Friends 100.7 FM

Friends FM began broadcasting from Oliver Close, Leyton in 1989 for around four years. DJs included Mad B (Roy Balfourth who was also its founder), Fusion Groover, Steve B and the Frogger, Shaggy and Breeze, Nicky Blackmarket, Lennie De Ice, MC ID, Lady P, Ernie B and Jazz T.

I was doing something that I thoroughly enjoyed. We found that you could go down this space and into the lift shaft and put the transmitter… So, the DTI would come, they’d cut the cable but they couldn’t find the transmitter. So we just kept plugging it up.

Roy Balfourth, DJ, Producer and Founder

Now, this is the thing, so Friends used to go out really far, really far. Roy knew how to set up a station properly. And the guy that used to build his transmitters was really switched on. They knew their stuff. We’d get crazy calls, crazy calls from mad places, like Gravesend… that’s Kent… you think, ‘We’re in Leyton’, Kent’s a schlep.

Steve B, DJ