Radio 1 has lost its star DJ, and the background to my lockdown months
While in quarantine after my holiday, I was dismayed to find that my favourite radio DJ had retired in my absence. Annie Mac was the only unobjectionable presenter on Radio 1. She not only played good music, she also avoided spouting an endless stream of drivel between songs and then cackling at her own jokes.
The last time I was in any kind of lockdown, her show was a fixture of most days. I have lost count of how many evenings I spent, after a day of balancing childcare, work and housework, slowly cooking dinner with my husband and hearing her soft, calm voice introducing exactly the right song for the occasion.
The messages flowing into her studio from listeners were a live sample of the country’s unease and loneliness. All the way through – from that first, surreal lockdown to the relief of the summer release, then the depressing slide back
She talked just enough, and not too much, about the situation
into lockdown, the bleakness of Christmas and the feeling that it was never going to end, just as it started to – Mac’s show sucked it all in and then filtered it back out with sensitivity and just the tune we needed to soften the mood. In a period of isolation, listening felt communal. It gave the weeks a structure: on Mondays, the mood was mellow and reflective. On Friday, it was time to rave in the kitchen over the stir-fry.
Artists who would usually be on tour discussed using the time to think and write new songs. Mac fostered new collaborations between people going through the same experience while living thousands of miles from one another. She was unfailingly professional and creative. She talked just enough, and not too much, about the situation. She was never political.
For me, her departure marks the end of the lockdown era. As for the loss to Radio 1, I suppose it’s just as well. The station’s official target audience is the under-30s. I am no longer listening, so they are one step closer to their goal.