My oldest offspring Tom yesterday joined the ranks of the employed. He is working as a traffic announcer on BBC Radio Oxford. It’s what he has wanted to do since he was 15. Not announce the traffic on BBC Oxford. Work in the radio business.

The trigger point came when he went on a school trip to the Lincolnshire Show. The BBC tent had a competition for kids to do a sports commentary. He won. He was hooked. I was in London at the time. He rang me up and told me he was no longer interested in becoming a vet but instead was going to do a degree in media studies and go to work for the BBC. The idea of having a media luvvie as a son took a bit of getting used to although it did have the side benefit in that he lost interest in keeping hamsters, gerbils and rabbits that were a pain to look after.

So since the age of 15 Tom has spent all his waking hours working in radio. He had various shows on Lincoln local community radio station Siren FM and helped out at BBC Radio Lincolnshire where at the age of 18 he broadcast his own 1 hour show on yoof matters in which he interviewed Feargal Sharkey about music piracy.  At Warwick University  all his free time, and there was a lot of it (History & Politics), was spent working on media projects.  Working with uni radio station RaW FM  he won a number of National Student Radio Awards.

Tom has lived and breathed radio for six years and his hard work has now earned him the reward of a first step on the ladder in the real world. I am a proud dad.

Next up. I am on the Industrial Panel of Bangor University School of Engineering.