In my work as a Celebrant, sometimes people tell me that my voice is familiar, and that they used to listen to me on the radio. Depending on their age, we then try to work out which station it was from!
My twenty five years in radio began at Buzz Fm, hosting specialist soul and reggae shows, before taking over the mellow Late Night slot and eventually presenting the Breakfast show.
I still shudder at the thought of those 4am alarm calls… not being a natural early bird.
At Capital FM, where Chris Tarrant was the legendary Breakfast host, I was happy to present Late shows again. Specializing in The Love Zone, in pre-internet days when hundreds of hand written letters would arrive, divulging all… Snoop Dogg was enchanted by a Celine Dion request I played for a listener. He’d appeared in the studio and happily shared a Wagon Wheel from the vending machine whilst asking about Celine…
Following BRMB’s weeknight Late Show, I landed a gig at Radio 1 as the station’s then youngest female presenter. By no means the wildest woman though, compared to the phenomenal Annie Nightingale who handed the studio over!
Early alarms were back though, as I was hosting weekend Early Breakfast, sometimes covering weekday early shifts, warming up for Chris Evans. 3 years at Radio 1 flew by in a blur of ‘middle of the night’ shows, daytime cover, live gigs and interviewing all musical heroes and heroines. And not much sleep…
Venturing next into speech radio at LBC, I relished the challenge of presenting ‘grown-up’ radio. Live breaking news stories, political interviews, phone-in shows, and the pure joy of interviewing writers I admired. From Benjamin Zephaniah to Paolo Coelho, they re-established my love of the written word and inspired my own literary adventures.
I also presented shows for Heart FM, BFBS, BBC London, BBC WM, and Radio 2, then hosting Smooth Radio’s West Midlands Drive-time show for 4 years.
I also had the joy of introducing radio into a school, with a project that set up a radio station in a classroom. Pupils as young as 6 were confidently delivering programmes, writing and performing their own radio plays, and broadcasting delightfully biased sports bulletins…