story so far…

At twelve my ambition was to become a radio presenter, but my teachers said it would never happen; “find another career” was their advice. At fourteen (1998) I approached a community radio station and offered to make the tea, instead the guys at Link Radio showed me the way radio works, taught me how to produce and present a radio show and how to keep a radio station on the air even with only a small amount of charitable funding.

In October 2001 I approached Alison Hartley and Simon Baldock at BBC Essex; they invited me in to sit in on the Drivetime programme, and subsequently invited me back the following week to help out on the show.

After many trips to Chelmsford on the hour long bus ride I got my first paid shift, I was the BBC Essex Drivetime programme broadcast assistant.

Over this time I was also studying media at South East Essex College, but for some reason the college weren’t happy that a student wanted to leave a film class early (something which didn’t interest me) to go and work at the BBC, only they will know why…

In November 2001 I sent a rough demo off to David Hoffman at Classic Gold Breeze, with, looking back, a rather cheeky letter. After receiving an invite, I made my way to the studios in Southend, and following a chat with David I was offered a weekly coaching session. I was finally in the realms of a commercial radio station which was where I wanted to be.

There I got talking to many of the presenters at Essex FM which was in the same building, those presenters had for many years been my idols and I was working in the opposite studio, wow. After a year of training David offered me two weeks on air, this was the overnight shift on a rather crackly AM signal over Christmas 2002.

At 3 o’clock in the morning I met Lucy Irving who was doing early breakfast on Essex FM, me an eighteen-year-old eager to impress and Lucy who had been doing early breakfast for some time and looked shattered. We chatted and I found out she was getting a bit tired of the show and wanted to quit. The following day she told me she had quit, I went home with one thought on my mind… I want to do the Essex FM early breakfast show!

I had got to know James Bassam really well by this stage, he was one of the longest standing presenters on the station so I asked him if he could spare a few moments as I would like to go for the early breakfast job and needed a demo. We spent about an hour recording some bits and putting them on CD. The following day he took my hashed up demo to the boss and the rest is pretty much history.

I’m still working at Essex FM on the weekend overnights and loving it, I’ve had some great opportunities come up like covering big daytime shows like drive and mid mornings, and Essex FM opened several doors; one of those was Ten 17 FM in Harlow where I did the Sunday breakfast show for some time.

Throughout my career I have continued to work in the clubs and on the road with my mobile disco, I have worked in some impressive venues such as the Hilton hotels and Madame Tussauds, and continue to add some of the top London and Essex venues to my list.