Radio days

I was early. I had made a point of being early.
Because I wasn't sure what to expect, this was ALL new territory for me!

I walked in to the reception at Radio Derby and was greeted by a smiling black girl - hardly surprising since this was the "African Caribbean Experience" show that I was going to appear on.  She showed me through to a glass fronted office and a black guy looked up "Are you G-Man?" I asked and he replied "How did you guess?" as we shook hands. He montioned me to a seat as he carried on checking his emails and chatting with another guy there, discussing recent sports events and asking for opinions and offering his own. I watched him with interest and asked how long he'd been doing the show? "Not long, twenty five years" he said, and I grinned at his joke. He made his preparations, then kindly took me around the empty building to show me where the offices, news desk, sports desk and the other, empty, studio were, explaining that it was similar to the one he used and showing me the various controls so that I had a basic understanding of his working environment. All very interesting and novel, to me! But then, people are invariably fascinated in my work as an artist, since it's so different to theirs, and other people's work places are always a place of wonder and intrigue and mystery.

We went back to the reception area, and more people were gathered there, I hadn't got a clue why, or who they were or what their purpose was. Was it normal to have that many people there? Were they part of the show? The clock on the wall showed it was two minutes before the show was due to start, the other black presenter signed off, and G-Man replaced him in the presenters seat, as we all filed in. There were a few more than the four he said he was allowed - infact, I counted EIGHTEEN!

He indicated that I should sit opposite him, as he knew I was new to this and wasn't quite sure what to expect, since nothing had been explained, it was all so very laid back and relaxed. Probably, a good thing for my debut show!

He played some music, the guy next to me was texting, someone else was reading a paper, the blonde girl on the other side of me was from the local visual arts place with loads of information of forthcoming events, the  guy next to me made the odd comment throughout the show to G-Man. When the red light came on, it was live, and it was obvious to anyone listening that there were a lot of people in the room, but their voices were silent. Weird. G-Man had said that his show was unlike any other, and I could see why!

He passed around the sweets I'd taken, as he rang a musician in America and chatted to him about his music and his latest album and played a couple of tracks from it. Then it was the turn of the blonde girl next to me to tell of the forthcoming art events in Derby. G-Man played another track then whilst he played it, he said it was my turn next. Ok.............

We chatted, and he asked me about the exhibition I'd got on at the Burton library, the times, what sort of art I did, I'd taken some artwork with me to show him, and there were gasps of "That's good!" from the collective group, as they looked at them and he made comments and asked a bit about me and my art.  Then my four minutes was up, and as he played more music. I had to move to stand at the side of the room whilst someone else replaced me to talk.  Eight mintues later and the show had finished.

But my art had created a buzz - the texting guy was intrigued with the bright colours of the "living flame" picture, and asked me if it was the chakras I had depicted within the picture, I explained about the life-force being shown, and he really related to it. And the smiling girl who'd greeted me in the first place came over to say hello and say how much she'd liked my art, she was G-Man's daughter I realised as I started to sort out who was who in that room.

I went over to say thanks to G-Man and we hugged as I kissed him on the cheek and he said "You know where I am now, and you've got my number if you want to come again!" I thanked him, he said he was going to look at my exhibition tomorrow, and we exchanged business cards as I picked up my stuff and headed out onto the street. And it was only a few seconds later that I wondered who ALL those people in that studio WERE - since only six of us had spoken!!!!