Hospital radio prepares to mark 60 years
ONE of the region’s oldest radio stations is about to celebrate its diamond jubilee, but only a select band of people have ever tuned in.
Long before commercial radio became a reality in the UK, hospital radio has been broadcasting and the team at Hospital Radio Reading is preparing to mark its 60th birthday with a special party.
To be held on Saturday, September 9, the evening will be a chance for presenters and station staff past and present to get together for a spin down memory lane.
And organisers want to hear from their predecessors on the airwaves so they can be invited to the celebrations.
The station was launched on September 7, 1957 as the Reading Hospital Broadcasting Service.
Its first broadcast was a commentary on Reading FC’s 3-0 victory over Aldershot at the Elm Park ground.
Territorial Army officer and lifelong supporter of the Royals, Les Warth had previously found himself missing the games during a spell in hospital. He passed away in 2016 aged 97, but his vision enabled the radio station to start.
He wrote: “I came to thinking wouldn’t it be great if I could listen to something local.
“True, we could listen to the BBC but that didn’t satisfy me”.
Mr Warth used his influence and army connections to borrow a number of wireless sets with built-in loudspeakers and after touring local hospitals on a Saturday morning (initially Battle, Blagrave, Peppard and Prospect Park) to set up the receivers in selected wards.
He used a borrowed army transmitter to relay commentaries on the Royals’ home games to the patients from the Elm Park stand before on Sunday retracing his steps to collect the sets back in again, often helped by his two sons.
The football commentaries still form part of the schedules and now more than 40 volunteers volunteer for the station, based at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, collecting record requests and providing a host of entertainment for patients.
To mark the anniversary, the team are aiming to raise £10,000 to upgrade the studios.
The money will buy new computer equipment.
Birthday celebrations will begin at lunchtime on Saturday, September 9, when the upgraded studio will be re-opened and dedicated to the memory of the station’s founder, in a ceremony performed by Mr Warth’s two sons, Mike and Terry, and attended by a number of representatives of the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust.
The ceremony will be broadcast live to the patients and also on www.hrreading.org.uk in a special programme to mark the occasion which, appropriately, will be followed by coverage by the current football commentary team at the Madejski Stadium of Reading’s Championship match against Bristol City.
Fundraising will continue through the winter and a pre-Christmas highlight will be on Friday December 1, 2017, thanks to The Mill at Sonning.
The evening will include a welcome drink and a two-course dinner, followed by the Mill’s production of My Fair Lady.
Dinner is from 6.15pm and the performance starts at 8.15pm.
Tickets for this special dinner and theatre experience are available on a first come basis at £60 each (£6 donation to HRR)
For more details, email studio@ hrreading.org.uk