Profile: Paul Cluderay

Fund-raising is an important feature of Hospital Radio, since we are funded totally by donations from the general public, and often takes the form of members standing outside a supermarket grasping a collection box and a sign bearing a simple request to support the local hospital radio.

 

It is a plea well met by shoppers across the age range, not least the children, tugging at their adult's sleeve, enticed by the mystery of the sealed box and the trickiness of negotiating a fistful of coins into the smallest of apertures.

 

Once, in my youth, I tried unconvincingly to sell advertising space, there being nothing tangible at the point of sale, whereas support for a hospital is always popular. There is also praise and encouragement for the work we do.

 

Throughout the session there is an endless array of faces to make contact with, glances to be gained, smiles exchanged.

 

I proudly wear my membership badge together with my name and photograph, just the same as when I stop beside a patient and begin: 'Hello, I'm from the Hospital Radio. We've a request programme for your ward tonight and I'd like to play you a piece of music. What do you like?'

 

What I like is representing to others what is good and worthwhile and recognizing agreement in a passing gaze. And no interchange is ever without a lively face-to- face, like the man who recently left me in temporary charge of his dog.

 

'Don't worry,' he assured me, 'he'll be fine. Just say 'sit' and he will.' And he did.

 

Then there was the curious child fascinated by the beige cloth hat I wear for protection against the sun. 'Look,' he proclaimed to all and sundry, "it's the Jungle man who shoots tigers,"

 

That was worth giving up any Saturday for...