Irish Daily Mail

Great drying weather? Don’t take my word for it!

- Sallyanne Clarke’s

IHAD planned to catch up on lots of filing and other things these past few weeks, but the good weather has meant that I am sitting out any chance I get. It is glorious to be able to relax in your own back yard, despite the fact that the washing still needs to be done (and the dishes too).

We have our own well so we are exempt from restrictio­ns in place with the ongoing water shortages. However, as a matter of principle we are being very careful with our water too, as we don’t want the well to run dry or we will be in trouble, not having a mains water supply anywhere near us.

One of the advantages of this great weather is how easy it makes the laundry chore. The clothes are dry in a matter of hours and the dryer has been made redundant. It makes a big difference to the electricit­y bill too.

I have been outside listening to the radio a lot. I love the radio and I use an old Walkman. I have that plugged in all night long, listening to radio programmes and podcasts that I may have missed during the day. I am not a great sleeper and this helps me nod off, plus I catch up on interestin­g news I may have missed during the day.

As a nation, we love the radio. My love affair started when I was a child, but it truly blossomed at 15 years old when I auditioned for a slot on what was then a pirate station called Capitol Radio, on Bachelors Walk in Dublin 1.

I got the slot, and remained there for many years. I would go all the way into town in my school uniform and home again, having presented my programme, for only 5p each way on the Number 50 bus.

It stopped outside where I lived on the way, so my parents knew I was safe. The presenter Chris Barry taught me everything in those very early days. We were ‘pirates’ and it was so much fun.

I never used an assumed name. I was Sallyanne Parker then, just as now, with the inclusion of Clarke. Perhaps it was because I was young and lacked the imaginatio­n to come up with an alternativ­e, unlike so many others of my fellow pirates. It reminds me of a joke I heard recently about Bernie Schwartz and Marion Morrison, aka Tony Curtis and John Wayne. Where or who would they have been if they had not changed their names?

I went on to do stints with KISS FM, the old Radio Nova and I presented a programme on Radio Leinster with the infamous Vincent Connell, who was later convicted of murder, and his sentence subsequent­ly overturned.

I was then offered a newscaster job on what was TTR, run by Jimmy Smith, a country and western station that helped propel entertaine­rs like Daniel O’Donnell to stardom. This genre of music was all the rage — my dad loved it, and the fact that I was a small part of it.

I would get up early in the morning, about 5am, to listen to BBC World News before scouring the newspaper headlines to write the news. I was lucky as the papers for my dad’s shop were delivered to our home so I could see them before they went on sale. I would be in the station on Harty Avenue in Walkinstow­n by 6.30am, ready for the 7am broadcast.

IWROTE the news I thought was important in those days and would read the 7am, 7.30am, 8am and 8.30am bulletins.

We lived in close proximity to the weather man John Doyle in those days. If I saw washing on his line, I would tell listeners that it was a good drying day.

However, I remember one instance when the news I had recorded early in the morning was used during the afternoon shift, and the weather had changed.

I got a rather irate caller the next morning telling me how she had hung out three full machineloa­ds of washing the previous afternoon on my recommenda­tions, and it poured out of the heavens!

This was long before tumble dryers were the norm — and I never ever gave drying day tips again. I never did get the chance to take up the various job offers for the new swathe of radio stations, as darling Derry and I had just started our own restaurant.

L’Ecrivain was 29 years open on Saturday last and I feel that all my radio experience has stood to me through the years, giving me confidence skills, not to mention the art of talking!

Maybe I’ll go back to presenting when I hang up my boots from the culinary scene? Only time will tell...but if I do, I daren’t mention the weather.

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