Like many UK collectors, I got into jingle collecting through hearing the IDs on Radio One and

Radio Two.

For me, this happened around 1977. My sister had moved to Philadelphia and we

visited once a year. Listening to the radio there - especially to WMGK and a distant, crackly

WABC New York - I kept hearing the same tracks that I'd been hearing on the BBC, and I became fascinated.

Who made these min-songs - and how?

I wrote to Derek Chinnery, Programme Controller at Radio One, and got hold of JAM's address. In 1978 a kindly parcel from Jon Wolfert brought me my first collection of JAM tapes - Positron, Pro/Mod, Dance to the Music and Make it Mellow (I think).

Now this is where it becomes confession time. Desperate for more tapes, I then used to write letters pretending to be an American program director using the name "Bob Dinan". I sent these letters to my sister in the States who posted them on to different jingle producers, mosty in Dallas.

I managed to get more demos delivered like this, which my sister would dutifully send on to me in the UK, and this I started to build a jingle collection.

Only once did someone from JAM phone my sister's home asking to talk to Bob Dinan about his jingle requirements. My sister mumbled something about Bob being on a business trip. That's when I stopped the subterfuge, learnt that there were other people with a similar irrational interest in jingles, and started instead trading with other jingle fans.

Although career and family kicked in, all these years on from sending that first letter and getting the initial tapes from JAM, I'm still collecting.

This site is a tiny tribute to the great tradition of jingle-making and jingle-collecting.

Find me on Facebook here, and enjoy my 2012 video of a visit to the magnificent JAM Creative Productions here.

Enjoy, as they say.

Bob Dinan