throwing'.

Locally there were student sit-ins at Leeds University as Radio Leeds went on air in 1968 and the students' union president at the time was an actvist called Jack Straw. Jack Straw is now perhaps slightly better known as the present Lord Chancellor and
Secretary of State for Justice.

Elsewhere, momentous world events shaped 1968.

Just three weeks before the station launched Presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy was assassinated in the USA. In August 1968 Soviet forces invaded Czechoslovakia.

Student protests, especially in Paris, made the headlines around the world that year. On 17 March 1968 violence had erupted in Grosvenor Square, London as a mass protest gathered outside the US embassy to rally against the Vietnam War.

Leeds lift the Challenge Cup

In sport, Leeds Rugby League Club won the 1968 Challenge Cup - beating near rivals Wakefield Trinity by one point - in the infamous 'watersplash' final. A deluge of rain turning the pitch into a shallow swimming pool.

Not to be outdone Don Revie's Leeds United beat Arsenal 1-0 to claim the League Cup and also added the UEFA cup that year.

In the wider sport world of 1968 the Wimbledon tennis tournament was opened to professionals and the Olympic games took place in Mexico City.

In pop music, some famous albums of the year included Beggars Banquet by the Rolling Stones and the Beatles' White Album. Meanwhile Louis Armstrong topped the charts with the long-lasting What A Wonderful World.

Film of the year was probably Stanley Kubrick's 2001 Space Odyssey.

What do you remember of 1968? Contact us...