If you’ve ever caught my Thursday show on Gateway 97.8, you’ll know I work with Alison H. Not yesterday though.

Alie hasn’t been well for a few weeks and this week, she realised she really couldn’t make it in to do the show. So on Wednesday evening, I volunteered to stand in for her for the full 3 hours (my slot is normally 30 minutes, although I do contribute to about half of the afternoon programme).

The job of the ‘Good Afternoon’ presenter on Gateway is to be informative, entertaining and above all, engaging. The delivery needs to sound spontaneous – but trust me, spontaneity takes planning!

Picture the scene yesterday morning – there I was, rushing around, trying to prepare a 3-hour show, before I headed off to a meeting in Chelmsford (for which I was a week early – but that’s another story!). I finished up spending the car journey being briefed over the phone by Alison, on an interview with 4 6th formers from a local school – winners of the ‘Basildon District Young Persons Parliament Project’. It’s not easy bashing out notes in home-made Braille shorthand, on scraps of paper dug out of the bottom of your bag, using an almost-antique mini Braille machine, which wouldn’t quite fit on anybody’s lap and tends to slip and tip with the movement of the car. I had no idea there were so many roundabouts between Basildon and Chelmsford!

I arrived home from the meeting that never was to find myself locked out of the house. I did eventually manage to get back indoors for half an hour – then it was off to the station – where the, er, fun?!, continued!

First, the lift decided it wasn’t going to take me to the right floor. When I finally managed to convince it that I wanted Level 3 – not 5, 4 or 2! – I made it into the studio – only to find the computer, which holds virtually everything we need to run a show (music, jingles, ads etc) had decided to crash – 10 minutes before I was due on air. By then, to be honest, nothing would have surprised me.

After all that, it was a good show – two cracking interviews, with the students from Mayflower school, Billericay and wit Amanda Hill and Caroline Thomas, of the Social Media café. I wouldn’t like to guess how I look in the flipcam video which Amanda shot in the last half hour of the show though…

It’s a good thing I love live radio!

“At their best, radio and TV create communities; they break down barriers, binding diverse groups of people together with a common interest, be it soap, news or music.

“I tend to think of radio communities as villages.  Some are large, some are small – some no-one outside has ever heard of; but within those groups, everyone knows the place so well, they can talk to each other in shorthand. They know every local landmark and become fiercely protective if any are moved or messed with (just check out ‘Feedback’ on Radio 4 if you don’t believe me); and they feel they know each other. 

“The names of listeners who write or phone regularly, stick with presenters – and other listeners can remember those names years later.  For instance, I’ve never forgotten Siobhan from Hendon, aka ‘The Duchess of North London’ or James – the young lad from Berkshire, who had more front than Blackpool and Southend put together (he’s probably in sales now) – yet I’ve heard nothing of either of them for more than twenty-five years.  Then, of course, the listener feels they know the presenter – and just occasionally, they do.

“There are elements of that in television, but it’s less intimate; less personal.  It’s one-to-many communication, rather than one-to-one.  If radio is a village, TV is a city.  When it works well, there’s still a sense of pride, of belonging, but you’re far less likely to know the neighbours personally.”

I didn’t know I thought that until I wrote it a couple of months ago; but since I put it down in writing and started talking to people about it, it’s met with a lot of recognition. 

The technology which has put ‘radio’ and ‘television’ into our hands – yours and mine – means we can now build villages or cities around our businesses.  The choice has nothing to do with size.  It’s about the ethos – especially the one-to-one versus one-to-many engagement.  Personally, I prefer to aim for a village, but what about you?