I was one of the first people to present a radio programme for patients in the Northampton hospitals. Previously, before Hospital Radio really started, patients could tune in to commentaries of Northampton Town Football Club's home matches. These were organised by the Friends of the Hospital, and at that time could be heard in Northampton General, Harborough Road, Manfield and as far away as Creaton Hospitals.

Following an article in the Chronicle and Echo, a small group of people got together, and raised enough money to purchase the basic equipment to set up a small radio studio, consisting of a couple of record players, 2 tape recorders, 2 microphones and a control panel. This was housed in a room on the top floor of the Billing Road entrance to the Northampton General, a disused nurse's room!

The programmes were varied, but at the outset were geared especially for the patients. Our team would visit every ward to collect requests and dedications, then return to the studio to prepare the programmes. A little later, when we had raised the money, we would also collect patient interviews with portable tape recorders and play these recordings in the programmes.

Initially the radio station was called "Radio Titania", but for reasons that I really needn't go into, it was soon changed to "Radio Nene Valley" (We found that this name couldn't be shortened!)

I presented a Sunday afternoon magazine programme called "Down in the Valley" which consisted of music, interviews and various regular spots, including Showbiz News, Handy Hints, Motoring News etc.

I remember even in those days calling in the specialists. Our motoring correspondent was Brian Pugh, a local driving instructor. He would write a short spot and either come into the studio each week, or come to my house to pre-record it. Later, he got clever, and would prepare 4 spots at a time, so I would only see him once a month!

News items were "borrowed" from the local newspapers (with their approval, I must add) and sometimes we would go into the streets and interview the townsfolk on local matters. We once did a half hour programme about the possibility of London's third airport being built at Yardley Chase, near Northampton.

Occasionally, we would interview any celebrity who visited the area. When you are armed with a tape recorder, it's amazing how easy it is to get past any security people! There is quite a large archive in the Record Library of all these interviews, and it is good to have been involved.

In order to save time preparing my programme in the studio, very often I would pre-record some of the features in a little studio that I set up in a back bedroom of my house. I remember on one occasion recording a "Handy Hints" piece which went a little wrong as I stumbled over a couple of the words. I said a couple of rude words and started again. Just at that moment the telephone rang and after I answered it, I forgot that I needed to re-record the piece. I then went into the Hospital Radio studio, with this offending tape and thought no more of it. Imagine my horror when I played the tape on the programme and heard myself uttering those rude words!

Luckily no one complained, and until this moment, I have never told anyone that story!

On another Sunday afternoon, I was presenting my programme, which was going surprisingly well. I made no mistakes, the music was playing at the right times and I was feeling really pleased with myself. I was about 25 minutes into the show when I looked up. On the wall in front of me was a little grey box with 2 coloured lights and a black push button on it. If the light was green, it meant that we were "ON AIR". The light was RED! I had been speaking to myself for 25 minutes! I had forgotten to push the black button. Needless to say, I also never mentioned this again.

Over my 13 years with Radio Nene Valley, I had so many similar occurrences and maybe someday I'll write more. I would just like to say that it taught me a lot about communication, working as a team, and, with the opportunity to visit and talk to the hospital patients, it made me realise how fortunate I was to be able to bring a little joy to people worse off than myself.