Very low and very quiet

When I first heard of Festival Radio I was worried about the name because Brighton Festival itself was in the doldrums, and I wished that the station had a less conjoined title. But I had wanted to run a radio music programme of the widest range of new music, with a short and sweet presentation comprising pithy back and forward announcements, allowing more time for the music itself. Festival Radio gave me the chance to do that.

 I didn’t know how to do tech stuff in the studio so I was helped by Vicki Gobstopper (now Vicki Bennett of People Like Us). As she would have to get the last train to Lewes each night, our agenda was determined by the railway timetable and me finding the right disc or cassette tape at the right time and remembering what we’d played two tracks back.  In the first show we started with a piece played by the Kronos Quartet. It began low and quiet, very low and quiet, too low and quiet for the station generators. After a few minutes Daniel came in and told us, almost as a matter of pride, that in our debut we had taken the station off-air.

We persevered, though we were never sure that anyone was listening. Later in life I tried to sell the idea of a mixed music menu with minimal presentation to the Head of Radio 3, who turned it down: in his eyes and ears he thought it sounded like the then new Late Junction. But now it can be said to be back on Radio 3 as the drivetime Mixtape, the presenter’s voice ably replaced by a digital scrolling text. Festival Radio, take a bow, very low and very quiet.