ISBN 9781903053249. 215pp. Hardback. 165 illustrations. (Also available in a paperback edition)
Foreword by Frank Plugge. Introduction by Professor Sean Street.
Lenny Plugge founded the IBA (International Broadcasting Company) in 1930. Its first location was at 11 Hallam Street in central London, practically next door to where the BBC's new headquarters, Broadcasting House was under construction. Plugge was not short of cheek and it was that aspect of him that contributed so much to his success and to the development of English language commercial radio beamed from continental stations like Radios Paris, Post Parisien, Toulouse, Juan les Pins, Athlone, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, Ljubljana and especially Radio Normandy. Plugge's broadcasting ventures made him a millionaire, but his personal life was less successful. This book tells the full story: his tours through Europe in the 1920s in cars equipped with huge radios and transmitters fitted with frame aerials, the development of the IBC, his ten years as a member of parliament, the break-down of his marriage, and the family tragedies of his later life. Some of the famous names involved in the story are Jacqueline Bouvier (later Kennedy), Lady Docker, Annigoni, Sarah Churchill, Noel Coward, Hugh Gaitskill, Mick Jagger, April Ashley and Michael de Frietas (Michael X).