Bruno Brookes
Bruno Brookes (born Trevor Neil Brookes in
Stoke-on-Trent,
25th April,
1959) is a British radio presenter who shot to fame in the
1980s.
Brookes got into
DJ-ing through
youth club discos in his home town before he sent a successful tape to his local station,
BBC Radio
Stoke-on-Trent. He spent three years there before being recruited by
BBC Radio 1, the national pop network, where he worked as a stand-in presenter for
Steve Wright before taking over the teatime show from
Peter Powell.
This programme proved popular with younger listeners, as Brookes immediately began a career-long association with the UK
Top 40 singles chart. In the mid-1980s, the chart was still announced on Tuesday lunchtimes by
Gary Davies but kids unable to get to a radio while at school got the chance to hear a re-run of the new countdown with Brookes in the early evening. In
1986, Brookes took over the Sunday afternoon Top 40 show, which at the time was still counting down a chart which had been announced five days earlier and had been used for Top of the Pops the previous Thursday evening. From 4th October 1987 onwards, the Top 40 was revealed for the first time by Brookes in its now traditional Sunday afternoon slot, as new technology meant the chart took just hours instead of days to compile. Brookes briefly lost the chart to
Mark Goodier in
1990, but then regained it in
1992, though there was never an element of tension or competition between the two DJs, and both were equally proficient at the programme.
In
1989, Brookes moved to the weekend breakfast show, co-hosting with
Liz Kershaw, and also regularly deputised for
Simon Mayo on the weekday breakfast show. Three years later he moved to the early breakfast slot, where he remained until he was sacked in
1995 as controller
Matthew Bannister continued his cull of elder presenters. Brookes was referred to by Trevor Dann, Bannister's head of music as 'bestriding the earth like a behemoth, the biggest dinosaur of them all', despite the fact that he was only thirty-six years old (other culled DJs had been in their forties or fifties).
Brookes also infamously played the uncensored version of
Killing in the Name by
Rage Against the Machine, which contains 16 instances of "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me" culminating in "motherfucker".
During his Radio 1 heyday, Brookes was on the
Top Of The Pops host roster and also presented
Beat The Teacher on BBC television, a popular
teenagers' quiz where pupils would take on teachers in a
general knowledge game based on
noughts and crosses. He was the last of three presenters this show had, following
Howard Stableford and ex-
Manfred Mann singer
Paul Jones. He also hosted the dating show
Love At First Sight and the angling show
Tight Lines on
SkyAfter Radio 1, Brookes worked for numerous radio stations, presenting a networked show called
Bruno At The Millhouse, while hosting a daily mid-morning slot for
Leeds station
Radio Aire. He ran a DJ school in Newbury, and was
Chris Moyles manager for a while.
He was also involved in a public spat with ex-Radio 1 colleague
Bob Harris, whom Brookes had lent money for a flat. When Harris lost his job and couldn't pay it back, Brookes laid an unsuccessful claim to his extensive and valuable record collection.
In recent years, Brookes has kept a low public profile but has made a fortune with his company Storm, which was the UK's first 24 hour
internet radio station. Storm Radio was renamed Immedia in 1999, and the company floated in December 2003. Brookes' stake was valued at flotation at over £2 million. Immedia supplies instore radio for Lloyds pharmacies, Dixons electricals and 2,300 other shops and newsagents. There are also initial services at HSBC, IKEA and other leading retailers.
Brookes was involved for many years with TV presenter
Anthea Turner but in a twist of irony, she left him for Peter Powell, the man whose gig had been taken by Brookes when he got his break. He later married
model Debbie Brooker.
In May 2006, Brookes suffered a heart attack and was treated at
St. Thomas' Hospital, London where he was interviewed by
Nadia Sawalha as a patient on
BBC One's
City Hospital. In the interview he said he would try to give up smoking which he acknowledged as the main reason for his illness. [
1]
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Biography at Radio Rewind
