From King Street to Darwen Street

Cub 2 desk

Michael Chapman was the Station Manager at BBC Radio Lancashire, and his gift to the station was the new building on Darwen Street, right opposite the cathedral. This meant new kit, as the Mk II desk was long obsolete. So a team from Radio Training came up to show us how the new Mk III studios worked.

As a Mk II station there'd been a lot of need for technical support, and for freelance PAs like myself there was a nice little trade in shifts. The Mk III philosophy meant more self-opping and less work for the likes of me. A rota for the training was drawn up with presenters and staff getting hours of one-on-one support and the opportunity to do pilots in the new studios. There was nothing for the freelance brigade.

I was studying for my A levels at the time, and if I wasn't at college I was at the radio station, and so an opportunity arose to get some time with an instructor. It was an offer to have a couple of hours if I could get to the new building straight away. It was only about ten minutes walk, so off I went. I loved it.

At King Street the desks had been mono, but the new studios were stereo. All of the jingles and trailers from the old station were on mono carts, which had a track layout incompatible with the stereo cart machines we had at Darwen Street. Someone had to re-cart the entire jingle package - once for each of the three cubicles - guess who got to do a lot of that? Carting stuff up was actually pretty dull, but it meant I got to occupy one of the new cubicles for hours at a stretch; and be seen by the team doing something useful. And doing it well - no wowed starts and no 8 second jingles on 70 seconds carts.