9 hours Ago By Aimee Meade
I get a WhatsApp telling me that his first track – Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like The Wolf” – is cued up and the microphone levels have been checked for what feels like the 100th time.The on-air DJ is finishing up their show and saying the name of the next presenter. It’s real, my heart is beating faster than “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees and I’m feeling just a bit emotional.
The reason? That next presenter on Radio Wey – a radio station based at Ashford & St Peter’s Hospital in Chertsey and run entirely by volunteers for the joy of the staff and patients – is my 18-year-old son Joe and he’s already messaged our family WhatsApp group to say his hands are “literally shaking”.if(window.adverts) { window.
adverts.addToArray({"pos": "inread-hb-ros-inews"}); }He underwent a few months of training before the station bosses decided he had earnt the right to host his own programme, The Joe Show, in the coveted Tuesday evening, 5-7pm, slot. This was his first ever live show.
I was chuffed on two counts. First, that he’d done all this by himself: contacted the station, offered his services, completed all the training and then devised his own features and ideas.But the other reason was that he’s grown up in a radio family and was now taking his own first tentative steps into a world I know well – and love.
Not only has Joe lived in a house with a radio in virtually every room since he was born, but he’s inherited a love of music and goes to gigs and festivals regularly too.Now, he’s a long way from being the next Jordan North or Vernon Kay and there’s nothing to say that Joe will want to forge his whole career behind the mic – he is only 18 after all – but it’s interesting just how much your kids take from your own experiences, good and bad.if(window.
adverts) { window.adverts.addToArray({"pos": "mpu_mobile_l1"}); }if(window.
adverts) { window.adverts.addToArray({"pos": "mpu_tablet_l1"}); }Did my parents influence my “calling”? I was trying to work out where my own love of the medium came from and can only point to my mum’s impressive amateur dramatic performances at Bolton Little Theatre back in the day.
But we weren’t by any stretch of the imagination a “media family”. I just loved the immediacy and excitement of radio and, as you may have gathered, I like telling people’s stories.My husband isn’t from a media family, either.
His dad spent his whole life grafting in an east London factory and that was enough to make him realise that, in that regard, he didn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps.Growing up in Billericay, he wanted to be a journalist but radio only opened up to him when he heard commercial stations like Capital and LBC. There, reading and reporting on the news, were people with actual regional accents (very unlike the BBC in those days which only seemed to have one region.
.. posh).
#color-context-related-article-3409882 {--inews-color-primary: #3759B7;--inews-color-secondary: #EFF2FA;--inews-color-tertiary: #3759B7;} Read Next square VICTORIA DERBYSHIRE The early radio shift gets women in the end, I know too wellRead MoreAt least neither of us have ever been asked if our careers have been helped by having influential parents or family connections – the curse of the so-called “nepo baby” – but I suppose if either of my boys do decide to go into broadcasting, they might be treated differently.There is nothing I can do about that, and it will be down to them to work hard and prove themselves.Phoenix Chi is a DJ and TV presenter and is also the daughter of Spice Girl Mel B.
She took on the nepotism issue in a Channel 4 documentary recently and says that “everyone needs to prove themselves – when you’re in the limelight you just have to do it times two”.I am in no way comparing myself to a Spice Girl – despite knowing all the words to most of their hits – but this issue comes up a lot in the media and we can all name famous broadcasting family dynasties who will always be accused of having an “easier” route in.if(window.
adverts) { window.adverts.addToArray({"pos": "mpu_mobile_l2"}); }if(window.
adverts) { window.adverts.addToArray({"pos": "mpu_tablet_l2"}); }I also wonder if the same sniping happens in other industries where passing the business down through generations is often considered a sign of stability and trustworthiness.
So I’m proud of Joe for wanting to try working in radio because I guess he must have gained a positive impression of it from not just his parents but many of our friends too.And I can assure you that Radio Wey didn’t take him on because of me. And he’s not about to present Newsnight either – at least not until he’s finished his A-levels.
Victoria Derbyshire is a journalist, broadcaster and host of BBC Newsnight and Ukrainecast.
