One minute later…..
So there you are, one minute sitting minding your own business, next minute you’re on air on BBC 3 Counties Radio.
It all started with a phone call from my mother who was listening to the radio and heard the DJ ask if anyone knew how to contact a lady called Rosemary who was the Fan Club Secretary of 60s rocker Russ Sainty. Now I have no idea where Rosemary is but I do know Russ very well, so mother thought she’d let me know about the hunt.
Being the helpful type, which usually just gets me into deep water, I rang the station to tell them I had Russ’s contact details if they wanted them. Unfortunately the programme team had finished the show and gone home so the lady at the station took a message for them to call me the following morning.
What I hadn’t realised was that ‘the following morning’ meant 6am so a half awake Other Half, answered the phone to a strange man asking to speak to Rosemary’s mother. OH denied all knowledge and put the phone down. Ten minutes later it rang again with the same result. According to mother who was listening, OH has now achieved fame across Bucks, Beds and Herts as “some bloke in Berkshire”.
I, having reached the land of the living, enquired which idiot was ringing so early. OH recounted the tale and with a sinking feeling I realised what had happened and hurriedly phoned the station back, hoping it wasn’t too late, as I had phoned Russ the previous evening and put him on standby.
It seemed the message I left had got a bit garbled in the transfer and the programme researcher had thought he was phoning Rosemary’s mother. Having explained the actual situation, and given him Russ’s phone number, I was told to hold the line as I was being put through to the studio. So there I was, half awake totally unprepared and broadcasting to the nation.
Funny old world isn’t it.
Russ went on air immediately after me and informed them that he had absolutely no idea where Rosemary was but, he did manage to plug his new book.
So that’s good then.
Details on Russ’s web site at www.russsainty.com
Helena S. responds:
Posted: September 13th, 2008 at 12:21 pm →
That’s priceless, bet they didn’t think of that at the publisher’s marketing meeting.
JackP responds:
Posted: September 13th, 2008 at 8:50 pm →
Well, it’s only a generation or two from Rosemary’s Mother to the somewhat more sinister ‘Rosemary’s Baby’.
So was OH mumbling ‘live on air’ to whoever was awake, or just mumbling incoherently at people in the studio? I’ve got to admit, I’d start getting a little snarky if someone started phoning me at six in the morning.
PS tell Russ his site doesn’t seem to be working…
Jaybee responds:
Posted: September 15th, 2008 at 12:58 pm →
LOL, yes, but sadly it might be easier to find Rosemary’s baby than Rosemary. As far as I’m aware OH wasn’t on air but I didn’t think to ask. I suspect it was just the researcher. Poor guy really had a bad time of it. Prior to speaking to me he’d apparently managed to get hold of a phone number for Russ. Lord knows where he got it but it was an old number from when Russ was living in Ireland so he’d rung it and got shouted at by a rather disgruntled Irishman who was less than happy at being woken up so early.
Russ’s site is working Jack, you may have hit it at a difficult time. The host is in Texas. Methinks it may be time to move the whole shebang to a slightly less problem prone location.