Sunday Breakfast

I joined Hospital Radio Perth back in the early 1990s, after I saw an advert in the local paper looking for volunteers to join the station. I had always had an interest in radio and how it all worked. I remember my Dad taking me to see the Radio 1 Roadshow which was on the beach at Clacton-on-Sea where we were on holiday that year, and being fascinated on how it worked and the huge crowd. The DJ for that day was Simon Bates, and we listened to the songs, remembered the Smiley Miley distance from the last roadshow game, and tried to guess as many tunes on Bits and Pieces. I was a great day and my love of radio began. So when I saw the editorial in the local paper, I was hooked. I needed a hobby and I answered the call, went along to the presentation by the Chairman, John Watson, still our current Chair. I was invited to the studio, yes it was a singular studio, in fact one room, with a diving wall for the studio and the record library and so enjoyed it, I became a member. I did my compulsory Ward Visiting, going round visiting patients in the wards of PRI to get requests and look out the records (mostly vinyl then) and prepare them for the presenter of the show. It was obvious the patients got so much out of listening to the music they had chosen. I was lucky to progress on to presenter training, and passed that test and was given my own radio show. The Children’s request show on a Monday evening for the kids in Ward 10 of PRI. Without sounding too big headed, we were good at it and went on to win the Best Children’s Show at the National Hospital Radio Award. Along with many other, the 1990s were very successful, we won the Station of The Year at our second year of entering, and I remember going to London and being announced as the winner and being so happy, being interviewed by Ken Bruce at the top of the BT Tower where he was broadcasting his Radio 2 show from that day. Those were great days in my early life as a radio presenter.

I will always be indebted to Hospital Radio Perth for allowing me to hone my stills and learn about presenting, interviewing, recording, editing, outside broadcasts, relocating to new studios (which came in handy twice in my radio careers), where the patient’s favourite Daniel O’Donnell came along to open the new building, learning new computer systems, how to create playlists, launching a 24 hour a day service, where local Radio 2 broadcaster Desmond Carrington came along to officially press the button to start the new system. I was delighted to be given the opportunity to work in professional local radio, presenting on Radio Tay AM, being the commercial producer for Radio Tay, witing and producing adverts, producing the Sunday Lunchtime show with Bill Torrance of the Beechgrove Garden fame. I was the programme controller with Wave 102 in Dundee, where the relocation training I had with Hospital Radio Perth came in handy, as we moved for one building to another. I moved to be the Station Manager with Community Radio Station Heartland FM for five and half years winning the best Community Radio Station in the country silver award for two years in a row. Recently I have been a judge at the Community Radio Awards and it’s great to hear the different sounds of radio stations around the country. So I have come full circle and was delighted to re join Hospital Radio Perth, just as we were rebranding to CareSound Radio, after realising the potential of reaching residents in the Care Home sector throughout the area and was delighted to be asked to help relaunch the station with it’s new name it in 2023. During 2024 I re joined the committee in charge of presenter training, and great to see some of our trainees now becoming presenters in the own right, and in 2025 looking forward to developing our programme offering for the future. So I have gone full circle and back with a great station in Perth, and the great news is we were winners again at this year’s Hospital Radio Awards.

Radio is such a great medium, I remember asking my Gran why she listened to the radio and she replied “For the company” what better reason for keeping radio alive. And when my Mum wasn’t well she always wanted me to go to work, (I was working at Radio Tay at the time) so she could here me on the radio, so I did.

So hope you can give me a listen for 3 hours of gentle, melodic hits to easy you into Sunday morning. An easy start to the day musically, including On This Day In Music History at 9,30am Hope you can join me “For the Company”