Hi there, Im Brian and I present quite a few shows here on HMR at the moment.  I started in radio many years ago when I landed a dream job on BBC Radio 1 Club, a show that went out every weekday from 12noon to 2pm from a different location in the UK for 3 years and I was a regular presenter on the live show. I also presented shows in London on Saturday afternoons and followed the legendary Alan Freeman. 

One of my first jobs when I left school was working a the ABC Cinema in Exeter and they often had huge Pop Stage Shows, being a budding DJ I used to ask some of the visiting stars to do jingles for me to use, I remember telling Stevie Wonder that I had written down what I wanted him to say and he looked towards me and said You just tell me what you want me to say Brian and I'll do it ...it was quite a time later that I realised he was blind....ooops! I felt such an idiot but what a nice man not to have said anything.  Sadly I've no idea what became of those jingles but I wish I could drop Hi, this is John, George, Paul and Ringo - we're The Beatles and you're listening to Brian Day into my radio show now but they ended up in a bin somewhere I suppose.

..

I also had experience in the retail trade by deciding what my home town of Exeter really needed was a Joke Shop, I found suitable premises in the City Centre and opened Just For Fun selling Whoopee Cushions, Stink Bombs, Itching Powder and fake dog poo!  Great fun until several disgruntled shop owners came into my shop and bought ten boxes of Stink Bombs on a very busy Saturday and then dropped one every 5 minutes for the whole afternoon which emptied my shop...still, I got the last laugh and phoned the newspapers and got some great publicity in national newspapers and on local TV news with The Sun using the headline Joke Shop causes a big stink ...a man in the North of England who was moving to Exeter read it and bought my shop...a very good result!

.

During this time I was doing a huge Mobile Disco Show which included go-go dancers around the UK and Europe, one particular memory is a night in Newquay, Cornwall where I was doing a New Years Eve Party in 1968 (and if you're trying to work out my age now then I must have been just 10 years old then...LOL) and at 11.57pm I played Jumping Jack Flash by The Rolling Stones and as I said ....so here is the biggest record of the year I grabbed a metal light stand with a red spotlight on it to swing it over the dancers and Zzzap....I was electrocuted by causing a direct earth with the damp stone floor!   I only remember coming around in an ambulance on my way to hospital (it seems I was unconscious for over nearly two hours and had been given the kiss of life) - after treatment I was released the following day to make my way back to the hotel venue  ...what a fool I felt sat on a freezing bus for over an hour in a bright red satin shirt, gold crushed-velvet trousers and silver sparkly platform boots!  I was really lucky to survive to be honest and when I got to the hotel they told me that some guests were in tears and the whole evening came to an abrupt halt at 11.59pm when I jumped off the floor, screamed and sent the triple-deck disco console and UV light tubes flying into the crowd showering people with records, beer and glass...oh dear! 

I was making the most of my Radio 1 publicity then so I got a London agent and worked at clubs like the famous Marquee Club in Wardour Street on Saturday nights with bands like The Rolling Stones were on Friday nights. Once while waiting to see my Agent in his office I was chatting to a young guy who was in the room and next to see him, he said his name was David Jones but was thinking of changing it....he did, to David Bowie....I wonder if he remembers meeting me? HA HA!

. 

I moved into commercial radio with a job at Plymouth Sound in Devon and spent a very happy 8 years there. Once I was hired by Ritz Crackers to give away a £20 note to the first person carrying a box of crackers who spotted me in a shopping centre and said a special word to me, a clue would be played on the radio every morning to let people know who to look out for and I remember one particular day when I was taken to a very run down area of Plymouth wearing bright red trousers, a yellow shirt and an enormous cracker biscuit on my head...the PR company pushed me out of their car and suddenly from nowhere at least 50 people came running across a busy dual carriageway screaming and waving packets of Ritz Crackers at me....I ran like hell to the car and hurled myself through the open window and with my legs still outside we raced off into the distance!  Another stunt involved me running around on Plymouth Hoe in a Bear outfit giving away free Hoffmeister Beer to anyone who spotted me...which idiot thought of that idea!   

. 

One embarrasing moment was when I was booked to do a part in a big movie being shot in Torquay called That Summer with Ray Winstone (still an unknown actor then) and because I had mentioned it on my radio show a few times the Manager of The Odeon Cinema in Plymouth organised a special early preview screening just for me so I wouldn't have to wait until Friday to see it, the normal early afternoon film was cancelled and there I was completely on my own in this massive 2,000 seat single screen cinema, you can only imaging my excitement as the lights went down and the curtains  opened.....then, after waiting nearly an hour came my scene where I was playing a DJ in a night club and chatted to Ray's screen character at the bar about why he had dumped his girlfriend and I then got them back together by playing them a romantic record.......to my dismay I soon realised all my scenes had been left on the cutting room floor.  I was so embarrassed as EVERYONE asked me if I was good in the film for weeks and weeks!    

Moving to Brighton to live at the end of the 80s was not one of my better ideas and I never really felt happy there as I had left so many friends behind in the South-West, on my very first night out I met someone and together we eventually left a wet and soggy England to live in sunny Majorca for 4 years where I opened a Bar and Restaurant on Palma Nova Sea Front before being called back to the UK to present the Breakfast Show at Red Dragon Radio in Cardiff, after a few months I was given a better offer by a rival station, moved to Bristol and worked for the Classic Gold Network for several years.  I got an Equity Card and started doing some TV acting work and if you visit my website (www.brianday.co.uk) you can see the names of some of the 100+ TV Programmes and Films and been in such as Coronation Street, A Touch Of Frost, Brookside, Emmerdale, Heartbeat and the Four Weddings and A Funeral as well as some funny pictures of my Glam Rock period!

Sixteen years ago I headed north to Manchester where I helped launch a new Commercial Radio Station for the North West called JFM 100.4 which later changed to Jazz FM and I spent many happy years working there before a totally unexpected collapse in the studio during a live show put me in hospital. After many months spent recovering at home I re evaluated my life and now take things much easier, only doing things I really want to do and I've learnt to enjoy life much more, you only get one crack at this and it can all be over in a flash (or Zzzap!) so you should have as much fun as possible while you are able to.  I joined the team at Hit Music Radio in October last year and really enjoy being part of the team here and I really hope you enjoy what we do.

Brian