News and Reviews - My Experience On The BBC Radio Show

A few weeks ago before Christmas you might remember that I was invited onto BBC Wales Radio -Good Morning Wales breakfast radio show, where I spoke about diabetes and the availability of insulin pumps for children. It was a great experience and thankfully the BBC seemed to think so too, as a few days later I was fortunate enough to get a phone call inviting me back to become a newspaper reviewer. Today was my first show and it was one of the most exhilarating and nerve wracking experiences I've had in a long time!

The day started quite early at 6am to be up and get ready, it always makes me chuckle how much time I spend on choosing an outfit when I know I'm going on the radio. Because of course the first thought is no one can see you on the radio! But times have moved on since the times of what used to be almost faceless broadcasting because modern studios now also have a live webcam. Where listeners can also view who is being interviewed in the studio through a live stream on the internet. In the end I went for a comfortable outfit as there's nothing like feeling at home when your in a nervous situation.

Just before 7am I started making my way to the BBC studio located quite close to my house, with the winter darkness it felt even earlier than it was. But already the BBC was a busy hustle and bustle of people with the Christmas decorations being changed out for huge darlek's and Dr Who themed posters. I was going to be featuring on the BBC Radio Wales- Good Morning Wales show, a live program presented by Peter Johnson and doing the newspaper review. So before I could join him live on air I had to scour the morning newspapers to find which stories I thought would be most appealing to listener's and that I knew something about.

There was a massive range of newspapers to choose from so I tried to choose some varied stories. I'd been following the news all week for research and personal interest and was hoping to find a story about fashion maybe diabetes or perhaps sport. The first paper I picked up featured diabetes as its front page story- a feature about key figures in the NHS wanting to transfer care of chronic illnesses from the hospital to GP surgeries. The epidemic was being described as global warming for hospitals as 70% of NHS England budget was being spent on it. The second story was about a big high street retailer exceeding their Christmas sales targets. The third about the rise in Welsh university applications for 2014 and finally I chose a comical one about a lady who had become the most prevalent reviewer on the website Tripadvisor by posting 10,000 reviews about Disneyland.

All of the stories were selected to discuss on air and were intermingled with the sports news from a reporter in Swansea. Fortunately we were using the same studio as I'd been in before, which made me feel a lot more relaxed. Plus I knew where the all important 'Mic Live' light was so I wasn't caught out chatting whilst the microphone was on. Peter the interviewer was lovely and the review was just like talking a to a friend about the news with other people listening. And as a result was a wonderful experience. My segment was followed by a feature on new years resolutions people make, many of which had been made and some related to motoring. But after the guest who was speaking on this topic came out, he came up to me outside the studio and said that he was a person with Type 2 diabetes! And that he could completely relate to what I was saying about diabetes care. There's nothing like sharing an experience with other people with diabetes whether its in the studio or live on air!