I don’t anorak often.

There was a time when I was but an ickle presenter when it was part of who I was and then, like many of us as time moves on, life develops other priorities like family, children, responsibilities, bills and just which day is the next green bin being collected on.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t have an interest in those bits of anorak history that I’m part of. I started in student and hospital radio before actually earning (what we very loosely called) a paycheck in local radio, spent 5 and a half years on Dublin radio and only then ended up where I am now.

In the middle of all that is probably the most interesting 18 months of it all when I was…… born on the now extinct Longwave Radio Atlantic 252 sometime in the mid-90s. We were all working on a national UK pop music station with 6 million listeners aged 5 years and over at one point, all the while staring out the studio window at the sheep in the field across the road in a building sandwiched between the local hotel and the cattle mart in Trim, Co Meath.

Many of us lived in the village (myself included for a year) where, at the time, the presence of an Xtravision in the village made us a mecca for people from miles around! It was amongst the best times I’ve had in radio.

There are a few tribute sites up and running for those interested – the main one HERE and another HERE to remind you of a time many people fondly remember; it’s probably the thing I’m most remembered for down the country even though I was there for such a short time. When pornstar names, 7 second links and 16 songs in a row uninterrupted were the in thing…

R