I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [19]
‘Just swing by my office tomorrow and we can hammer all that out.’
‘Great,’ I replied. ‘I’ll bring the hammers!’ And with that, my career changed forever.
But there was to be a moving post-script to this chapter in my life. And I’ll tell you about it now. At my leaving do, with the party in full swing, I stopped the music, climbed atop a chair and gave the hospital staff an emotional, heartfelt guarantee. I pledged, no matter how famous I became, that while there was still air in my lungs, I would come back and do my show for a minimum of one week every year.
I may not have been able to donate money, but in some ways I was able to donate something far more powerful. I was able to donate chat (to a maximum value of one week each year). And with that, I picked up my coat and left the building, the warm applause of my colleagues still ringing in my ears like a big church bell.
Sadly, circumstance has meant that I’ve not been able to get back to the hospital in the intervening 31 years. In the main that’s down to me – work commitments have made it simply unfeasible. But for the record I’d like to point out that the hospital is not entirely blameless itself. In 2001 it moved to a new site around the corner from the University of East Anglia. The studios from where I used to broadcast my show were reduced to rubble. And I think most reasonable people would agree that by allowing that to happen the NHS Trust effectively voided my promise.
42 School trip to Heston Farm, 1964. I maintain it was self-defence.
43 Press play on Track 9.
44 If he was particularly unlucky it would have been a Bouncing Betty. These horrible little devices are designed to spring three feet into the air before exploding and inflicting the maximum number of casualties on an enemy. I think they’ve won awards.
Chapter 6
Local/Commercial Radio
RICH SHAYERS HAD CONVINCED me to do something more worthwhile than providing a soothing backdrop of music and companionship for those in need45 – so I’d accepted his offer of a job DJing for a fledgling station. The set-up reminded me very much of the buccaneering can-do spirit of Radio Caroline – maverick disc jockeys flouting regulations to give listeners something new and fresh. My job wasn’t on pirate radio – that would have been a criminal offence. It was the in-store radio station for a branch of record shop Our Price.
It was a pilot scheme way, way, way, way ahead of its time (indeed, it folded within weeks). But the team! It’s my privilege to say that these were some of the most dazzling young broadcasters I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. They were scientific in their understanding of good radio – they were radiologists.
Check out this roll call.
Paul Stubbs. An aficionado of US shock jocks and personality DJs, he sadly never knew what he had. He left the business shortly after Our Price and now works for Hertz car rental. Still follows the US game and is a fountain of knowledge on call-ins and quiz ideas. Invaluable.
Phil Schofield. Phil was always the baby of the group and had a snotty-nosed quality that we bullied out of him. Now better known as the presenter of TV’s This Morning, Phil was back then a bit of a know-it-all and was brought down a peg or two by off-air pranks such as having his new shoes filled with piss. There was no smoking gun/dripping willy, so Stubbs got away with it. It was a tough time for Phil and he never talks about it. Phil, if you’re reading, why not give me a call?
Jon Boyd. That voice! Warm, reassuring and deliciously transatlantic, Jon later turned his back on radio and has made quite the name for himself as a voiceover artist with, by his own admission, a pretty limited range. His voice can be heard in the lift of an art gallery in Bath. He tells me he takes women there and then mimes the words ‘Doors Closing’ or ‘Third Floor’ over the sound of the recording. Freaks them out. Cracking SOH.
Brian Golding. ‘Bonkers’ Bri combined a wacky sense of humour with a genuine mental