Ken Bruce has paid tribute to hospital radio, calling the national volunteer service where he began his career “a lifeline for patients”.
The DJ marks the 75th anniversary of the NHS by presenting a special programme which will be broadcast by Greatest Hits Radio on Wednesday and then made available for free to the 150 stations which make up the UK Hospital Broadcasting Service (HBS).
Returning to his roots, the PopMaster host reveals that his stint at HBS Glasgow 45 years ago taught him the most valuable lesson of his broadcasting career.
“As much as I wanted to be playing Harry Nilsson, Elvis Presley and a bit of Motown, the bedside requests were for Jim Reeves and Ethna Campbell. They came in thick and fast,” Bruce recalls on the Back To The Start programme. “There I learnt one of my early lessons, play what the customer wants!”
“On what is a very special day for the NHS, it feels fitting that Greatest Hits Radio should be looking at how important hospital radio has been to both patients and staff over the past decades,” the DJ says.
“I know for me it was an opportunity to do something I loved but give back to people at the same time. It allowed me to make a lot of mistakes – that I continued to make in my professional career! – but it gave me the confidence to get out of them.”
A patron of Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Bruce says hospital radio, kept on air by 2,500 volunteers, has “nurtured incredible broadcasting talent, been a lifeline for patients and an escape for staff with hugely demanding jobs”.
In the Back To The Start programme Bruce relearns how to cue up vinyl records from a hospital radio studio at Stoke Mandeville and runs down the most requested songs on the service. Elton John’s I’m Still Standing is a particular favourite among staff coming to the end of exhausting shifts.
Bruce delivers a powerful defence of the NHS during the programme. “At its heart are the three core principles, it must meet the needs of everyone, be free at the point of delivery and based on clinical need not ability to pay.”
He asks: “How many of us listening today can say our lives are not richer, more prosperous or healthier as a direct result of the NHS?”
Hospital radio is “a relatively small part of hospital life that’s had an immeasurable impact on patients, staff and the volunteers who look after us and keep us alive”.
Bruce, who puts the needle on a crackly vinyl copy of Jim Reeves’ I Love You, a track he originally played on hospital radio, is joined on the programme by Simon Mayo, who started his career at Southlands Hospital in West Sussex.
Mayo explains how a wall chart in the studio listed records referencing “death or depression” that must not be played. Mayo had to disappoint one patient, who when asked for a request, chose Gary Numan’s I Die, You Die.
Bruce is currently waiting to learn if PopMaster TV will be return to screens. A six-episode run on More4 last week boosted the channel’s ratings and producers hope that Channel 4 will commit to a second run.
Most requested hospital radio tracks across 150 stations
ABBA – Dancing Queen
Neil Diamond – Sweet Caroline
Rod Stewart – Maggie May
Stevie Wonder – I Just Called To Say I Love You
Bluebells – Young At Heart
Queen – I Want To Break Free
Elton John – I’m Still Standing
: Ken Bruce – Back to the Start is on Greatest Hits Radio, 9pm, Wednesday 5 July
Hospital radio stations in the UK wanting to air the Bruce show for free can contact nhsdocumentary@greatesthitsradio.co.uk for information
