Article written by Neil Monnery

Lyn has been part of the Wednesday night team for going on five years now. Since I joined her four years ago she has referred to the Wednesday show as ‘Wacky Wednesday’ and to be honest I’m not sure that is fair nor accurate. So I thought I’d give a rundown on some of the random conversations that have made it to air in the past few weeks and let the wider world have their say.

Will and his dating life. Firstly the fact that he was for a third date ‘taking her down the beach hut’ and then the next week after the Beach Hut date that as part of the picnic he has brought her a Cumberland Sausage, as she said she liked sausages.

Brenda and her rather obvious dislike for Daniel O’Donnell. This is a recurring theme now. If we get any Daniel O’Donnell requests on a Wednesday and Brenda is around – the request slip goes to her to read out without fail. The joy is seeing just how happy she can make it sound on air…

Brenda mistaking Iceland the country for Iceland the Supermarket. Whilst talking about going food shopping as a student I remarked about going to Iceland all the time. She thought that as a poor student I shouldn’t be able to afford to keep going to Iceland. It took a good few seconds for Pete to step in and put her straight. Cue much laughter in the studio.

Whilst doing our weekly quiz – it has been known for Bobby & Will to come up with some surprising answers. A couple of weeks ago the question was ‘Name all the countries that have hosted the Winter Olympics’ and Will & Bobby’s first guess was ‘Greece’ and they also had a stab at ‘India’ later in the guessing process. It might not surprise you that they lost to the other team of presenters Lyn & Pete that week 8-2.

Speaking of our weekly quiz – what we do is get a question with between 9 and 15 answers and then the two groups of people around Mic 2 and Mic 3 will take it in turns to guess an answer between each request. These quizzes are different every week. If you have a question then you think might be good then leave us a comment and we’ll get it into the show. Recent questions have including ‘The top universities in the UK according to student population’, ‘Name all the sports in the first Olympics of 1896’,  ‘Name all the countries that have won the Eurovision Song Contest more than once,’ and ‘Name the top ten most eaten chocolate bars in the UK each year’, so as you can see – we try to change it up so any questions that we could use then please get in touch.

I suppose I can’t just talk about the funny/embarrassing things other people may have said. I myself am infamous on Wednesday nights for talking about the fact that I’m single and can’t get a date – usually before or after a particularly romantic song. I give out my surname and everything asking if anyone wants or knows of someone looking for a 27 year-old slightly below average looking male but there’s never any uptake. It pains me. It really does.

I’m sure there is a lot more but that is all I can think of for now. Well from the past few weeks anyone. If we were going back a few years there are many funny moments etched in my memory. However the show isn’t just about having a laugh and playing at being a DJ. A few weeks back we had a guy in who’d seen his high blood pressure fall and rang down towards the end of our show to say that he’d put it down to listening to us for the past couple of hours. Last week we had a guy who had been in for a while and got in touch to say that the radio station had really helped him through the evenings in hospital and just last night I spoken to a lady on one of the wards whilst collecting requests who thanked me and everyone at the radio station for what we do. She said it is a real comfort and is a genuine help to people in hospital and when you hear that, that it is difficult not to be filled with happiness and a bit of pride.

We do Hospital Radio not only because we enjoy it but also because it is a good use of our time and really does help people when they are in hospital, in what is often a very uneasy time for them. If you want to join us, please get in touch with our Membership Secretary. Requests shows run every night Monday to Friday and they’ll always be a friendly face around you to make you feel at home and part of the team. More members are always welcome if you want to be part of helping people when they need a bit of cheering up and if you want to meet some new people and form new friendships.

Oh and if you’re single… Nah I’d best not.

Neil.