Can you repeat it please?
Okay.
It was 1983. I was then living in Wallasey and working at Radio City, the commercial radio station for Liverpool based just around the corner from the Cavern - the famous club where the merseybeat began and the likes of the Beatles started out in the 60s.
I had a weekly show within the show of DJ Brian Ford. Each week I talked about some kind of Fortean phenomenon of my choice and explained what it was, told some cases, theories and talked about any stories sent in from listeners.
To get these stories I always recorded a 'trail' which played on the station during the week pointing up the subject I would feature next week and asking for calls or letters.
One week I featured UFOs, of course, and my boss - in fact the boss of the station at that time - asked to come on so he could talk about his sighting. He was Gerry Marsden - Gerry of Gerry and the Pacemakers. He had seen a UFO over the Wirral.
Anyhow that next week I explained that I was going to cover synchronicity and recorded my trail calling it that.
Our producer told me I would have to re record it because Radio City was aimed at the 'young record buying public' who would never have heard of such a word. So I had to re do it and just call it coincidence.
A bit peeved over this I went home to find I had a call from Jodrell Bank. At that time they passed on UFO sightings made to them by the public so they could be followed up. It was a witness from a suburb of Liverpool who had been freaked out by a UFO sighting in the early hours. Jodrell and I agreed it sounded like a meteor but I agreed to call the witness given their distress. They told me that they had seen a bright 'star' fall out of the sky. I tried to reassure them and expected that was that.
Next day, back at the Radio City to check my calls and post the news room was agog about a story that had developed over the past 24 hours. Some youths on possibly stolen motorbikes had inexplicably ridden them into the path of a freight train. They had no idea why. But I saw immediately the time and place matched the UFO sighing and I was in a quandary. Had they seen this meteor, been distracted and missed the train? But could I say this to the police? Would they think I was after publicity for the show? And could I involve an innocent witness in a police investigation?
So I went to the studio downstairs to chat to the DJ between breaks when he had a record on and ask his advice.
Part 2....in a few minutes