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Why we broadcast Britain's first radio show devoted to curry

2018-06-26T11:11:17+00:00

The Curry Show is broadcast live from the BBC Radio Leicester kitchen at 7pm on Mondays

Leicester – what springs to mind when you hear the name of our city? Premier League winners? Richard III? Curry?

Of course it’s a curry capital, with more than 400 curry restaurants and takeaways and its own annual Leicester Curry Awards, but for some reason we hadn’t capitalised on this on air.

When I first sold the idea to my team they were pretty sceptical. Is it too stereotypical for such a diverse city? Does cooking work on the radio? We came up with the idea of a radio mash-up of BBC One's Saturday Kitchen and ITV's Dinner Date. Great food and recipes, fun chat and a banging playlist – what’s not to like?

We wanted to find new talent to present the show, and the exuberant Anand Bhatt certainly fits the bill. By day he's an amazing choreographer, and on Monday nights at 7pm he puts on his pinny and hosts The Curry Show. Our engineer worked his magic so that the show, which launched in March, is broadcast live from BBC Radio Leicester’s kitchen.

Every Monday the air is rich with the scent of spice and the sizzle of cooking, and a local chef from one of the city’s many curry houses shares a favourite recipe and cooks it up for two special guests.

The guests get to choose their playlist, fill up on the feast and share their stories. All sorts of folk get invited, from the local police chief to a beatboxer, and they all want to come again!

If we’re lucky we get a spicy breakfast with the leftovers on Tuesday, but it usually gets scoffed by the guests as they enjoy their curry dinner with BBC Radio Leicester.

The Curry Show podcast is on the way next!

You can listen to recent episodes of The Curry Show on BBC iPlayer Radio here.

Happy 50th birthday BBC Radio Sheffield

2017-11-15T08:00:00+00:00

Radio Sheffield began broadcasting on 15 November, 1967. To celebrate the 50 year milestone, the station produced a special music video involving ‘common people’ from the local area. Helen Bailey talks us through the process from ambitious idea to final edit:

The conversation went something like this: "let’s make a community film to mark our 50th birthday," said the boss "how about our own version of Sheffield band Pulp’s 1995 hit Common People. We can do it in around two months can’t we?"

Ok… I’ve been involved in some fairly ambitious projects at BBC Radio Sheffield before but this has to be the biggest thing we’ve ever done. And bear in mind, we’re a radio station, so we’ve got absolutely no experience in making music videos!

The first task was to get the song arranged so it was suitable for a choir. I’m not sure Jarvis Cocker and the rest of the band had a four part choral harmony in mind when they wrote it in the 90s, but it worked out to sound quite amazing. Once the arrangement was done we had to get a choir to record it. We appealed on air for people who could sing and were amazed with the response. We never knew we had some many tuneful listeners!

The song was recorded here at Radio Sheffield, with a 70 strong choir, none of whom had heard the arrangement before we came to record it. Three hours of rehearsal time with an amazing musical director later, and we were ready to record it. The choir worked hard that day but no one complained and the result is brilliant thanks in no small part to our lovely engineers.

The next stage was to think about the film. We wanted to feature locations around South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire so the film had a sense of the whole of our patch. So we scouted around looking for suitable locations. Film maker Marco Van Belle came up with the concept for the film which involved a big crowd of people coming together at the end – so those scenes ended up based in the Leadmill – the Sheffield nightclub where Pulp played their first gig.

Assistant Editor Mike Woodcock directs the extras

We wanted as many of our listeners to be involved as possible so again we took to the radio to appeal for people to come and be extras in the film. Our amazing audience didn’t let us down and soon our receptionist was inundated by calls and emails from people wanting to get involved. I have a feeling most of our listeners have a secret desire to be stars.

Horace the British Bulldog, came with listeners Stephen and Rebecca Wragg to appear in the crowd scenes

A Sheffield scout group, a bull dog (and its owners) plasterers, teachers, ex-miners and bus drivers all turned up on a Sunday in October to be part of the crowd scene in the film. It was a long day as filming days can be with take after take to make sure we had the right shots, but everyone was so enthusiastic about being involved, people still had big smiles on their faces by the end of the day. As the choir and hundreds of extras sang the final chorus of the song in the Leadmill the hard work all seemed worth it.

Mayor of Barnsley, Jeff Ennis

Two more days filming around South Yorkshire saw us working with listeners on the Supertram in Sheffield, a sweet shop in Rotherham, an old cutler’s workshop, the Mayors parlour in Barnsley, and Doncaster market. My colleague Dan and I will never forget singing our hearts out to Common People on the supertram to encourage the extras to sing along in the right time to the track.

Radio Sheffield listeners film as extras on board a Sheffield Supertram

I wouldn’t be surprised to find I’m banned from Supertram for life for being a noise nuisance!

Then it was over to the film maker to edit it. The whole experience was hard work but extremely rewarding. I loved how the people of South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire got themselves behind it. A real sense of everyone coming together not just to celebrate our birthday but to celebrate the local pride we have around here as well.

Watch the full video on the BBC Radio Sheffield website
Follow BBC Radio Sheffield on Facebook and twitter
Read Gareth Roberts blog 'Friendly Radio: Five lesser known facts about BBC Local Radio'

Friendly Radio: Five lesser known facts about BBC Local Radio

2017-11-08T10:00:00+00:00

Ahead of BBC Local Radio's 50th anniversary on November the 8th, I've spent quite a bit of time recently contacting editors, presenters and colleagues at all of our 39 stations to find out more about the local radio story. We’ve collected some incredible tales and also compiled a list of the very familiar radio and TV names who began their careers at local radio stations across the country from Carlisle to the Channel Islands. To spread the word we’ll be producing a couple of short films and we also commissioned a one hour radio documentary Friendly Radio which aired on BBC Local Radio stations Sunday 5th November.

But as a taster - here are five things I’ve learnt about BBC local radio recently.

Local radio is the place so where so many household names started.

For the 50th Anniversary we wanted to compile a list of household names who had started out on BBC Local Radio. We set out thinking we had to get at least 20 to make it worthwhile but in fact very quickly we had over 80 names. The 'stars' include Jeremy Paxman, Kate Adie, Richard Bacon, Jo Whiley and Clive Myrie.

The list also highlights a really broad range of talent, from comedians Chris Morris and Victor Lewis Smith to leading journalists Laura Kuenssberg and Liz Mckean, all of them had their first on air moments at a local radio station. I am sure there are many more than 80, but we’ve got the list down to 50 for a special anniversary film 50 at 50.

'50 at 50' 50 stars who began their careers on BBC Local Radio

Local radio quickly found its place in a local emergency.

These days our listeners expect our stations to be there when there’s a local crisis - when the snow falls or the roads shut, people know local radio will have the info they need. Back in the 60s this was all new. Our first station on air was Radio Leicester and early on in its history it covered the great flood of 1968 when over 500 houses in the city were left underwater, the service was a new local lifeline from the BBC. Similarly a severe snowstorm in December 1967 forced the manager at Radio Brighton to put the station on air two months earlier than planned.

Local radio pioneered the open plan radio office

Coming from commercial radio where programming, sales and news all tended to work in different offices I was struck by how BBC Local Radio stations are usually situated in one large office with everyone from news to programmes and often (though not always) the editor all sat together. Of course open plan offices are standard these days across the industry but I discovered local radio was an early adopter. John Musgrave who opened Radio Blackburn in 1970 housed the station in a used car showroom. This meant the production area was a vast open plan space, so all the production teams had to talk to one another, and thus the idea of sharing content was born, moving towards sequence programmes.

Local radio has always had to innovate

Our stations led the way in the use of radio cars across the BBC, although they were available to network and nations it was local stations that really discovered their value in getting us out of the studio and into the communities we serve.

BBC Radio Sheffield's car in 1998

The use of completely 'self-op' radio studios in the BBC was also largely driven through local radio and presenters have been battling with levels ever since.

Even the early local radio jingles were ground breaking. Delia Derbyshire from the BBC Radiophonic workshop, probably best known for creating the Doctor Who theme, was commissioned to create distinctively local sonic logos for our earliest stations. Steel knives and forks were used for Radio Sheffield’s music, pots and dishes for Radio Stoke and in an interesting digital reference to Robin Hood, an electronic bow and arrow featured on the station sound for Radio Nottingham. It certainly sounded different.

Local radio has always had to improvise

Local radio marketing budgets have always been tight, so editors have often found creative ways to get noticed. My favourite example is from Phil Sidey, the first station manager at Radio Leeds, he had a feud with the Yorkshire Post, who refused to write about the station. So he bought a greyhound, called it Radio Leeds, and when it won at races, the papers had to print the name.

Gareth Roberts is Editor BBC Coventry and Warwickshire and Head of Local Radio Development.

Find your local station.
Listen to 'Friendly Radio', a one hour documentary about the history of BBC Local Radio.
Find out more about the history of BBC Local Radio.

BBC Radio Lincolnshire: Reunited - A journey of Remembrance

2017-11-06T10:00:00+00:00

Charles Beechey – Killed fighting in East Africa.

The Beechey family suffered unbearable loss in the First World War with five of their eight sons being killed. One hundred years on from the death of the fifth Beechey brother, BBC Radio Lincolnshire's Michael Hortin follows in their footsteps telling their story and reuniting them with an act of Remembrance.

Even amongst the carnage of the First World War the story of the Beecheys stands out. At the outbreak of WWI the family was a large one with eight sons and five daughters. All the brothers saw service, with five killed and a sixth left with life-changing injuries. The family was one of three in England to suffer such loss.

Eric Beechey – Survived the war after serving in Malta and Greece.

What marked the Beecheys out for our project, in addition to being from our area, was the archive of letters from the brothers that survives. Reading them you get a real feel for their differing personalities, they become much more than a name on a headstone.

Telling their story we had three aims: to produce as much of the content as possible using a smartphone; to reunite the brothers in some way, 100 years on and to follow in their footsteps to tell their story.

Save for some photos and an interview the first has already been achieved, with the help of a tripod, lapel mic and iphone stand.

The second objective was initially the hardest to pin down. However the answer was on our doorstep, and in the families’ strong Christian faith. I approached Lincoln Cathedral for support, the result was six crosses carved from the stone it is built from. These were to be laid at the graves of those killed in WWI, bringing them together with an act of Remembrance. A sixth was to be put on display at the church where the brothers’ father was once vicar. In addition to the religious significance, it is worth explaining the importance of the Cathedral to people in Lincoln, like the brothers. You only truly know you are home when you see it. As a result we felt that by taking crosses to the brothers, we were also bringing their home county to them.

Final letter from Leonard to his mum, was sent three weeks before he died of Tetanus. (Credit: Lincolnshire County Council)

After 10 weeks planning, in September and October I began a four-week journey through six countries in the brothers’ footsteps. The first week was spent in France and Belgium where the majority of the brothers’ saw action. The next in Greece and then Gallipoli, where two brothers served as Anzacs. The third week was in Tanzania where the second eldest brother Charles was killed and is now buried. The final few days were in Australia following the story of the Anzac brothers before and after the war.

The headstone of Frank Beechey.

By the end of the journey four of the crosses had been left at Commonwealth War Grave Cemeteries. After a short period there, the CWGC are going to remove them to them be put on permanent display at their centres. The fifth for one of the Anzac brothers, who has no known grave, is being put on permanent display from the 11 November at the military chapel in Perth, Western Australia.

The final cross will be put on permanent display at the family church, where the brothers’ father preached until his death in 1912. At that moment I will have a feeling that in some ways the brothers have been bought a little closer.

Sam Beechey – Youngest son, served for last few months of the war.

From this journey we will produce a series and documentary for radio for both Remembrance Week and Christmas, short films about each brother and a vlog of the journey and supporting article.

It goes without saying all the above would not have been possible without the support of many people and organisations inside and outside the BBC and across the countries visited.

When I reflect on the family’s story my mind always returns to the mother Amy, who must have opened letters from her sons with a mixture of hope and fear. Sadly her voice, save for one letter, is largely silent. However in April 1918 we get a window to her world as she met King George and Queen Mary. When Queen Mary expressed sympathy for the families sacrifice she replied “It was no sacrifice Ma’am, I did not give them willingly”.

Michael Hortin is a producer for BBC Radio Lincolnshire

Changes to some BBC local radio medium wave services

2017-08-10T09:00:00+00:00

We know how much you love your local radio services, with more and more of you listening in different ways: using FM, DAB or internet-based services such as BBC iPlayer Radio.

We regularly review the value for money of our distribution our services across all platforms to ensure we’re spending the licence fee as efficiently as possible. And back in 2011, as part of the BBC’s Delivering Quality First plans to save around £700m, we announced we would be closing some medium wave transmitters to save millions of pounds.

Since then, we have carefully looked at the range of services we deliver on medium wave, and the range of analogue and digital alternative options for audiences. We have also been investing too - funding local DAB expansion, making all local radio stations available on Digital Terrestrial TV (such as Freeview), and enhancing the sound quality of our online output.

But on changes to medium wave coverage specifically, to identify areas where the impact would be felt the least, we conducted detailed assessments of the coverage of each BBC local radio station on FM, MW and DAB. Following this process, we trialled the switch-off of a number of medium-wave transmitters and asked for audience feedback. Taken together, the audience feedback and the coverage data have informed which medium wave transmitters are unlikely to represent value for money in the longer term.

As a result, we will be closing 13 medium wave transmitters in January 2018.

So what does this mean? Once the changes take effect, BBC Radio Sussex, Surrey, Humberside, Wiltshire, Nottingham, Kent, and Lincolnshire will no longer be accessible on medium wave. And, there will be reduced medium-wave coverage for BBC Devon, Lancashire and Essex.

We know these changes will have an impact on some listeners. For the majority, re-tuning to FM or DAB is likely to be the simplest solution - and any listeners who have trouble receiving FM or DAB signals can find BBC local radio stations on Freeview or the internet.

These changes are still some months away, but we will be talking about them on air, on the stations affected to make sure listeners are ready. We’ll also be making more information available through our usual channels.

Kieran Clifton is Director, BBC Distribution & Business Development

How BBC Local Radio provided vital coverage during the floods

2016-12-02T14:15:00+00:00

BBC Radio Cumbria Managing Editor Mark Elliott remembers Storm Desmond and the lasting damage it caused, and considers the importance of local radio in times of flooding.

The images of raging rivers, broken bridges and streets underwater still send a shiver down the spine. The lives of thousands thrown into turmoil. But those situations are when BBC Local Radio comes into its own – another “emergency service”, mobilising to broadcast around the clock to keep our communities informed in the most difficult of circumstances. When the flooding is so severe and so widespread, it’s tough to keep going, but when the storms and weather warnings continue for six weeks as they did in Cumbria last winter, it becomes a monumental logistical challenge. Add to the mix numerous members of staff having to deal with their own homes being flooded and you’ll understand why I have the utmost admiration for my team for showing great stamina as well as professional skill when responding to Storm Desmond and its aftermath.

But the flooding story doesn’t stop when the waters recede. There’s the clean-up, the rebuilding, the insurance, the health issues – it goes on and on. Even now, there are many hundreds of people in Cumbria who are still not back in their homes or businesses. So marking the anniversary of the floods over the coming week is a difficult thing to do.

A montage of BBC local floods coverage

There are so many different angles and so many people affected that you can’t focus on them all. But, as ever, we tell the story through the people involved. We follow the struggles of four generations of a family living in one small house after being forced out of their home, the children who’ve spent a full year away from their school which will now have to be rebuilt on a new site, the staff at a Lakeland hotel which is only just receiving guests after being flooded four times last December, the helicopter crew nominated for a global award for rescuing people in what they describe as the worst conditions they’ve ever flown in.

Listening back to the archive material is a stark reminder of the heartbreak and the misery endured by thousands, but also the multiple acts of courage and kindness in the face of adversity - branded “The Spirit of Cumbria” by those communities pulling together in the darkest of times. And there’s pride – pride in my team and the way we responded when it really mattered to our audience. That’s real public service broadcasting.

Mark Elliott is Managing Editor, BBC Radio Cumbria

The making of 'Beautiful People: The Bamboo Club Story'

2016-10-25T13:23:53+00:00

Tony Bullimore is someone who would occasionally crop-up in the BBC Bristol newsroom. His name is synonymous with sailing, exploration, and of course a lucky escape. Every once in a while he would come on-air to comment about sea-faring stories, but it wasn’t until an exhibition came to Bristol in the summer of 2015 that I realised his life before ocean exploration was equally, if not more fascinating.

The exhibition was called “Sound-System Culture,” it documented the rise of the West Indian Sound Systems and the part they played in influencing music in cities across the UK. In Bristol, I learnt that Sound Systems had found a home in the Bamboo Club in the 1970’s, and that the club was run by one Mr Tony Bullimore.

I had heard of the Bamboo Club before. Its name had come up in conversation several times, and for me, like many Bristolians, it had an almost mythical status. I knew it was a small club just-off Portland Square, and I knew it was famous in Reggae circles, but I was about to learn it was much, much more than this.

As a newsroom journalist, I’m able to pitch ideas and cover stories. So, last summer I suggested we do a piece on the “Sound System” exhibition. It was from there I started to do more research on the Bamboo Club.

Instantly two things struck me. One, there was (by modern standards) very little about the club on the internet. Yes there was the odd blog and article mentioning it as former nightspot, with a scattering of photos, but in the main it was a story that remained largely untold. Two, the Club had opened its doors in 1966, therefore there was a 50th anniversary approaching.

The Bamboo Club in Bristol

Having spoken to Tony (a great character) it didn't take long to realise that the influence of the Bamboo Club was so huge, and it was such an important piece of Bristol’s social history, that it needed a proper, in-depth treatment. This is where my colleague Tom Ryan comes into play. Tom is one of the BBC’s hidden treasures; his day-to-day role is the station sound producer for BBC Radio Bristol. He’s also produced several quite brilliant long-form documentaries which have been broadcast not just here but across BBC Radio too. I suggested to Tom that the Bamboo Club would make a great topic for a larger piece of work, and together we worked on a pitch for special funding.

Along the way we learnt that: Bob Marley played his first ever UK gig in Bristol at The Bamboo Club; that Desmond Dekker played there the weekend after becoming the first Reggae artist to reach number one; that Ben E King, Jimmy Cliff, Martha Reeves and many, many, more icons had played there. We met living musical legends such as Toots Hibbert and Derrick Morgan, who both happily agreed to contribute.

We discovered the former Mayor of Bristol, a prominent MP’s Mum, and the famous West Indian Cricket teams of the 60’s and 70’s used to go there regularly. But most importantly, we learnt that the club was the beating heart of the West Indian community. Yes it was a business, but it was also a gathering point for all manner of other clubs, sports teams, societies, charity events, families and friends.

Tony Bullimoreand his wife Lalel

Finally we learnt that Tony and his wife Lalel are revered amongst Bristol West Indians, and they clearly deserve more recognition for the part they have played in the City’s race relations. When the club tragically burnt down in 1977, this beating heart was ripped out of St Pauls with devastating consequences.

What Tom and I hope we’ve finally produced together is a story of racial struggle, of Bristol’s recent past, a story about music, laughter, friendship and family. And we hope as many people as possible hear it, see it, understand and enjoy it.

Pete Simson is a journalist at BBC Bristol.

'Beautiful People: The Bamboo Club Story' will be broadcast on BBC Radio Bristol on Friday 28 October at 11am and 7pm.

BBC Radio Sheffield: a new partnership for local audiences

2016-10-20T09:00:00+00:00

Jim Lucas, Police Federation, Stephen Watson, Chief constable, South Yorkshire Police and Dr Alan Billings, Police & Crime Commissioner, South Yorkshire (Credit: Star Newspaper, Sheffield)

Like many successful relationships – this one started with a brew and a natter. New to the Editor role at Radio Sheffield in the Spring, I was aware that The Star, the biggest local paper in our area, had also got a new boss - Nancy Fielder. We met for a coffee and found that we had a lot in common. We both felt strongly about the roles our newsrooms can play in facilitating local debate, engaging people in local democracy and highlighting local conversation.

Traditionally seen as rivals, our newsrooms will always have some different priorities but there is arguably more that unites us than divides us. Fundamentally, we both believe in championing our local communities. So we asked the question - "could we have more impact with our journalism if we worked together more often?".

Several coffees later and here we are. The BBC Sheffield Open Centre - a room full of Radio Sheffield listeners, Star readers and a panel of guests debating the future of South Yorkshire Police. With the high profile cases of CSE in Rotherham, the fallout from the Hillsborough enquiry and the focus on Orgreave - it's been a turbulent time for the local force and public confidence has been at an all-time-low. With a new Chief Constable now at the helm, it's the perfect opportunity to look ahead. 'A Force for The Future?' is a public debate our two newsrooms produced together to give our audiences a say on what they want from their police in the future.

Hosted by Breakfast Presenter, Toby Foster, it's the first chance for listeners and readers to quiz the new Chief - Stephen Watson. Alongside him on the panel are the Police and Crime Commissioner, Dr Alan Billings and Jim Lucas, the secretary of the Police Federation. There are former police officers in the crowd, local councillors, community leaders and representatives of local voluntary groups. Naturally, there are lots of questions about lessons learned from recent, and not so recent, events. There is also a lot of looking ahead. How will the new Chief deal with more cuts to funding? How will he reshape the Force so it has a stronger presence in neighbourhoods? How will police work alongside community groups and how will the Force regain public confidence? The debate aired on Radio Sheffield on Wednesday, 19th October at 9am, and The Star published their coverage on the same day.

It's early days for BBC Sheffield and The Star working together - but day one has gone well and our plan is to work together on 3-4 other big moments like this across a year. Co-ordinated coverage on air, online and in the paper means we'll make more of a splash with our local journalism and hopefully raise the profile of both newsrooms. And this joint approach has certainly got people talking. Should the BBC and local newspapers be working together like this? Does it impact on the editorial integrity of both newsrooms? Is it just a front for stretched resources?

All comments I’ve read online in response to us working together, all interesting and all valid questions to ask. Whatever your view, it’s clear that The Star and Radio Sheffield will have to work together with ongoing care and thought for each other and our different remits. Ultimately, there will always be healthy rivalry between local newsrooms, especially when it comes to chasing a scoop – and long may that continue! But when it comes to championing communities, giving local people a voice on the major themes that unite them - we just might have a bigger, better and louder conversation if we have it together.

Listen again to A Force for the Future? on BBC Radio Sheffield on iPlayer

National Poetry Day on BBC Local Radio

2016-10-06T14:05:35+00:00

Today (Thursday 6 October) is National Poetry Day, and BBC Local Radio has celebrated in style, featuring specially written poems about different parts of the country. The poems, read by the poets who wrote them, have featured on regional radio programmes throughout the day.

The inspiration for the initiative came from Becca Bryers at BBC Radio Leicester who commissioned each of the individual poems with the support of National Poetry Day and National Poetry Day partner Apples and Snakes. She said of the project "I’ve been so impressed with the poets passionate approach to the project and the calibre of their finished pieces. There’s such a brilliant variety of poem subjects too". All 40 of the BBC Local Poets were asked to write a poem from the viewpoint of a local landmark or iconic object. It's been no mean feat to organise as David Holdsworth, Controller of English Regions explains:

"40 poems from our 40 BBC Local Radio stations to support National Poetry Day is an incredibly ambitious undertaking. I am pleased that we have been able to achieve it and thank the poets who have contributed to the project. The standard of poems is incredibly high and I think there’s something for every single one of our listeners in the mix. But we couldn’t stop at 40, we had to go one further and the 41st poem performed by Bridie Squires is exceptional and really brings together the ambition of the day."

You can hear more on the BBC Local Radio website, but we've picked out a few, who, grew on us:

BBC Radio Jersey: Christian Foley, aka Just Muz, is inspired by an iconic island landmark

"Growing up by the ocean, it’s impossible not to let it at some level, permeate your poetry,
there's some essence of it that clings to you like sea spray. I moved to Jersey from a big city as a child and this transition shaped my work. Corbiere Lighthouse is the scene of one my earliest memories" - Christian Foley

BBC Radio Lincolnshire: Gemma Baker reads her poem 'Sausage Lincs'

BBC Somerset: How do you like them apples? 'The Fruit, Not The Phone' by Chris Redmond

BBC Radio Sheffield: Rachel Bower reads her poem 'Women of Steel'

"‘Women of Steel’, is inspired by the new statue that was put up in Barker’s Pool in the summer. The statue commemorates the work that women did in the war, particularly in the munitions factories, which has only recently begun to be properly recognised. My poem is inspired by the work of these women, by recovering histories and by telling stories that we often don’t hear...it’s about celebrating our diversity and solidarity, creating sisterhood and remembering the work and stories of women" - Rachel Bower

BBC Radio Devon: Rob Casey's ode to the scone

"The Devonshire Cream Tea is not only quintessentially Devon, but also an important aspect of the British identity, so closely associated with the county. Therefore, to adopt the voice of a scone seemed the only sensible thing to do!"

BBC Suffolk and Essex: 'The A12' by Luke Wright

Listen to more of the 41 poems featured on BBC Local Radio throughout National Poetry Day

A new BBC broadcast centre in Plymouth

2016-07-20T13:30:00+00:00

HRH Duchess of Cornwall at the new BBC in Plymouth

It’s not often the story comes to you, but today it has. HRH The Duchess of Cornwall is stopping by for a tour of the BBC’s new multi-million pound broadcast centre here in Plymouth. Local dignitaries are camped out in our conference room, and they’re all looking through the window into the radio studios where I am about to spend 10 minutes with HRH showing her the studio. No pressure.

Our new centre has been designed as a mini New Broadcasting House (very close to the design principals used in London – but with an added view of the sea). The centre is home to BBC Radio Devon, Inside Out and Politics Show South West; BBC One Spotlight (the most watched regional TV news programme in England) and it’s also a regional hub which connects our sister stations BBC Radio Cornwall and outlying BBC Radio’s Jersey and Guernsey – in the Channel Islands.

So my part of the mission today is to tell HRH all about BBC Radio Devon. We are a bit proud of our new radio studios, they’re cutting edge. And a bit of a leap of faith, because all the audio we play isn’t stored in our new building, it’s not even in Plymouth, or in fact Devon. Birmingham and London host the audio for us, and also for four other radio stations which the BBC has refurbished using the latest playout technology. The aim is to ultimately refurb all 39 of the BBC Local Radio stations in the network.

So - think of us as a big iPod – the technology (home grown – created by BBC engineers in the finest traditions of the BBC) is a system called ViLoR, it stands for ‘virtualised local radio’. When our presenters press PLAY in the studio, the audio content (all the music and interviews we record) is being played hundreds of miles away. We’ve been on-air with ViLoR for six months, and the system has been so robust it’s a rare thing for us to have an on-air technical problem. In fact, on the one occasion when we did have a technical issue in our new studios, it was such a rare occurrence; it took us ages to work out what to do. Contrast this with 12 months ago, where we were working from ageing studios with playout technology which crashed regularly and often took us off-air.

But the real reason I’m loving our new building is not the environmental award that it’s won, not the fact that we’ve got air con throughout for the first time (!) and it is not that the new headquarters is home to cutting edge news-gathering and broadcasting technology; these are all brilliant – but the reason I’m really loving the new building is because it future-proofs the BBC’s commitment to the South West. A commitment that began in 1924 when the first BBC offices in Plymouth were built. And that’s good for the region but also for the BBC.

At the Devon County Show recently (Devon’s biggest ‘day out’ with hundreds of thousands of Devonian’s going through the gates) I lost count of the amount of listeners and viewers I chatted to. They don’t distinguish between the brands or platforms we have locally or nationally, they connect with the BBC as one organisation. They expected answers from us as much about Strictly as Spotlight; because for our audience, we’re the ‘way in’ to the wider BBC – because we’re the face of the BBC in their city, town or village and it’s us they turn to both for praise and questions. And that’s why we’re here because we’re rooted in the community we serve. That’s not a mission on the wall or a brand statement – it’s just what we do.

HRH Duchess of Cornwall with Anne Bulford opening BBC Plymouth's new building

Here are some fun facts about the new BBC South West HQ:

The investment makes us the most high-tech news production operation in English Regions
70km -There’s enough cabling in the new building to go the distance between Plymouth and Exeter
17 - The total number of TV studios, radio studios, galleries, graphics suites and edit suites in the new building
I can see the sea from my office window.

Mark Grinnell is the Editor of BBC Radio Devon

Remembering the Manchester Bomb

2016-06-14T20:25:43+00:00

The Arndale Centre after the Manchester Bomb blast, 15th June 1996.

Euan Doak recalls the day the 1996 Manchester Bomb exploded in the centre of the city, ahead of a special day of broadcasts on BBC Radio Manchester marking 20 years since the blast.

Tell us about what you were doing the day the bomb went off.

I was on a production shift. I’d gone into work as usual, rota’d for the bulletin shift. We received a phone call from a colleague telling us that the police were closing off Market Street, and that there was something going on. Another colleague - Victoria Derbyshire - was in town as well. She did the same thing, telling us that the police were closing off the centre of town. The police confirmed with us that there was a suspicious device in the centre of Manchester and that they were evacuating the area. They asked us to put out a message saying 'don’t come in to town'. That’s when we put out a news flash.

From then on we just waited. We used to have a reporter in those days who worked Saturdays, so we sent him out with his Uher - his reel to reel tape machine - and he walked into town from Oxford Road. He got to about half a mile away when the bomb actually exploded. I think he may have actually been able to switch on his tape recorder because he felt the blast first, it sort of went through him before he heard it. I think he managed to capture the explosion on tape. He certainly captured the aftermath with all the glass breaking. We waited back in in Oxford Road BBC. When the bomb went off it was a little weird for us in Oxford Road. The BBC building we were in was quite well protected, so you felt the blast but not all that much. For people in the city however, they could hear it - even as far away as Oldham and Stockport.

Exchange Square in 1996, and today

A massive blast then … ?

Yes it was. You could see that from the debris afterwards. It’s funny now when you look back because we didn’t have rolling news then - our normal programmes carried on. That day, I think we were doing an OB from the Ideal Home Show in Birmingham. Bizarrely that just carried on. We covered the bomb blast in the bulletins, and then did a special programme at 5 o’clock that night. That sounds crazy now, but that’s the way it used to be.

The news bulletins was where the instant reaction went, so the reporter was on the phone filing phone clips. But those reports were more reflective - a round-up.

What effect did the moment of the blast have on you?

As a journalist you just knew it was the biggest story - it was massive, it couldn’t be any bigger. Everyone came in on the weekend to cover. People who were down in London came back up to Manchester to report on it. People who were all over the place came back because journalistically it was the biggest story.

I went out reporting on the day. The police had cordoned off the whole city centre. We couldn’t get near it. I remember going up to the cordon and seeing the glass and rubble and dust - it was still all in the air. But I actually got through the cordon a couple of days later when Tony Blair - leader of the opposition at the time - came up to visit. He was doing a tour of the area, and we walked across where the bomb had gone off. The destruction was unbelievable – all the rubble and the dirt. It was mind-blowing. It was the radius of the damage that was the most striking.

How did the bomb shape Manchester and its inhabitants from then on?

There’s a bit of a myth that Manchester was better place after the blast, as though the bomb did the city a favour. Personally, I don’t think that’s fair or true really because Manchester had already bid for the 1996 Olympic games, so there was already a sense in the city that it ought to be punching higher than it was.

There was some redevelopment going on. Old unwanted buildings from the sixties got knocked down. The Royal Exchange was damaged - that took two, three years to get repaired. The Corn Exchange was another old building turned into a shopping centre.

I think the blast was certainly a catalyst for redeveloping the city, probably on the back of that there’s been a lot more redevelopment. In some senses the redevelopment hasn’t stopped. You could say in those 20 years there hasn’t been a month where building work hasn’t been going on. That’s probably the same with any city but, you know, it does feel like the blast was a catalyst for ongoing redevelopment. That said, I don’t think the bomb was the cause of it.

What effect do you think it had on the people of Manchester?

It’s very hard to judge, I think the indiscriminate nature of the blast made it a massive shock, because Manchester’s got such a big Irish population. But after the blast, the Saint Patrick’s day Parade continued to be an important occasion in Manchester. I don’t think the bomb has had a lasting negative racial effect. I think in some ways it’s brought the city closer. Manchester is a very multicultural city.

There’s a very strong community spirit in Manchester, and a get up and go attitude too. It's an attitude that you can do better than you’re doing. There’s definitely a feeling that Manchester is going somewhere. I don’t know if the bomb stimulated that or not, but it definitely feels like from that moment on there’s been a real momentum to try and drive the city forward.

What will people remember on 15^th?

There’s also a myth that nobody was hurt. There were 200 people injured, some of them seriously. Some were paralysed. People had huge psychological traumas afterwards because going in to the city really worried them. Nobody died but people were injured. Loads of businesses went under too. So there was a lot of damage. And I think that’s often forgotten about. People look at it quite rosily, and say it was kind of a great thing for the city - look where it is now - but it wasn’t. It was hugely traumatic experience. So I hope people remember those who were badly affected by it as well.

What will people hear in the programming for that day?

We’ve got recollections of people on the day - people who were injured, like the couple who were getting married that day. We've traced them and they've shared their stories with us. We’ve also been over to Belfast and talked to Sinn Fein. There will be a lot of recollections of the day on the radio and lots memories of what happened to people after the blast.

The Arndale Centre after the Manchester Bomb blast, 15th June 1996.

Blue Light Day in Lancashire

2016-05-19T11:29:43+00:00

Last week BBC Radio Lancashire spent 24 hours following the regions emergency services for Blue Light Day to find out what it’s like on the frontline responding to incidents as and when they arise. John Clayton, BBC Radio Lancashire Editor, reflects on the day and the planning that went in to making it possible.

It all started when the floods hit Lancashire last December. As we went about reporting on the damage and disruption caused by Storm Desmond and friends, the idea was hatched that, when the waters subsided, we might spend a full day follow our emergency services in action. While we often reflect the great work that our blue light services do here in the county, this would be a unique opportunity to have an in-depth, up close look at how these services operate day to day in a marathon broadcast involving every programme, every available reporter and every nook and cranny of the county.

Blue Light Day was a good few months in the planning and it took hundreds of phone calls and meetings between BBC Radio Lancashire and the various organisations involved but, when the day finally came around it gave a fantastic insight and – most importantly – sounded great on air.

We started out at 6am on Thursday May 12th at Lancashire Constabulary Headquarters where breakfast presenter Graham Liver was, amongst other things, attacked by a German Shepherd dog and thrown into the back of a police van, setting the scene for the next 24 hours during which we heard a mixture of harrowing, jaw-dropping and hilarious tales from police officers, firefighters, paramedics and volunteers from the RNLI and Mountain Rescue Services.

Breakfast presenter Graham Liver looks at brand new police cars with Lancashire Constabulary Fleet Manager Chris Malkin

Mid-morning presenter Sally Naden and North-West Ambulance Service’s new chief executive Derek Cartwright opening the brand new emergency response centre in Broughton

Assistant Editor Tim Padfield with the ambulance crew in Lancaster

Broadcast Journalist Nishma Hindocha on a river rescue exercise with Lancashire Fire & Rescue

Broadcast Journalist John Barnes on a training exercise with the RNLI in Morecambe Bay

There were no major incidents. It was just a typical day and demonstrated just how hard these men and women work to keep Lancashire safe every day. It seems the idea even inspired people outside the county with police officers as far away as Cornwall joining in with our hashtag #bluelightday.

We’re already planning to do it all again next year, but even bigger and better and who knows…it could be something for our sister stations to join in.

John Clayton is Managing Editor, BBC Radio Lancashire.

Listen to BBC Radio Lancashire
See more from #bluelightday on twitter

BBC Local Radio on Easter weekend

2016-03-24T15:11:55+00:00

In the mid-Nineties the churches released an Easter advert with the slogan “’Surprise!’ said Jesus to his friends three days after they buried him.” Well here’s something else that might surprise you this Easter. The biggest share of listening to BBC local radio this week will probably be on Easter Sunday morning. In fact that’s likely to be the case every week of the year as Sunday breakfast listening on local radio continues to attract over a million people each week. Talk of declining congregations among established churches and popular media portrayals of empty pews hide a continuing and healthy interest for religious affairs across the 39 BBC local radio stations in England. Not even sport can take away that crown from the Sunday breakfast shows.

What makes BBC Local Radio unique is that, like no other BBC service, it can get really close to its audiences. The reason is simple. Our programme makers and presenters live and work alongside the people they are talking about and to. They will experience the same concerns and worries, share the same pride in the history, geography and culture of the area and feel first-hand the effects of locally made decisions. Those things make you passionate about people and places who become your neighbours and friends and not just your listeners.

So, it’s no accident that this up-close-and-personal approach gives Sunday breakfast programmes on BBC local radio a unique closeness and understanding of their faith communities too. I have a responsibility for all the teams who make the programmes across England. I know they have an added extra ingredient. They’re people who are passionate about faith and understand how central it is to the lives of people like them on every level. Whether that’s a concern for the historic fabric of a building that has religious significance or expressing beliefs and practises that define who people are, how they behave and think.

This Easter the range of religious programming on local radio is especially rich. One of those highlights is a documentary made in Leeds about forgiveness. It features the son of one of the Yorkshire Ripper’s victims and a teacher who was stabbed by a pupil. The programme explores their stories and how they came to forgive those who committed the crimes.

In Cumbria the radio station has, like many BBC local radio stations, a tradition of holding Christmas carol services. This year they’ve taken this to a new level and have introduced “Easter Praise”. The station’s presenters will be reading the Easter story and a congregation of hundreds of the stations listeners will be singing Easter hymns and worship songs.

BBC Radio Jersey will be following a walk of witness in Holy Week and BBC Nottingham is in reflective mood looking at the seven statements of Jesus as he was dying on the cross. These are just a flavour of fascinating programmes to be found across the network of BBC local radio stations.

Not everybody who wants to attend a place of worship this Easter will be able to. BBC local radio will be making sure that if they still want to experience Easter through the special lens of where they live they will still be able to. That’s one surprise for people for those who haven’t listened to BBC local radio on a Sunday before but completely unsurprising for those who enjoy its religious affairs programmes week after week.

Ashley Peatfield is Editor, Religion, BBC Local Radio

Taking Shakespeare on Tour with BBC Local Radio

2016-03-21T09:06:59+00:00

When we think of William Shakespeare we invariably link the great man to either his home town of Stratford-upon-Avon, or with London and the place to which he is most famously acquainted, The Globe Theatre.

So it came as somewhat of a surprise to the team working on the Shakespeare on Tour project to discover just how much Shakespeare and the different companies in which he was involved toured all corners of England - both during the Bard’s own lifetime and in the years following his death in 1616.

Shakespeare on Tour is a hugely ambitious new project which tracks the explosion in the performance of the Bard’s works from his own lifetime to the present day.

It’s led by the BBC’s English Regions in a partnership with the British Library and a group of internationally-based academics who have been studying Shakespeare’s touring companies over the last FORTY years (as part of a wider project called The Records of Early English Drama – or REED.)

We will be telling around 200 stories and it’s one of our big contributions to the BBC’s coverage of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death this year…a curtain-raiser to the main season.

BBC Local Radio and regional news

With the help of our local journalists, BBC Local Radio stations and regional television news will be broadcasting some of the most compelling local Shakespearean stories until the anniversary of Shakespeare’s death on Saturday 23 April.

BBC Radio Oxford reveals that in 1610 Shakespeare’s Company performed Othello in Oxford while the Bard himself was still acting.The documented appearance in Oxford of Shakespeare’s leading acting company of the day, The King’s Men, in 1610, is one of those rare moments we are able to pinpoint not only where the players performed and precisely when, but also the play they performed -Othello.

BBC Radio Merseyside will be delving into the story of actress Sarah Siddons who played Hamlet in Liverpool in 1778. At a time when actresses were still associated with prostitutes, Siddons took pains to lead an exemplary life as a respectable married woman.

Although her husband was a respected actor, she was really the family’s breadwinner, the brighter talent and the bigger draw at the box office.

Siddons’ ground-breaking Hamlet extended the possibilities for actresses on stage and paved the way for a flock of others to follow suit.

Frances De La Tour and Maxine Peake are just two of the actresses who’ve tackled the role of Hamlet while Fiona Shaw and Frances Barber have played other male roles.

BBC Radio Newcastle recounts the child prodigy actor who prepared to retire at the age of 11 as he headlined in Newcastle in 1830.

The phenomenon of young actors playing Shakespeare was sweeping across the country and audiences eagerly sought out the latest child sensation. These entertainers made a fortune for their families until the novelty of their performances wore off and they were usurped by younger rivals.

Master W.R Grossmith was one of a number of 19th century children playing prominent acting roles in Shakespeare and other plays across the country. Here we see him saying farewell as he prepares to step down from the stage, aged just 11.

BBC Radio Devon tells the story of the first professional black Shakespearean actor, who starred in a play in Devonport. Ira Aldridge was an African-American who played Shylock, Richard the Third and Macbeth. But he was best-known for his Othello, for which he received mixed reviews in London, but was a huge success in the English provinces. This playbill dated 1846 from the British Library collection promotes Ira’s range of characters.

To help bring these stories to life we worked closely with two fantastic organisations – Records of Early English Drama (REED) and the British Library.

Records of Early English Drama (REED)

The details of Shakespeare’s touring have been brought to light partly thanks to a forty-year academic research project which painstakingly delves into the records kept in town halls or other civic places – documents which tell us which acting groups performed in the town, when, and even how much they were paid.

This piece of work identifies acting groups to which Shakespeare was most closely associated performing towns across the country. Among the references in town records are visits from acting companies such as Pembroke’s Men, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, and finally the company for which Shakespeare wrote most of his plays, ….the King’s Men.

Not only do some records reveal how much such troupes were paid, they can also start to explain why they happened to be there – hints at how they were treated by the town authorities. Academics can also speculate about which plays they might have performed, and – most tantalisingly of all – whether Shakespeare himself was with the company, perhaps himself performing.

This gives rise to some amazing stories…how Shakespeare’s company the King’s Men were turned away from his home town of Stratford…how the plague would have had an influence on the players hitting the road to go on a massive regional tour…how his players trod established routes and seem to return again and again to certain places (Ipswich, ten times!)

British Library Playbills

We also tracked how Shakespeare was embraced during subsequent centuries…by the Victorians…and through more modern interpretations.

These performances out in the ‘provinces of England’ as they were then called, show Shakespeare becoming increasingly revered by the emerging theatre network across the country. And how do we know this? Because thousands upon thousands of theatre playbills have been kept and preserved from the 18th and 19th centuries by the British Library.

These playbills reveal how fame was the prize for those gaining a reputation for brilliance as a Shakespearean actor, particularly in London. But we also see Shakespeare reaching different communities outside of the star-spangled capital. Some performances are especially for farming communities…others for masonic lodges…and in other playbills we see Shakespeare scenes performed almost as a variety night for the masses.

Using these fantastic twin sources of the REED project and the British Library playbills, Shakespeare on Tour is able to tease out for audiences some of the iconic moments in the performance of Shakespeare from his day and on into the late 19th century.

All the stories are illustrated with some amazing images from the time - with thanks to the many partner organisations helping us to overcome the huge challenge of illustrating these stories with pictures.

We hope you enjoy the tour.

Craig Henderson is Head of Programming, English Regions.

Read Shakespeare on Tour stories online from Monday 21 March
BBC English Regions will also be covering the RSC’s current tour of the country performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, using amateur performers in key roles as they tour the country
Discover more about our Shakespeare season at www.bbc.co.uk/shakespeare
Follow @BBCShakespeare on Twitter for regular updates

People's History of Pop - My Nineties

2016-02-08T16:30:00+00:00

The People's History of Pop is a BBC project crowdsourcing photos and audio/video of our audience's cherished music memorabilia - ticket stubs, diary entries, teen band recordings, wrist bands, rare footage and more - to tell the stories of British rock and pop music from the Fifties to the noughties. Here BBC Manchester presenter Stephanie Hirst explains why the Nineties is her favourite musical decade.

I was born in the mid-Seventies and recently celebrated my 40th birthday, so naturally the decade I really should devote my love towards is the Eighties.

Right at the beginning of that decade my Mum bought me my first record Madness’ - "Baggy Trousers" when I was just five years old, starting an obsession with music and collecting records. Yes, I know I really should have been collecting those scented rubbers which all my school friends seemed to do… but no, for me it was the 7-inch single, locking myself in my bedroom with a hairbrush and singing along to my favourite music.

The Eighties was magical for me as it’s also when I first developed my love of radio, but if I bring that love of radio and my obsession of music together it’s the Nineties that really does have a huge place in my heart.

You see, by the early Nineties I was on the radio daily, and very much part of the hit-making machine. It’s all well and good having a great single, but if it doesn’t get played on the radio, listeners can’t hear it, and it fails to sell: thus becoming a flop and one of the many reasons why radio is so important.

Thursdays seemed to be the day when radio stations added new songs to the playlist and I can’t tell you how amazing it was to be one of the first to play the new Oasis or Blur single, during Brit Pop fever. I also remember vividly being one of a limited number of DJs to play the new Beatles song "Free As A Bird" in 1995 – to be behind that microphone, pressing the play button and announcing that this is the first new single in 25 years from the Fab Four, for people to hear for the very first time, was a huge thrill.

Growing up between the ages of 15-25 in the Nineties, saw me get my first radio show, pass my driving test, have my first relationship and also live the life of ‘Nightclub DJ’, all to a wonderful soundtrack.

The Nineties was the era of the super-club, where we had moved on from the mirrored Eighties nightclub look to sound systems of Nineties clubs becoming almost stadium-esque with full on theatre laser light shows. Up on the DJ stand surrounded by 3,000 people on a weekend really did make me feel like Queen of the decks, playing the biggest floor fillers. I was in the thick of it and I couldn’t get enough.

I know it feels almost too early to celebrate the Nineties, but it’s 26 years ago since the decade began and I remember going to Seventies nights in the Nineties, so now is the time to revisit that decade. Remember If you were 25 in 1990, you’ll be 51 this year, and ripe for looking back at a time when you were still very much in your youth.

But, I feel that the Nineties still aren’t musically loved as much as other decades, due to a perception that it was all ‘bang bang bang’ music on ‘Rave FM’. On the surface of course there's the obligatory over-played hits like Snap’s "Rhythm Is A Dancer" and Robin S' "Show Me Love" - but dig a little deeper and you'll soon find the rich depth of music the decade has to offer, every bit as rewarding as tunes from the Seventies and Eighties.

Artists such as Sheryl Crow, Jamiroquai, Brand New Heavies, Gabrielle, Tori Amos, Lighthouse Family, Cast, Space, The Verve, Des’ree, The Charlatans and Massive Attack, all gave us some wonderful music which I love showcasing every Saturday night on Nothing But The Nineties, along with the staple diva’s such as Whitney and Mariah.

Each week as I compile the show, I surprise myself with tracks I’ve completely forgotten about, and even during the show listeners will get in touch with their favourite Nineties tracks too, for which I can’t thank them enough.

All decades have their place in history, and trust me the Nineties was the last truly great decade for all genres of music in the charts.

Stephanie Hirst presents Nothing But The Nineties on BBC Radio Manchester

Visit the Nothing But The Nineties programme page
Find out more about BBC Music's the Peoples History of Pop