Friday 11 April 2014

Farewell journalism - it's been a great six years!

In three weeks I will be leaving the Bath Chronicle behind and starting a new job. In fact, I will be leaving the world of journalism behind, and moving into a different position. I am going over to the other side, and will be the press officer for Great Western Air Ambulance.

I am feeling hugely excited about this. Don’t get me wrong, I have been a journalist for six years, and have loved all of the experiences that this has given me. I have done so many things that I would never have done before, and interviewed lots of celebrities. But now I feel like it is time for a change, and I am looking forward to helping this wonderful charity to continue the great work it does.

I thought I would sum up some of the great, weird, fun, and just plain crazy things I have done in my time as a journalist.

Top Five moments
This was a hard category - as there were so many to choose from! But here are five of my most memorable moments:

*Interviewing shoe legends Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik.
Me and Jimmy Choo!
Me and Manolo Blahnik!
For as long as I can remember I have loved shoes, especially Jimmy Choos. So when he arrived in Bath in 2009 and I got to interview him I was over the moon! I spent hours the night before picking out my best shoes to wear, and when I met him he said ‘nice shoes.’ So my cream heels from Faith are Choo approved! I was disappointed that when the interview was published he didn’t send me a pair of shoes as a thank you - but meeting the great man was the chance in a lifetime! Three years later I got the chance to interview another shoe legend, when Manolo Blahnik was given an honorary degree at Bath Spa. Once again I took ages to decide what pair of shoes to wear!

*Covering the Weston Pier fire
When the pier at Weston-super-Mare burnt down it made national and even international news. At the time I was the reporter on the Weston and Worle News, so I was sent to cover it. I remember waking up, putting the TV on while I ate my breakfast, and seeing the pier on fire! Cue a mad dash down the motorway, where you could see the smoke. I was there all day, talking to people who had loved the pier, watching the firecrews tackle the blaze, and attending a press conference by the owners who vowed to make it bigger and better than ever. A lot of people loved that pier, and I am glad that the owners kept their promise, and rebuilt it. At the end of the day it took me ages to find my car, as I had parked it in a rush down a side street and hadn’t made a note of the name!


*Swinging sixties makeover
Ready to part sixties style
In August 2009 an exhibition was held at the Assembly Rooms in Bath called Story of The Supremes From the Mary Wilson Collection. It was dedicated to the clothes worn by The Supremes, one of the most well-known Mowtown bands of all time. As part of this they were offering people the chance to have a sixties makeover - and I jumped at the chance. I wore clothes that I had found in my dressing up collection (basically a number of large bags which hold all of my fancy dress costumes), and had my hair and makeup done. The result? A massive beehive which was put together by more than 30 hair clips and half a can of hairspray. Seriously, I thought it took me ages to get ready for a night out, imagine if I was in the sixties, and had to build that beehive every evening! And taking my hair down that evening took ages!

*Making cakes for Mary Berry
Not many people can say they have baked caked for the legend that is Mary Berry!  I was due to interview her on an unrelated matter when the idea was put forward that some of us bake cakes and get her to taste them. Now, I am not the best cake maker – I tend to just chuck things together and hope they taste ok. I avoid baking, and only do it when I have a cake sale for Sunshine Radio. So the thought of making something for Mary Berry to taste was scary! I opted for biscuits, as I thought they would be the easier option. An evening and one destroyed kitchen later and I had a chocolate chip cookie in the shape of a bear for her to taste. She was really lovely, and up for trying it. Her comments were ‘It tastes lovely, but the bear looks a little obese!’ I will take that! Great British Bake-Off here I come!

*Lake District press trip
Meeting Peter Rabbit
During my time as a journalist I have been lucky to go on a few press trips. My favourite one was the first time we went to the Lake District. I have never been before, but since then have been a few times. It is so beautiful, whether you visit in the summer or winter (which was when we went for this trip.) We stayed at a beautiful hotel in Grasmere, visited the Beatrix Potter museum, and Wordsworth’s cottage. This was the time that we almost got stuck up a mountain, as we decided to climb it late afternoon, got lost, and only just made it down before it got dark!

There have also been many bizarre moments in my carer:
Freezing in our pjs!

* Standing in the middle of busy shopping centre in my pjs.
This was to launch a charity Midnight Walk, and saw us standing in pjs in a busy shopping centre with Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies. It was winter too – so we were freezing!


*Eating one of the hottest chilli sauces in the country.
At a chilli festival I got conned into tasting the hottest sauce. It was horrible – my mouth was on fire, and didn’t cool down for hours!

*Walking down snow covered slopes/ driving to cut off village
Just before I fell over.
A village cut off by snow? I was sent to investigate. The





result? I got my car stuck, had to abandon it and be picked up. Hills in Bath too icy to walk down? I  was sent to try them out. The result? A very sore bum!

*Tasting Bath’s thermal waters
I tasted the thermal waters of Bath that is believed to have healing powers. It tasted really sulphuric, not very enjoyable!

*Having a waltz lesson from 89yr-old waltz champion
I interviewed a lovely old man who was a Waltz champion. He was dressed in his tux for the interview, and insisted on spinning me around his living room!

*Being captured in a painting of people in the city
A student painted people of Bath and I was included! See if you can spot me!


People of Bath - can you spot me?

Being a journalist has been great! I am now looking forward to more adventures in my new job. 

Friday 4 April 2014

Sunshine celebrates silver! :)

This blog is to celebrate the success of Sunshine Radio after we walked away with Silver in the Best Speech Package at the National Hospital Broadcasting Association awards! The entry, The Largest Helicopter Museum in the World, was put together by myself and Marcus Tripp.
 For those of you that are not aware of the Hospital Radio Awards, they are an annual celebration of the excellent standards found in hospital radio stations across the country. There are more than 200 individual member stations, and each entry is subjected to a rigorous judging process by a national panel of industry experts and NHS staff.
 Last year was the first year I entered, in the Female Presenter of the Year category. The awards ceremony was held in Blackpool, and I won Gold, which was amazing. I felt so inspired after that I vowed to enter again this year. I decided to go for another category, and along with Marcus went along to the Helicopter museum to put together a programme on it.
 The museum is the world's largest dedicated helicopter museum, and brings huge numbers of tourists to Weston every year. To some it may sound a bit boring, who wants to go and stare at bits of helicopters?! Well, I thought the same until I visited, and then I was pretty impressed! It is really interesting to see all the different types, and some of them are massive!
 The Helicopter Museum dates back to 1958, when the founder, aviation writer and historian Elfan ap Rees, began to build up a private collection of rotorcraft documentation and artifacts. Over the years his collection has grown so much that the museum was relocated to an aircraft hanger big enough to accommodate them. As Elfan said in his interview with us ‘Don’t start collecting things, as you never know where it could end up!’
 So Marcus and I went along to the museum, and interview Elfan, along with two lovely volunteers Rod and Stacey, (if you are reading this, thanks for talking to us!) Then came the hard work, editing more than an hours worth of material into a five minute clip for the judges. This was so hard, as we wanted to get the feel of the piece across, but only five minutes to do it in. It ended up taking us around six hours to put the clip together!
 For every category there are 10 finalists, who go along to the awards ceremony where bronze, silver and gold are announced. This year the ceremony took place in Bristol, which was handy for us! To be honest, I really didn’t think we would make the top three. The speech category in particular is very tough, so just to be in the top 10 pleased me!
 The awards ceremony was great. It was held at the Marriott Hotel, and we were given a three course meal, consisting of vegetable soup (which surprisingly I didn’t drop down myself), lamb shank, and a chocolate and orange sponge. I was sat next to Richard Smith, though only people who do hospital radio will know the name! He records shows from home which are broadcast to most of the hospital stations in the UK. I play his one minute trivia clips a lot on my show, so it was exciting to finally put a face to a voice!
 Then came the awards. I had drank quite a bit of wine by then (typical! lol!), and when they announced that we had won silver it took a few minutes to sink in! Sunshine chair Jo and I went up on stage to collect the award, and I was chuffed that I didn’t trip over my dress and didn’t drop the glass trophy! The judges comments on our entry were: “We found this entry amusing, informative and entertaining. We thought there was good interaction by all involved, bringing to life this most unusual of museums.”




 Funny that, as my presenter of the year entry last year was also described as amusing!

So yay for Sunshine! And bring on the 2015 awards in Newcastle. Now I just have to decide what category to enter!