Death of a Princess

When Diana, Princess of Wales died in a Parisian hospital in the early hours of this very day 13 years ago, I was on the radio.

This meant that I, along with every other live weekend overnight presenter in the country (and there were many in 1997, as opposed to the little more than a dozen currently on commercial radio today) had to go through the obituary procedure, which had never previously been necessary in the modern broadcasting era.

For presenters, the theory was that you read the ring binder full of instructions from IRN about what to do in case word of a Royal death started to emerge. In other words, you were expected to know it off by heart. In reality, presenters forgot all about it and got on with their own thing until or unless such a day occurred.

We were expecting it, however. Just not with Diana. In 1997 both our monarch and her consort were in their 70s and monarch's ma was pushing the ton. All three, along with the four royal siblings and the direct heirs to the throne, were on the A-list of Royal obituaries and would receive the works in terms of respectful tribute and focussed media mourning when their day of judgement arrived. Despite being de-royalled by her divorce, Diana was also on there, still, as she had given birth to one future monarch via her nuptials to another.

So I drove to the studios at about midnight, ready for my 2am start. As I parked up, the 1am IRN bulletin announced that Diana had been in a car accident in Paris. This was breaking news and therefore there was little indication of whether it was a minor prang or a serious crash, though the late show presenter looked very grateful to be leaving the studio and heading home when 2am came round and I stepped in.

The 2am news again was vague, but the studio televisions began to tell us a lot more and, with a rolling news service not seen before on both the BBC and ITV (as was) we knew this could be quite a big moment. However, the rules dictated that commercial radio stations should continue broadcasting their planned, regular material until directly instructed otherwise. So, both myself and the chap on the AM sister station across the corridor continued. I was playing records by Will Smith, Michelle Gayle and Ultra Naté, talking up the breakfast show's Monday return, playing Rudders Plays Pop with the audience (just don't ask) and making lame observations about stuff in the papers.

By 3am we were convinced, without any proof at all, that she was dead because the hospital in Paris was telling the media absolutely nothing on the record. Both of us - and we were the only people in the building aside from the security chap who was too busy snoring in reception to notice - re-acquainted ourselves with the obituary procedure and located the copy of the national anthem that had been placed in each studio.

How it works is that IRN sound the obituary alarm in every newsroom in the country once they have their confirmation of a blue-blooded demise. In the event of an empty newsroom - like they all are at 4.45am on a Sunday - the alarm also activates as a flashing light in the studio to alert the presenters without alerting the listeners (though some studio alarms do make a sound if the microphone is not live at the time). Upon the activation, presenters are required to drop all programming features, production and adverts and play back to back "appropriate" music until the next scheduled IRN bulletin.

I mentioned 4.45am as that was when the alarm finally sounded. I can remember as clear as day that my last link had been something suitably unamusing about a cocaine-taking rock star, and the record I was playing was, erm, Every Day Is A Winding Road by Sheryl Crow. Not exactly ideal but we were in "normal" mode, and presenters' fingers have been metaphorically chopped off by their bosses for daring to change the music around without good reason. I didn't regard what was still officially only a rumour about Diana's farewell as good enough reason, so I played the less than tastefully titled song as it appeared on my music log.

IRN's leap into action meant we followed the rule book until 5am and then faded them up to begin a sombre, extended, repetitive bulletin. I can't remember how long it lasted but it was long enough for both jocks to make the required phone calls to management. One of the two Sunday breakfast presenters was just arriving at the studios when the alarm sounded and so instead of brewing up for us all and doing his prep for his show, he got on with the task of rescheduling the music for the two stations.

IRN's initial elongated bulletin ended and it was back to individual studios to continue the process. This should have involved the playing of the National Anthem, but we could only find a copy of it on Sonifex cartridge (with the words 'NATIONAL ANTHEM' affixed to the front with red Dymotape), and the machines that played these wonderful things (I love carts to this day) had long been decommissioned and replaced with the computer playout system. After toying with the idea of playing the Queen version from A Night At The Opera - it was the only recorded version of the anthem that I knew, and it was accessible on vinyl in the record library (and our turntables were still wired up to the desk, albeit rarely used) - we decided against playing it at all and just started the "serious music tape" that had sat on its shelf for months and years waiting, like a fire extinguisher, to be needed.

There was only one such tape in the building. It was, delightfully, a Revox reel tape. This suggested its vintage (although in the late 1990s many presenters still did splice editing of their stuff; I have several boxes of reel tapes in my garage containing all sorts of crap) and after it was placed on to the spools and wound into position, a deep breath was taken and it was fired off as soon as IRN completed their final wrap.

The tape contained suitably mournful, uninterrupted, melancholy tunes for use on air in between 15 minute IRN updates. That there was only one didn't matter on a technical basis, as it just meant that one of us could fade up the other's studio from where the tape was played. This would have been fine, except the tape in question had not been updated since one of the two stations had undergone a complete rebrand and therefore there were jingles of a radio station that no longer existed going out on two differently named stations. Confusing for the listeners and also for those of us responsible for airing it, as serious music tapes had to be brandless. Why those jingles were on it I will never know, but as soon as we heard one after the first two songs (the first song was All I Have To Do Is Dream, that I do recall) we faded it out in a hurry and started handpicking slushy Whitney Houston-esque ballads from the CD racks until our shifts ended at 6am, by which time the rescheduling of the day's music had been completed and new logs printed off.

And that was it, really. The two jocks due for breakfast shifts from 6am had to do their four-hour stints playing back to back wrist-slitters with only occasional pauses for forlorn repeat announcements from IRN. I drove home and went to bed, totally shattered. The adrenaline that hits you as you take on such a sizeable and unexpected burden is immense, making the comedown afterwards all the more jading.

I was less than a year into my professional radio career and had just assumed responsibility for the radio station's reaction to an event unprecedented in UK commercial radio's lifetime. I think, given the problems with the anthem and the serious music tape, not to mention the most unsociable time of day for trying to rouse important people and inform them (and take advice), the two of us on air did a good job. This made the station boss's comment to the staff at a meeting a few days later that it was "unfortunate that our most inexperienced presenter was on the air at the time" seem most unfair, crass and arrogant - until August 31st 1997, no presenter of even John Peel's years of service had ever done a Royal obit! The last Royal death of equal or greater significance, assuming exiled former monarchs with Nazi sympathies didn't count, was that of King George VI in 1952.

It took me ages to get over that comment. I wanted a "well done" and never got one. And believe me, you can rehearse it all you like (and this station evidently didn't or it would have known about the unplayable anthem and the jingle-drizzled tape) but when Royalty dies and you're the person in charge of reacting, there really is no pressure like it.

These days, technology makes the job easier. In 1997, studio computer systems only contained the adverts and the jingles, and presenters still played their songs from CD players. Now the computers have everything, and also are sophisticated enough to be accessed and altered from the engineer or programme director's front room, meaning a couple of clicks of a button are all that's needed in the event of a Royal breathing their last to change the automated, presenterless output into one more respectful.

In truth, that it was a) Diana, and b) an accident, made this Royal obituary even harder to react to, as a sudden death in such circumstances prompts speculation and forces the hand of those responsible for confirming the details. Buckingham Palace and the hospital in Paris had to do so before dawn broke, having had to deal with the frantic requirements of the media for four hours previously. As we discovered when the Queen Mother died four and a half years later, a much more natural, "controllable" and, let's be honest, anticipated passing could be made public at a time convenient to all. There had been rumour all of that Saturday of her death but we weren't told for definite until 5pm and were instructed to carry on with the programming until IRN at 6pm, who would make the announcement. The only thing to alter was the promotion of the post-6pm shows as clearly these were now not going to occur.

I was on air for this too. I was at Millwall FC, presenting the coverage of Stockport County's game there and providing co-commentary. Easter Saturday of 2002, it was. The game had just ended and I was conducting the post-match phone-in when the chap pushing the buttons back at base gave me the news during a commercial break and told me that from 6pm we would go, until further notice, to IRN.

6pm was the football show's scheduled finishing time anyway, which didn't help things for me. I don't think I have made a bigger faux pas in my career than the moment leading up to 6pm when, with the producer counting the seconds down to the top of the hour into my headphones, I ended my spiel in the way I always ended it, with the words "Party Mix next". Five seconds later came the sorrowful voice of the IRN announcer informing the nation of the Queen Mother's expiry and I could have easily died with her right there.

Alan Cooper

I've just received the sad news that my first boss has passed away. Alan co-ran the news agency where I worked between 1993 and 1998 and was already beyond the usual retirement age when I hooked up. I'm guessing he was 83 when he died yesterday afternoon.

He was a fantastic bloke, fully red-bearded which made him identical to Richard Stilgoe, except Alan was a far better wordsmith. He and his business partner Stan were old school hacks, brought up on typewriters, spikes, trench coats, copy via telephone boxes and what looked like 4,000,000 wpm in very complicated Pitman. They had run the agency together since the 1950s.

Alan hired myself and another 20 year old trainee in order to replace a young reporter destined for bigger things (that chap is now chief football writer for the Daily Mirror) and also to allow him to take a little more time away from the office. I can only recall him dashing out on a breaking story once, which was a tragic road crash in Sowerby Bridge which involved a lorry, a BT van and two shops, and resulted in half a dozen deaths. He drove to the scene and returned with a story, loads of quotes and a clear idea of how it should be written. It was done in half an hour and over several front pages the next day.

He wouldn't mind me saying, however, that those of us who knew him in the 1990s and onwards remember best what he was like in the pub rather than in the office. He was phenomenally generous, and always got the first round in irrespective of how many people were in it. He and Stan saw it as a gentlemanly duty to take me and the other newbie for a beer each evening after work, as well as the odd lunchtime and always in the press box bar at Huddersfield Town on a Saturday, because they were aware that our salaries weren't exactly outstanding and so a young boy's ale requirements should not be part of his weekly outgoings. Through this period, we were treated to endless tales about their finest hours and maddest moments as West Yorkshire journalists from the 1950s onwards, and as raconteurs they were hard to match. Both men were so different, as individuals and as a partnership, and yet so similar. They embodied principles and values and kindnesses that I hope rubbed off on everyone who worked with them.

They tried their best with me, but even they couldn't turn a decent writer into someone who had decent news sense, though I still felt I learned more in a fortnight with them than I did in a year on an NCTJ training course ("What do they teach you in these bloody colleges?") and so in 1998 I quit being a journalist for the alleged career I have now. By then both had retired entirely and sold the agency on. For all the enjoyment I got from working with a new boss, it wasn't quite the same as hearing Alan grumble about the accounts or tell a yarn about Frank Worthington or James Pickles while Stan argued with a copytaker or practised his singing.

Stan informed me of this news about half an hour ago, and it's so sad. I've had my share of evil and incompetent bosses over the years, so when one of the Really Good Guys goes, it is all the more poignant. Rest in peace Alan, here's a pint and a whisky chaser. Now tell us again about Lord Kagen's downfall.

Turned to liquid

You may recall that at the back end of last year, I was elated to be offered a job as the breakfast presenter of Pennine FM in Huddersfield.

Today I attended a meeting at the offices of liquidators instructed by the radio station's holding company to detail the assets of the station, which closed down over the Easter weekend.

I had lasted five weeks at the station. After just 24 shows, I was called into the finance director's office and had my contract terminated as, simply, they couldn't afford to pay me. They emailed me later the same week to confirm this. And to this day, they still haven't paid me. Under the terms of my contract, I'm owed one four-figure sum in wages and a larger four-figure sum in severance pay. Since then I have also incurred legal fees and threw in a final £30 in train fares to get to today's meeting, hoping there would be some crumbs to throw back out.

There were none. And, bleakly, it looks like there will always be none. I've been left helpless, jobless and potless.

They dismissed me on February 4th. What else happened on February 4th? Suffice to say, I've enjoyed better days.

I issued a County Court order for my wages, which was ignored. I sent in the Sheriff (different to bailiffs, as the Sheriff is private and therefore has more incentive to come away with money or goods) and that came to nothing. A week after the Sheriff went in and compiled an inventory of all the gear, the radio station closed down thanks partly to transmitter issues and partly to the owners of the property where it was based calling in months of unpaid rent. Landlords or mortgage providers get priority, under the law, when it comes to seizing goods of value to recoup their debt, leaving my little bit of legal action in tatters.

So, once that was over, I waited for my letter from the liquidators and it duly arrived, inviting me to today's meeting. I had no idea - and dared not guess - how many other creditors there were and how much they were owed. Upon arrival at the liquidators' offices this morning, I was handed an agenda and a breakdown of the company figures, and at the back was an alphabetical list of every creditor, including me, and the amounts owed to each.

(They had cut my debt to a tenth of its real worth, but it turns out that was a typing error).

There were 86 creditors. That's 86 people or companies or institutions that are today still owed money by this radio station. The smallest individual sum owed was £2.16; the largest was more than £13,000. And all bar one of the debts larger than mine were to companies. Only one was, like me, owed to an individual in terms of salary for agreed services.

Anyway, the upshot of it all was that despite the best efforts of the few creditors who felt it was a wild goose chase still worth pursuing, the cupboard was and is bare. The problem, nay scandal, is that it seemed to be bare from the beginning. It was bare when they placed the ad to which I responded, it was bare when I started work, it was bare when I was fired and it was bare when - get this - they then placed more ads seeking to hire further sales people.

One of the other creditors who turned up, a fellow presenter who stayed the course until the station closed down, told the liquidators that he was essentially lied to, was down to his last three pounds, had no food in the house and was desperate for at least some of the substantial sum he was owed. He was sad in his demeanour; I was just livid. I felt I had a right to be scathing and vindictive and asked the liquidators to make an individual liable personally for the sums owed, which under the regulations they can do. I submitted, via my legal advice, that the trading had been wrongful and possibly fraudulent as they knew that the company was insolvent when they took over and continued to trade while their bills and debts continued to far outweigh their income and assets.

There is no doubt that they had trouble in persuading clients to pay them due advertising and sponsorship revenue. January was tough because the snow meant the sales staff couldn't get in. But they continued to hire and solicit for staff throughout this period of zero, or negligible, turnover.

When I was dismissed, an email was sent out to the remaining members of staff which informed them I had got a job at another radio station. This was a lie, designed to not induce panic among the remaining few members of the on-air team who, like me, had not seen a bean all year but in some cases unlike me, did not have the alleged security of a signed contract. A friend kindly forwarded me the email and I handed a copy to the liquidator, along with copies of my contract and each of my invoices that were appropriately submitted after each week of work had been completed. The contents of that email suggested cowardice and blind stupidity, as well as incompetence.

Sadly, ethics and morals don't override the law and the bank's debenture (I had to ask what a debenture was, and didn't like the answer very much) and the landlord's priority claim meant that even if the cupboard wasn't quite bare, the chances of receiving even a small percentage of what I am owed is now almost wholly nil. As a creditor who was not on the staff payroll, I am a long way down the list. I and no other creditor can do much about it. It will take a lot for the liquidators to decide anyone is personally liable, and there is a huge burden of proof to uncover before any allegations of fraudulent trading can be levelled at any individual.

It's a grim and frustrating business, all told. It's hard enough to find a job in radio at the moment, let alone find one that gets you all excited and then turns out to be an utter sham. I feel really let down.

"Fartown High School has just gone..."

It's the first time I've ever liked snow.

I'm not a child, and nor do I have any. Therefore I cannot think of a reason why a grown-up should enjoy snow. All it does is cause injury, delays, separation, isolation and hypothermia.

However, the timing of the snow in West Yorkshire couldn't have been better in one sense.

It got people tuning into the radio station where I now work.

Local radio is never more important than when there is a crisis in the area that actively threatens to spoil or change the day that people have planned. Regional and national radio can talk about the main roads - Bobbi Prior's travel bulletins on Radio 2 yesterday were so long the music bed ran out while she spoke - but only a very local station can get specifics, take correspondence from people stuck or suffering and use it, and then change its priorities so that helping people through their day becomes the absolute.

Especially when the schools close.

On yesterday's breakfast show at Pennine FM, only my second, we were bantering away about anything and nothing for the first hour when the snow started to fall. And the sky really was hurling this irritating white stuff down.

Within minutes, emails were arriving about schools that were being closed for the day. The list grew gradually but steadily until we were giving mention to more than 100 schools in Kirklees (that's Huddersfield, Dewsbury and surrounding smaller towns all west of Leeds) that were staying shut for the day.

All other features and formats went out of the window (which we obviously closed again quickly). Every link was offering an update or a recap. People are tuning in all the time, information is always being updated and the job of local radio in this situation is to serve its people as well as possible.

We understood from colleagues who were channel-hopping in the car that our rivals, who had bigger regions to cover, were only mentioning schools every 20 minutes or so. But when a parent wakes up and sees that weather, they need to know now, now, now. They may have childcare to arrange, or a day off work to force through. They might not be able to get through to the school if they ring it. So their next port of call is the local radio station. And they simply can't wait 20 minutes because you have some daft quiz to play.

By 9am yesterday (and today, in fact), I was drained. Not exhausted, but drained. The adrenaline and the spontaneity and the need to deliver concise and correct information constantly really wore into me. It is always live, but it really felt live. And the number of calls we got to our specially set-up Schools Line, and the amount of emails we were sent, and the number of hits we got to our website, where we had published a full, alphabetical list of shut schools, suggests that we got our priorities right. When you need local information right now, the place you should turn to is your local radio station.

And given that I'm on a breakfast show that needs to raise its profile, a potential crisis, live and happening, supplies the best possible and most urgent reason for making people come to you. I'm in no doubt that many of the listeners who tuned in to us over the last two days have not done so in weeks, or months, or possibly even ever before. They may have been Radio 1 types, happy to enjoy Chris Moyles and his articulate rambles because their journey to work and their nine year old's journey to school was not threatened. But on this occasion, they knew that Chris had to be sacrificed.

The forecast suggests we may be talking snow and schools and roads tomorrow and Friday too. That's fine by me. One hopes that we do a good enough job to prompt them all to stick around with us long after the snow has melted and sanity has returned.

Local radio is being much maligned right now. The group that owns all the Heart stations (many of which were rebranded as Heart when they were bought a couple of years ago, after years with a familiar local name) has talked openly of maybe being permitted one day to make its London breakfast programme the morning show on every Heart station, thereby removing the localness from everything each station does at breakfast time. How they could ever maintain their credibility on snowy days I would never know. What I do know is that whitened days like those most of us are having proves just how important, and special, and helpful, real local radio is.

So, while offering all my sympathy if this weather has ruined your week in some way, I rather like snow this week. It won't last, promise. Especially if I'm out in it rather than seated in a warm studio, reporting on it.

"The snow is causing chaos in Brockholes this morning..."

When a sage as distinguished as Five Centres makes a demand, you have to take it on board. He claims, within the responses to the previous post, that he wants a report on how the first show went.

Well, it went fine. I enjoyed it. It's for others to say whether it was any good, and the odd technical mini-trauma aside it was as good as one can expect on a new show, new format and in new surroundings. Plus this was the relaunch of the whole station so there was extra need to make it reasonably listenable.

Charles Nove, frequent companion on our Nerd Nights and Deputy Voice of the Balls, is the voice of my production package and the stuff he has given us is fantastic. I rather hope a smart programmer is reading this and realises that the great Lord Nove seeketh work after the Wogan show came to its conclusion last month.

We're keeping it simple and fun, geting local schoolkids involved each day and running a twice-daily music-based competition for cash. It'll take a few months of marketing and promotion before the fruits of our labour begin to show in the ratings but, like Lennie Godber after his history exam, I will admit to feeling quietly confident. And that's an achievement, given that I don't do anything quietly.

If you have any urges, you can quell them here each morning at 6am.