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The Midlands roots of Johnnie Walker

Getty Images Black and white image of a young man sitting on a bench marked "Hampton" at a railway station. He has a black holdall, and is wearing a velvet jacket and cravate.Getty Images
The DJ set out for a radio career on the pirate ships and national BBC

"I remember looking out of the showroom window and I could see Olton maternity home.

"I thought: 'I'm 200 yards from where I entered. If I'm not careful, I'll be here the rest of my life."

And so, soon after his 21st birthday, Johnnie Walker brought the curtain down on his short career as a car salesman in the Solihull suburb where he had been born in 1945.

But the DJ, whose death at the age of 79 was announced on Tuesday, never forgot his roots and spoke of his love of the West Midlands.

Known as Peter Dingley until showbiz demanded a cooler name, he attended private schools in Solihull.

He told interviewers they succeeded more with his "character development" than academic prowess.

Alongside his subsequent career in the motor trade, he had been playing Birmingham's bars and nightclubs after becoming attracted to the showbiz world.

"I went to the Locarno ballroom and saw this DJ playing records really loud. This was the beginning of discotheques, and I thought: 'What a great job'."

When he had the chance to develop his career by joining pirate station Swinging Radio England, he had no doubts about how to approach the matter with his boss at the garage.

"He said 'I'll give you two weeks to think about it', and I said 'well, I don't need two weeks... I want to be a disc jockey, thank you very much."

Johnnie Walker, with white hair, a blue jacket and smiling at the camera by a window.
The DJ retired from his BBC Radio 2 shows in October as his lung condition worsened

Walker's radio career took him to pirate, BBC and commercial stations in the UK, as well as a stint in the US.

When he joined the BBC in London from the offshore pirates, the head of Radio 1 conducted his interview on a canal boat so he would feel at home among the portholes.

With national stardom, the DJ did not broadcast specifically in his home region until BBC Radio WM invited him to take part in a Legends Weekend to mark its 45th anniversary in 2015.

Speaking to BBC Midlands Today at the time, he said: "I always like to come back to Birmingham - there's something about Birmingham that London and the south just doesn't have.

"It's just that feeling that strangers who don't know each other are almost like friends who haven't yet met."

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