I made my radio debut, along with my lovely Mum, on Monday 17th December 2018. The opportunity was completely unexpected and here is how it happened:
On Friday, the phone rang. It was a private number so I ignored it. Private numbers mean PPI or ‘our records show you have been involved in a car accident’. If it was important, they’d leave a message.
A few minutes later, a message was left. I listened. It was Rav Sanghera, a producer with BBC Radio Sheffield. He had found my blog on David and Donetta (now removed) about moving to Doncaster and thought I would be a good interviewee for the Monday show, which was about people migrating to South Yorkshire. I googled the details, and ascertained that Rav was a real person, with a real job. I rang back.
A book was being published about refugees who had moved to Sheffield. The radio station wanted to interview other people who had moved nearby, for less harrowing reasons. I had a chat with Rav about how great Doncaster was to live in, and mentioned that my parents moved with me. For those that don’t know, I have Crohn’s Disease and my parents take care of me when I have a relapse.
Rav was interested as to how they had found the move, especially as we are all from down south originally (although we had already moved to York, before Doncaster). I mentioned that my Mum had emigrated to Canada in her twenties, so Doncaster wasn’t such a big leap of faith. We agreed that Mum would be a great interviewee too, so we were both booked on the show.
I spent the weekend being utterly terrified. For about 4 years I have had really bad social anxiety. I used to absolutely love going to events and meeting new people, and now it fills me with dread. I was so glad that Mum was going with me, else I might have chickened out.
We made it to the studio and everyone was so friendly and welcoming. Rav and the presenter, Rony, are total sweethearts and made us both feel at home. It was just like having a chat in your living room. I managed to rep several awesome Doncaster businesses and not make a total prat out of myself during the section on dialect.
Hearing Mum’s story was really interesting. Even though I knew most of it, it turns out that she was in Canada for 9 years, which was double how long I thought she had spent there. I also didn’t realise that she and her husband (her first one, not my Dad) were totally on their own once they got there, and only had £100 in their pocket. Even in the 1960s, that wasn’t a lot of money! I definitely want to explore Mum’s experiences in greater detail, let me know in the comments below if you would like to know more as well.
You can listen to our interview from 1:09 at the following link (until approximately 16/01/2019):