[2] The teenaged Robbie Vincent moved up from newspaper messenger boy, aged 15, to print journalist reporting for the Evening Standard on the trial of the notorious gangsters, the Kray twins, and from the troubles in Northern Ireland.

With a potential audience in Greater London of 7.5million, he was to spend 13 years helping to shape the sound of local FM radio, starting before legal commercial competition arrived.

Vincent said on his website, "Prime Minister Ted Heath gifted me the three day week in December 1973 and the early shut down for TV.

In his own words: "Moving from a mixed format of Slade, Rod Stewart, Marc Bolan and endless sound-tracks ... soul and jazz began to take over without management really noticing.

[6] In 1978, such was the growing appetite for soul music that he and the other DJs in what became dubbed the south of England's 'Soul Mafia' staged the first 'Purley all-dayer', a fiercely athletic black-music dance marathon at Tiffany’s in Purley, the London suburb.

In addition, the mainstream jazz movement, so often omitted from history, received a significant boost due to unknown and new artists being given a media platform.

Many fans made pirate cassette tape recordings, normally from the FM transmissions as MW broadcasts were of poor quality, of the show which was on air from 11:30am to 2pm.

He played imports, promos, new releases and the soul anthems that were filling dance-floors at cutting-edge underground clubs such as Flick's in Dartford and The Gold Mine on Canvey Island.

For many, Vincent's radio show was the first source for essential listening – resulting in jazz-funk and soul DJs and fans going to specialist shops for a copy of an all-important 12-inch vinyl single or album.

Remarkably, the signal also reached 120 miles west of London to Bath where one avid listener had set up a huge FM aerial connected to a Hi-Fi tuner and would record the shows on cassette.

with launching the UK career of US jazz-funk combo, Maze with Frankie Beverly, and was one of the few British radio presenters to have interviewed Marvin Gaye.

On the same show, a composite of Merry Clayton's 'When The World Turns Blue', John Klemmer's 'Adventures in Paradise' and Teena Marie's 'Portuguese Love' was a sequence which has remained as a memorable highlight.

Careers previously restricted to the US and Latin America were given prime exposure on Vincent's show, including Phyllis Hyman, Angela Bofill and Brenda Russell.

He presented these until 1989, playing jazz-funk with artistes like Rick James, The Fatback Band, Brass Construction, Funkadelic, The Crusaders, Ronnie Laws and Eddie Henderson.

He would often present the shows with his own laconic slant by introducing records with remarks such as 'This one has a government meltability warning', 'Carefully selected so that only the best reach the turntable' and 'Open the fridge door and make sure it's packed with ice'.

Titled The Robbie Vincent Edition, it featured many of the tracks he was one of the first to air on the radio in London, ranging from Grover Washington, Roy Ayers and Gabor Szabo to Blue Feather and OPA.

[citation needed] Vincent spent most of 2003 travelling and during late December and early January 2004 he presented five daytime shows on 94.9 BBC Radio London.

[citation needed] Vincent returned to the airwaves on 12 October 2008 and presented a three-hour show called 'Sunday Morning Soul' on Sundays for the relaunched Jazz FM service on DAB, Sky, Freesat and the web.