Frank Wappat

Frank Wappat (17 February 1930 – 17 February 2014) was an English radio personality, disc jockey and singer from Hebburn, County Durham. He worked with The Premier Band, Bobby Thompson, Renato Pagliari, The Pipe-dreamers, Flintlock (musical group), The Dooleys and many others in a career spanning the 1950s to 2010

Wappat founded the Al Bowlly Circle, Memory Lane Magazine, British Band-Leaders Club and The Thirties Club. He was the longest serving presenter on BBC Radio Newcastle, having started in 1970, following his first broadcasting via Radio 390 on the Thames Estuary.

In 1999 he won a Sony Radio Academy Award for his Master Joe Peterson programme (a thirties music hall star who turned out to be Mary O'Rourke), and in 2000 he won a second for Investigative Journalism unearthing the truth about the death of 1940s Chick Henderson, later publishing a biography.

Both his Gospel and Inspiration show and Frank Wappat Nostalgia show continued on BBC Radio Newcastle BBC Radio Humberside and BBC Radio York until August 2010 when Wappat decided to retire after 40 years.

Wappat's son Paul Wappat was a radio presenter at BBC Radio Newcastle before moving to 97.5 Smooth Radio in January 2008.

Wappat died of heart failure on 17 February 2014, his 84th birthday, at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle.