Archives for April 2011

If it goes wrong, they'll blame me.

That's the thought that keeps spinning around my head a couple of days from the Royal Wedding. Not Kate and William, you understand, or the millions of people who will be watching and listening to their impending nuptials, but the dozens involved in 5 live's coverage of the event, all of whom I've been trying to wrestle into some semblance of order over the past three months so that 15 and a half hours of live radio passes off without a hitch.

It all began back in the mists of what now seems a distant February. I took over the wedding planning baton from a colleague who had departed for pastures new, and it now seems, far less likely to be strewn with royal confetti.

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As Imogen mentioned before the weekend, yesterday we decided to rewind three decades to the year of the last Royal Wedding - 1981.

On Breakfast, Angela Rippon read the news, Dickie Davies did the sport, Maggie Philbin brought us traffic bulletins, and Michael Fish gave the weather forecast:

Victoria's regular music review featured Shakin' Stevens and the Original Bucks Fizz:

Richard was joined by 80s Blue Peter presenter Peter Duncan, Paul Daniels and Rolf Harris:

Related links

5 live Best Bits

The BBC Royal Wedding podcast

On Tuesday, 5 live will be going back in time. To 1981.

In 1981, the UK was in recession, there were riots across many major cities in England, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy debuted on BBC Two and Charles and Diana got married.

So as we build up to Friday's celebrations - 5 live will take a look back three decades at what was going on the last time the country had a big Royal Wedding to look forward to.

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Yorkshire - Nick Garnett

I'm Nick Garnett, 5 live's Yorkshire reporter. It's a huge patch - and, in my opinion, the best in the country. I tend to have what's known as a Ridings Perspective on things: North, West and East and South Yorkshire: they're mine, all mine!

Although I'm originally from Liverpool I moved here when I was 18 and have never really been away. Of course, I'll never really be accepted as being "from round 'ere" but all three of my children were born here so that gives me some right, doesn't it?

Tell us a bit about your patch

Not many reporters can say that all their favourite places are where they work - although I often wish the Lake District could just edge itself a little bit South West but apart from that, I've got everything I could ever want here. Bradford, for instance - not just a brilliant, vibrant city centre but, within its boundaries, the setting for Wuthering Heights. Haworth and its cobbled main street is absolutely typical Yorkshire. There are tea shops, crochet squares galore, a steam railway and the Bronte family - famous, initially, for writing lots of books and then, switching careers and making a wide range of locally baked biscuits and fancy confectionery. Now that's what I call diversity.

Hull reminds me of Liverpool - same big issues, same sense of humour really. I love working in Sheffield and Leeds - both hugely important cities. And, when it's payday, I'll often nip up to York and Harrogate to have a cup of coffee in Betty's Tea Rooms. If you've ever been there you'll understand why I can only do it just after payday!

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I've spent the last week trying to speak to people on 5 live that we don't get on the radio very often. With the elections to the devolved administrations in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales coming up in less than three weeks now, I thought I would look into what people make of devolution when they live just about as far away from their national capital as it is possible to get, and still be in the country.

Earlier in the week, I reported from the Shetland Islands and from Rathlin Island, the only inhabited island off Northern Ireland. Now it's Wales's turn - and I am on Anglesey.

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The East Midlands - Sarah Sturdey

I'm Sarah Sturdey and cover the East Midlands for 5 live. Over the past 20 years I've lived in Derby, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, though originally I come from the 'other' side in the West Midlands. My patch takes in Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire. From Worksop in the North to Market Harborough in the South. From Ashbourne in the West to Skegness in the East.

Tell us a bit about your patch.

It's a diverse patch with provincial cities offering a broad mix of industries. Rolls Royce aero engines, Toyota car manufacturing, Experian, Capital One to name but a few. Areas in former coal mining communities and textile industries have been regenerated and new companies attracted but there are still social issues attached to those communities that previously relied on one industry.

The great thing about the region is the proximity to some beautiful countryside, from the Derbyshire Dales to Rutland. Nottingham Forest, Leicester City, Derby County and Leicester Tigers grab local sporting headlines but there's a lot more besides, including Loughborough University and the elite athletes it produces. Not to mention Rebecca Adlington, the double-Olympic swimming gold medallist from Mansfield.

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I'm Paul Greer. I was present at the birth of 5 live an amazing is 17 years ago. I live in Southampton and work out of the BBC South newsroom. My car has over 125,000 miles on the clock. I have four kids who are all determined not to be journalists.

Sometimes when the News Channel has run out of lookers they put me on the TV. I love this job, not because it's the best one I've ever had but because it's so straightforward. Go out there, find the most interesting tale from the south of England, convince someone a lot sharper than you that it is worth doing and tell it.

Which area/s do you cover?

My patch is indecently huge. My record is the call asking me to leave Hastings and head to Weston Super-Mare. That was a long day, and like Bruce Willis as he crawled through the air-conditioning unit in Die Hard I muttered and replayed the phone call to myself the whole drive.

East and West Sussex, Berkshire, Surrey, Hants, Wilts, Dorset, Somerset and the Isle of Wight all fall to me. Sometimes I go as far as Oxford. Mark Hutchings and I share Bristol but I try to leave Kent to the reporters based in London.

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I am spending the week island hopping. With elections just weeks away in the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland and Welsh Assemblies, what does devolution mean to people who feel detached from Edinburgh, Belfast and Cardiff?

On Monday I was in the Shetland Islands, today I am on Rathlin Island off the coast of Northern Ireland.

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The South West - Sarah Ransome

I'm Plymouth-based 5 live reporter Sarah Ransome. I was born in Dorset but gradually moved West after spending time in the North and abroad. I'm a former teacher of English to foreign students, former regional TV and local radio reporter, news editor and I occasionally help out with training at the BBC's College of Journalism.

I have a teenage son and daughter who do their best to ignore their embarrassing mother all the time - except when they need a lift somewhere. I regularly swing a racquet about on tennis courts, sometimes I even hit the ball. I run through the Devon lanes culminating in the odd half marathon here and there...mainly there.

Which area/s do you cover?

I cover pretty much everywhere in a large arc west of Taunton - sometimes I go as far as Bristol and occasionally I'm allowed off the mainland and head to the Channel Islands and the Isles of Scilly. It can take three or four hours to go from top to bottom.

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The North East of England - Anna Foster

I'm Anna Foster, 5 live's RJ in the North East of England. I was born and bred by the sea in South Shields, and now I live on Teesside with my husband John, who's a BBC local radio presenter.

Which area/s do you cover? All the ones you'd expect. Right from the top of Northumberland down to the North Yorkshire border, where I hand things over to my colleague Nick Garnett. Interestingly though, my patch takes in Cumbria too - which of course isn't in the North East at all. However, geographically I'm best placed to get across there when there's a breaking story. Once that's added I take in quite a decent swathe of the country, right from the east coast to the west.

Tell us a bit about your patch?

I love my patch, it's got everything - huge rural open spaces, miles of coastline, buzzing cities and so many iconic landmarks. There's an interesting spread of employment here, from the memories of the old industries like coal mining and shipbuilding to the new things that emerged after their decline, like call centres and public sector jobs. We have problems here too, mainly with unemployment and health. But alongside that there's a real spirit and a pride in the area that never goes away.

Biggest story/scoop you've had in your patch?

Last summer was an incredibly busy time for me. In early June I covered the tragic shootings in West Cumbria, an event that shook the community to its core. Just a month later, Raoul Moat shot three people and went on the run for a week across the North East, sparking one of the biggest manhunts in British history.

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A square in the town of Lerwick

As the devolved election campaigns kick off, I will be travelling to some of the country's most islolated communities to explore their experience of devolution. I'll be visiting some of the islands off the coast of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all this week to get a sense of what people are talking about there.

My first stop is here in the Shetland Islands. But what does the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh mean to people in Lerwick 350 miles away? It's a 12-and-a half-hour overnight ferry crossing to Aberdeen and Bergen in Norway is just as close.

So what are the issues here? You can tune into 5 live Drive and Up All Night to find out. I'll also be posting some photos of my travels on the 5 live blog. Plus, you can also follow my trip on Twitter: @chrismasonbbc

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The West Midlands - Phil Mackie

I'm Phil Mackie, and I've worked for 5 live since 1998. Initially I covered the West of England based in Bristol, but since 2004 I have reported from the West Midlands based in Birmingham.

Sometimes I pop up on our sister networks, BBC Radios 1, 2 and 4, and have been known to grace the nation's TV screens, though usually as a last resort, when no one else is around.

Which area/s do you cover?

The West Midlands patch includes Staffordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire - plus the West Midlands conurbation which includes Birmingham and the Black Country and stretches from Telford to Coventry. Because I'm the nearest reporter I have also appeared in mid-Wales, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Swindon and Bristol.

I've also reported from 17 countries around the world - including the United States, Pakistan and France.

Tell us a bit about your patch

There are parts of Herefordshire and Shropshire that are utterly idyllic, picture-postcard rural England. Then there's the Black Country which is still the home of manufacturing, as well as the home of best beer in the country.

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Our editors constantly remind us that for most 5 live listeners, the economy is still THE big story and is probably the top priority in our news coverage. The texts, emails etc you send bear this out.

To add to the impact people have already felt, the new financial year will bring significant cuts to services, as councils deal with big reductions in their budgets. Whatever your opinion of the timing and necessity of the cuts, you'll find that a lot of things you take for granted, whether or not you use them, might not exist any more.

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Referees, respect and Rooney - you'd have done well to have heard one of my sports bulletins over the past month without any of these being mentioned. As I drove to Hertfordshire to accept a Football Association invitation to be a referee for the day, I found myself asking two questions: Do referees deserve their rough ride? How hard can the job actually be?

I'd be welcomed by FA bosses, given a theory test on the laws of the game, and then actually referee an academy game. So not only might I find that I don't fully understand all of football's rules, but I could also be facing the prospect of being verbally abused on the pitch by the county's top teenage footballers. Why would I agree to that? I quite like a challenge, so I decided to give it a go.

Arriving unshaven in a pathetic bid to look intimidating, I am greeted by my guide Roger Vaughan, a national referee manager and a thoroughly good bloke. This is a relief, having had visions of boot-camp tutoring by Pierluigi Collina's more intimidating older brother.

Roger and his colleagues, including 2002 World Cup final assistant Phil Sharp, outline some of the pressures officials are under. Phil tells me that he could make a dubious offside call early in a game that leads to or denies a goal and regardless of the remainder of his performance, he knows he can only be marked 59/100 by his assessors.

Go to the 5 live Sport blog to continue reading this post.

Watch the video of George's first attempt at refereeing.

What do you get if you cross live radio with theatre, live comedy with sports, and throw in some sketches for online? At the end of the day... you get the chance to laugh a lot. I run a production company and have been making radio drama and comedy for the BBC for five years, but usually with Radio 4 or Radio 3.

On Friday night, as part of 5 live Sport's Kicking Off with Colin Murray special in Liverpool you'll have the chance to hear a unique sports-based comedy we've produced performed live in front of 5 live listeners.

At The End of the Day is writer and director James Quinn's satire of sports broadcasting. It originally premiered at JB Shorts, a showcase for short plays in Manchester, and we then filmed another performance before FC United's end-of-season game against Bradford (Park Avenue) back in April 2009. It's that recording which we used to help 'sell' the show to 5 live so FCUM fans are rightly claiming a little credit. As should the ensemble cast John Henshaw, Liam Tims, Verity Henry, Peter Slater and Chris Hannon - as well as a few more waiting in the wings!

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Afternoon,

From next week, we'll be putting a series of posts from 5 live's Regional Journalists (RJ). The aim is that you get to know them and the areas they cover a little better.

The RJ's are key to 5 live's news coverage.

With the bulk of our programme teams in London (soon to be Salford), the RJs are our eyes and ears in the rest of the country. They tell us what's going on where they are and what we should be doing about it. As well as reporting on news stories, they also fix guests, build contacts, and work with programme teams to get the best stories from around the UK onto 5 live. They're the experts on their patches: if you're wondering what employment's like in Shropshire, what people in Middlesbrough think about AV, or what everyone's talking about in Aberdeen, then they know the answer.

I've asked them a series of set questions and some optional ones as well - which will hopefully give some professional (and personal) insights into the job they do, the stories they cover and the area they live in.

The series will start on Monday.