'Uncle Bob' and a right Royal radio show (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

'Uncle Bob' and a right Royal radio show

1:30pm Monday 5th March 2007

• Print
• Email

I'd like to share with you a lovely letter I received following the recent publication of an article about Radio Royal, the hospital station for Bradford Royal Infirmary which has now been broadcasting for more than half a century.

The letter comes from Mrs Enid Chapman, of Wibsey, who says she was shocked and surprised when she spotted a picture of her father which ran with the report.

When I visited Radio Royal to carry out interviews for the article I borrowed a number of fascinating old photographs to run alongside pictures of current volunteers.

Unfortunately, the old photographs were undated and without names. However, thanks to Mrs Chapman (nee Morris) I can now tell you that the man pictured putting on a record in the studio of the station (which was then known as The Medicine Chest) was Robert Morris, who was an electrician on the maintenance staff of BRI.

Mrs Chapman says her father was better known at this time as 'Uncle Bob' and he was the person who wired up the first makeshift studio so requests could be broadcast to patients over the hospital radio system.

Mrs Chapman recalls: "Obviously in those days the system was very basic with, I believe a gramophone that had been loaned by Woods Music in Sunbridge Road, a couple of microphones and two speakers and a few 78 rpm records that had been donated by hospital staff and patients.

"Specific requests for special occasions would be loaned to the hospital by Woods Music (free of charge) from their lending library.

"My father and his two or three volunteers ran this service from when it was installed in 1952 until he retired in 1975. He had worked for the hospital board from the opening day of the BRI until he retired."

Mrs Chapman remarks: "Incidentally in the photograph my father is the one with the cigarette in his mouth and I hope that this letter will be of some interest to you and possibly to those who are now in charge of Radio Royal and what would appear to be a far superior system than the one my father had in the beginning."