Grace
Hello my name is Grace and at the time of writing I am 47 years old. I joined Merseyland Alternative Radio 6 years ago. I was sat in a burger place in Lime Street feeling sorry for myself and my love life, and I looked out of the window. I saw this attractive lady on her patio drinking Lambrini with a radio on, she was shouting at someone called Rodger, telling him to tidy up his studio because it was a tip.
I was intrigued by this and I didn’t know what was going on. Later I found out her name was Helen Highwaters and in the course of time we became good friends. She took me under her wing and over time I told her all about my disastrous love life.
Helen gave me some great advice night after night on her patio, as we both shared Lambrini and put the world to rights.
Then one day she said she would show me around the studios, and meet the MAR DJs, she said to me “I will take you to meet Rodger, my other half, in studio 2”. I helped her to take coffee and bourbon creams to Rodger, and I met him and his cat, who kept warm on the mixing desk. Rodger was playing at the time two of my favourite songs, ‘The Sugababes’ with ‘Stronger’ and ‘Dollar’ with ‘Loves Got A Hold Of Me’.
I was in love as soon as I met Rodger in that warm studio of his, but I had to realise he was ‘taken’. Then Helen said she would get Rodger to teach me how to be a presenter, how to play records and use a mixing desk. Soon I was so hooked by the music and the staff at MAR, except for Dreary Deirdre on the MAR reception desk, and getting emails from lovely people such as Ruth and Gary in Blackpool, and meeting other sexy DJ’s such as John Freeman, I was being inspired by the wonderful Barbara in America and the equally wonderful Helen Highwaters in studio 1.
One day I even got to meet the lovely Bert, who sadly is no longer with us.
Bert was always there to make sure things were running nicely, and to make sure no one was falling out with each other. He told me to stop ogling at the engineer who had come to fix the wiring in the studios, wearing his tight ripped jeans, muscle top and his yellow safety hat, it was all just too much for me.
Within a year or less I was doing my own show at peak time on a Sunday (mainly) 2pm to 4pm, and it was a wonderful experience! I could not stop listening to MAR all weekend and also the repeats during the week. For 3 years I got more and more confident, but I then started to fail somewhat as I was mixing that lovely radio hobby with the challenge of trying to meet Mr. Right. Sadly that was just not happening. Helen advised ‘that it’s not happening Grace because they are all married and it always ends in tears’. How right she was.
So now I live on my own at home, I’m still waiting for Rodger to come and fix all the holes in my fence so that I can get some peace, but Rodger is too busy bless him, trying to keep the radio station going. I hope to come back to MAR one day when I am settled and have found Mr. Right, the trouble is that they are all ‘taken’, or at least that’s how it feels.
I have to say, MAR has been one of the best experiences of my life, the music, the learning, and the lovely people.
Well, I say best experience, perhaps the 2nd best experience next to my time on Otterspool prom, eating chips and curry sauce with this hunk of a man till his wife found out by parking next to us an hour later.
Love Grace.