Return To Radio Clyde
Thirteen years ago I was sent packing from . Literally. My going-away present was a set of luggage which, I'm happy to report, is still going strong after all those years. Having been offered a job with ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio Scotland in Selkirk, I worked my six weeks notice, walked out of those studios in Clydebank and haven't been back since.
Until today, that is.
Clyde's managing director, Paul Cooney, had kindly invited me for a lunch in the boardroom and I had to confess to him that, in my four years as a news reporter at the station, I had never once entered the boardroom. In fact I rarely ventured beyond the ground floor of the building. In those days we all knew our place. The programme makers stayed on the ground floor while the money people worked upstairs. I only ever had two conversations with the company's chief executive Jimmy Gordon (now ). I once interviewed him for our news bulletins when Radio Clyde megred with and we had a slightly snippy exchange as to whether this was a merger or a takeover. The second conversation happened in a corridor after a Christmas lunch and I was wearing a Santa hat at the time . Let's not dwell on that.
After lunch today, Paul gave me a tour of the offices and studios which have all be revamped in the intervening years. I met a few familiar faces, including presenters Bill Smith and Jim Symon. The atmosphere in the building was much happier and more laid back than it was in my day. That's down to Paul's management style, I reckon.
The building in Clydebank was famous in the industry because it included a heated indoor swimming pool. It still does. In fact I taught myself to swim in that pool. Against all the rules I would sneak in there in the early hours of the morning while on the newsroom night shift. You weren't supposed to swim unless there was someone else around to make sure you didn't drown. But hey, I was young, foolish and the pool wasn't that deep.
Radio Clyde is now owned by the huge organisation and I understand there are plans to move out of Clydebank and back into Glasgow city centre.
I wonder if they'll take the swimming pool with them.
Paul showed me into a studio and invited me to take the hot seat as we posed for photographs. It brought back so many memories and I told Paul about my recurring dream in which I'm back at Clyde and I rush into the studio just in time to read the bulletin. Except I have no script and so I have to make it all up.
A nightmare, really, but mind you, some reporters make a good living with that kind of journalism.
