The cynics dismissed it as a flash in the pan, but Downtown Radio is still a massive hit with listeners 50 years on.

Yet when I went to Newtownards as a young newspaper journalist to write about the very first day on air of Northern Ireland’s first independent radio station the doubting Thomases in the industry said it would never last.

But how wrong they were.

And over a half century of highs the station was the launch pad of a galaxy of stars like Big T, Lynda Jayne, Candy Devine, Hendi, Ivan Martin and Richard Young, and thanks to Eamonn Holmes, even May McFettridge.

And I’m privileged to count myself among the number of journalists whose broadcasting careers started on Downtown – like Wendy Austin, Eamonn Mallie, Kate Smith, Gary Gillespie and Jeanie Johnston.

At the height of the troubles Downtown’s regular bulletins were a must listen for thousands of people who knew that the station delivered on its boast to be first with the news, grim as it often was.

Downtown still enjoys a reputation for its news output and it has also nurtured a new breed of presenters like Gary Myles, Glen Pavis, Kirstie McMurray and Neal McClelland to fill the shoes of the pioneers of the past.