It's been a busy few weeks on the Breakfast Show and, to be honest, I'm still recovering from the Strictly Chums Dancing event for Children In Need.  | | Andy and Aleena practise |
I say recovering because it's still somewhat annoying to have spent so many hours learning our dance and then go and forget some of the steps when the pressure was on! I'm planning to keep dancing though and my other half and I might well start going regularly, although she's into all this Latin flinging-the-other-person-around stuff! The main thing is the amount that was raised for Children In Need across the East Midlands by the event - almost £10,000 - and the biggest chuck of donations came from Derbyshire & East Staffordshire, so thanks for that! There are some exclusive pictures of what happened in the rehearsal room and at the big event in the attached photo gallery (use the link below or to the right). The Derbyshire Flag is still on the agenda too.  | | The Derbyshire Flag flies at Cape Cod |
We've been adding lots more photos to the gallery of places flying it and I'm still getting suggestions from people on where it should be flown. Quite a few of the flags now flying are doing so because I got in contact with the people who own them after they were suggested by listeners, so keep 'em coming! Some people who have flags are starting to take them on holiday too - see the pic of the Willis Family at Cape Cod! We've also had some heated discussion on the show in recent days on various issues including the name of the Eagle Centre in Derby, gangs, delayed trains from London and whether or not the fans booed the team at the Rams v Ipswich game.  | | Andy gets to know Honey! |
One other highlight - the day Honey the rescue dog came to see me. She was gorgeous, even if she left dog hairs all over me! At the time of writing, she still doesn't have a home either, so if you can help, contact the Second Chance Rescue Centre in Derby on 07878 136153. Have you entered my Christmas hamper competition yet? If not, don't forget the closing date is Friday, 15th December. There's a link on this newsletter you can use if you want to enter by email. For those who like their extra portions... Did you know?...Up to 1st of December 2006, I had completed 2,959.5 Breakfast Shows! The half is from when I had to leave part way through as my son was being born! Listen AgainDid you know that if you miss any of my Breakfast Shows you can listen to them again for up to a week after they are broadcast? That's great news because it means that if you miss something that really interests you you can always go back and catch up! All you have to do is use the "Listen Again" button on the right of this page and then look for the programme in the list that appears. Early mornings with... Breakfast Show newsreader Colin BloomfieldThey say in television, walking and talking is one of the more tricky aspects of the job. So, you might have thought SITTING and talking for a news bulletin on the radio would be a doddle. Well, actually it would be - if it wasn't for the bleary, sleep-filled eyes caused by a daily 04:40 alarm call, that I'm told by Andy Whittaker does get easier with time.  | | Colin in the news studio |
It usually takes a lot of coffee, a few gawps at a Shrewsbury Town website (don't ask!) and something a bit funky from my MP3 player to get me going for the day. Hopefully by the time my first bulletin at 06:00 arrives, I'm ready to string sentences together which just about resemble English. I'm usually left around four or five local stories by the late team from the night before, and then it's my job to make regular calls to police, fire and ambulance first thing to see if there were any major incidents over night. Between 7 and 9, I try to re-write most stories for each bulletin, giving them a slightly fresher feel, and then take short clips from interviews on the Breakfast show. It's a real head-down, intense, get-on-with-it couple of hours - but enjoyable. I suppose the worst parts of the job would be the early starts. The best? Well, that would have to be Colin Gibson's tea! Every morning, without fail, there's a cuppa on the desk, and without a shadow of a doubt he is the best tea-maker at Radio Derby. I WOULD say it was Andy Whittaker – but then he tells me he's got no idea how to work the kettle. A likely story! Just to prove no two days are the same... 23/11/06 - Helen LedwickUsually, I come into work with no idea of what's coming. This morning it was slightly different, I'd been warned to bring my tool kit. That was because my task was to go and help a Derby woman, Phylis, to put up her flat-pack tv stand! Not a normal morning's work, I have to say.  | | Helen Ledwick |
It followed a University of Derby survey about the stresses of putting up furniture. So off I went. Shane was standing in for Andy and goading me on air all morning: "Can you believe they sent a woman?!" Well, Phylis and I proved him wrong. After making me a cup of tea, which is much appreciated on a cold winter morning, we had a quick on-air chat with Shane, then put up the table in 25 minutes flat. Pretty good work if I do say so myself, and fun to make Shane eat his words! 24/11/06 - Helen LedwickThis morning I came in to find out I was heading for Carsington Water - this is good news because, as you may know, it's a beautiful place, especially as the sun comes up! Off I went, with no rushing about because for once I knew where I was going and I wasn't due on air until after 08:00. I arrived and met up with head ranger Ben Young, then parked up by a pond where he's having some success reversing the decline of water voles. Then, of course, it started spitting and as we stood on a boardwalk you could hear the rain bouncing off the BBC Radio Derby umbrella. Things went more or less to plan until I came to leave, and had to reverse the car (which has virtually no rear visibility) back up a muddy trail. I managed to leave the fence in one piece and a few wheel spins later I was off to my next job, hoping no-one would notice the tyre tracks in the grass… 30/11/06 - Kelly SmithWalked into work bang on 06:30. My first piece on air was at 07:05 in Mickleover reporting on the Silverhill asbestos court case. You'd think city centre to Mickleover in half an hour, no worries. Well in theory, yeah, but you have to unplug the radio car, get it out the garage, re-lock the garage door as well as change the seat position and the mirror (a very important consideration as I'm one of Radio Derby's smallest members of staff - it's always set too far back). After performing this daily ritual you're then ready to go. On arriving on site you then have to rig the car, get the mast up and check everything's working. At this time of year it's still pitch black just after seven so I perched my notes for my chat with Andy on the floor of the car where the light is. I didn't take account of the wind though and half way through my piece on air all my scripts blew away - a quick silent scramble in the dark rectified the problem and, after a tiny second wobble, I was back in business. The rest of the morning was spent at a traffic island in Derby reporting on the chaos a new lights system had wrought in the area. The city's people were that fed up with the grid lock that on my way back to the office a disgruntled commuter got out of his car in stationary traffic and tapped on my window to tell me how fed up he was and that BBC Radio Derby ought to be reporting it. He was pleased to know we already had been! This is BNCS  | | BNCS |
Don't ask me what it stands for, because I haven't the foggiest idea. What I can tell you is that this allows me to choose all kinds of things to broadcast. There are six sources of audio I can have selected at any one time. So most of the time, I have the travel news, the weather presenter, two or three phone lines and the radio car. By touching this screen I can change any of those selections and talk to people like our weather girl Nicola before they go on the air. I also use this screen to select the news studio when we go to news bulletins - you can see a picture of Colin Bloomfield in this studio in the "What's My Job?" feature. Next time:Some more exclusive material - exclusive to YOU as a subscriber to my newsletter: - We meet another member of the Breakfast Show team
- More exclusive photos
- And much more...
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