History
The modern era.
Needless to say the studios were built and equipped, technically very much down to Barry and Gary, like before Barry’s parents Steve and Molly Grint as well as being major fund raisers worked tirelessly with the rest of the membership to get the job done. Incidentally because of the nature of the beast, projects like this one a rarely actually finished. Technology keeps changing and sometimes advancing so one always has to keep an eye on the future and make appropriate improvements. At one time we used to broadcast via a satellite service to Thamesmead and the surrounding area and now via our website we can offer podcasts so patients and their families can listen in again to their request following hospitalisation or the birth of their latest offspring.
Back to the plot
At the time we were talking of a unit nicknamed ‘The Tardis’ housed the output equipment and for many years we had broadcast BBC Radio 2 when we were not presenting our programmes. Now with a massive three hundred disc player and pre-recorded programmes we, Meridian Radio were a 24 hour 7 days a week station. Paul Jackson and Brian Smith had designed and built a gizmo to keep a check on our connection to Greenwich Much later when our signal was fed via the megastream telecom unit they would design ever more complicated equipment that ensured our connection would be automatically checked and re-connected.
However even then the writing was on the wall. Written down it will hardly convey the time, anguish and work involved to keep things buoyant at WHBS whose call sign was now Meridian Radio as even greater changes would test our resolve. The Brook Hospital was now closed, The Military Hospital was to re-locate and The Greenwich District Hospital would close and re-site in a much larger complex on a site which would become The Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
It was months then years whilst we watched things take shape.
The membership were becoming more despondent as repeatedly the roof had leaked and water was wrecking the equipment. We had even endured a ceiling collapse but maintenance was becoming more and more difficult. A meeting was called and it was put to the membership that our future would probably be best served by moving, yet again, but this time out of the Memorial Hospital to where our main listeners were going to be, the New Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
Today you can see where we are, what we have and you may even get an idea what we do. You will also see some of the people around who helped us on that journey, members of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital NHS Trust that made it possible by finding space, people and organisations that helped fund the operation, technical people and engineers, volunteers, hospital staff, broadcasters and you. We and all the others mentioned believe in the therapeutic value of local radio in hospital, experts have also confirmed this.
We can tell many stories of gratitude from patients, listeners, these are our success stories and we have each had at least one treasured moment that reinforces our belief in what we do.
fundraisers.
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