Award for hospital radio presenter
A HOSPITAL radio presenter has been honoured for two decades of voluntary broadcasting.
Mathew Hulbert has received a Long Service Award from the Hospital Broadcasting Association in recognition of 20 years of service to Hinckley’s Castle Mead Radio.
The station, based at Hinckley and District Hospital on Mount Road, also broadcasts to Hinckley and Bosworth Community Hospital on Ashby Road and to other health facilities in the area - as well as being available worldwide online.
Barwell-born Mathew joined the team in 1997 when he was aged 17 and went on to perform a variety of roles, including cofounding and anchoring the net- work’s first weekly news programme, presenting music programmes, serving as vice chairman of the station’s management committee and editing the station’s newsletter.
He graduated with a degree in broadcast journalism from Nottingham Trent University in 2002 and went on to work as a professional broadcast journalist with the Touch FM group of commercial radio stations in the Midlands.
Mr Hulbert said: “Castle Mead Radio has proven a brilliant training ground for a host of future broadcasting professionals, which is no mean feat for a network dubbed Britain’s smallest hospital radio station.”
During his time in commercial radio he interviewed a host of big names including the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown and opposition leader David Cameron, music executive Pete Waterman and film critic Barry Norman.
But he continued to take to the Castle Mead Radio airwaves whenever his schedule allowed.
Mr Hulbert now presents a weekly newspaper review show, which can be heard online and via the tuneIN radio app live every Thursday at 1pm and repeated at 6pm.
He said: “I never would have believed, on that first day I went into the Castle Mead Radio studios to be interviewed by local broadcasting legend, Castle Mead Radio’s long-serving station man- ager Paul Gardner, that I’d still be there two decades on.”
You can follow Castle Mead Radio on Twitter at @CastleMeadRadio and Mathew via @ HulbertMathew.