Gary Davies

Gary Davies (born Manchester, 13th December 1958) was one of the UK's most popular disc jockeys of the 1980s.

Davies joined BBC Radio 1 in 1982 to present a Saturday late night show. Within weeks he was on the roster to present Top Of The Pops on BBC television alongside his Radio 1 colleagues.

In 1983 Davies was given the slot for which he became one of radio's biggest stars when he took over the Radio 1 lunchtime show. He called it The Bit In The Middle and it combined daft, jovial features like The Day-To-Day Challenge, in which the same person would go on air each weekday to answer quiz questions and try to upgrade their prize; and Willy On The Plonker, which involved a crazed piano-playing of a well-known hit for listeners to identify.

The show was hugely important in the 1980s as, before the new UK Top 40 was announced on Sundays (its day of compilation), it was always Davies who got the job of revealing the week's chart movements on a Tuesday afternoon.

There was a marketability about Davies as he was arguably alone in being regarded by female listeners as a heart-throb. Though the station was young and trendy and a big favourite with pop-loving kids, the male DJs generally did not come into the 'hunk' category and therefore Davies was projected as the eligible bachelor of the station, complete with catchphrase "Young, Free and Single" and saucy jingles which went "Wooh! Gary Davies".

Davies became popular on the Radio 1 roadshows throughout the 1980s but his own show rarely changed until it was rebranded in 1990 as Let's Do Lunch, with new features, including Spin & Win (a variation on Willy On The Plonker, with a cryptic clue replacing the frenetic piano work) and the Classic Track, which was the one time of the week Radio 1 played a piece of classical music. Previous feature The Sloppy Bit (a dedication followed by love song) was unchanged but renamed Lots Of Love. With the chart rundowns now moved to Sundays, Davies did countdowns of the American chart and the UK album chart instead.

In 1992, Davies quit the lunchtime show and moved to weekend breakfast, keeping a selection of the features. He also started a Sunday late night "no frills" slot, with the music taking over, and this was regarded as easily his best radio work. But in 1993, with a new regime at Radio 1 wishing to eke out the older presenters representing a past era, Davies was sacked. His last record was Layla by Derek and the Dominoes - which had also been his first record on the station eleven years earlier.

He moved to Virgin Radio to do a weekend morning slot, later reveiving his Sunday night format to lesser effect (the station being on medium wave and the presence of commercials didn't help). He later worked for the Real Radio network, presenting a CD chart show.