I am meant to be revising for my forthcoming exams but any act of procrastination or displacement is preferable to writing SQL queries – so I did some more digging on “Comp Shop” – and this is what I found out:
The store was set up by Chris Cary (pictured on left here) – perhaps more famous to many as Spangles Muldoon, his alter ego as a Radio Caroline DJ in the late 1960s (before going on “the great 208” at Radio Luxembourg). Spangles Muldoon appears to be something of a cult creation in the world of radio DJs – with Chris Moyles telling an Independent interviewer that it was his real name (the joke seemed to fly past the Independent).
After Comp Shop (or maybe during it) Cary went to Ireland, where he founded Radio Nova – the station that many seem to credit with revolutionising Irish radio. He also seems to have been involved in several stations in the UK.
Sadly he died, of a stroke, while (on holiday?) in Tenerife in 2008, aged just 61.
According to what I have read his interest in radio came from mucking about with electronics when younger and that would presumably fit with his role at Comp Shop too – where they not only marketed the UK101, they actively modified and improved on its design.
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