I came into work at BBC Three Counties Radio one day to a message from the daughter of one of my regular listeners. I had struck up an unlikely off-air friendship with her mother, the warm, opinionated and razor-sharp Beryl, after we’d first met at an outside broadcast. Her daughter explained that she had fallen ill a few days previously and had sadly died, but not before writing a note to her family with strict instructions to inform me in the event of her death.
As the dust following announcement of more swingeing cuts to local radio has settled, I think it’s important to remember listeners like Beryl – and the unique connection they have with their BBC local radio station. I left the organisation in 2021 and all my former colleagues have stories like mine to tell: from the late-night show that enabled one listener, who had been adopted, to meet her 100-year-old birth mother for the first time; to the BBC Newcastle show that was contacted by the daughter of a seriously ill local man, asking them to help record a song he’d written for her 56 years previously when she was nine months old. With the help of local music students, the station turned her wish into reality. Her father died shortly afterwards.
