I'm a flexible, reliable, journalistically-trained freelance (NUJ member since c.1988), always willing to do a fine job for a decent rate. Here's a brief snapshot of my experience:
radio
Freelance reporting for radio since 1990, initially in the news room of Radio City Talk, for a couple of years, then through till around 1998 for BBC Radio 4, especially:
- You & Yours - hundreds of shorter features (3 to 7 mins) nearly all of my ideas
- All in the Mind - dozens of features over several series, when Prof Anthony Clare was presenter, working initially with Nadine Grieve as producer, then Paul Kobrak
- Woman's Hour - half-a-dozen or so features for WHr from Manchester, always for Caroline LeFevre as producer.
From mid-90s onwards, until around 2005, increasingly as a freelance producer for BBC Radio 4 programmes:
- Mediumwave
- Sunday
- File on 4
- The Message (which I devised the name for - based on Marshall McLuhan's dictum "the Medium is the Message")
Since 2005, primarily working as an independent radio producer, see separate item on my 'Radio' menu
overseas coverage
I've worked as reporter and photographer in:
- Russia
- Ukraine
- Germany
- France
- Belgium
- Thailand
- Bangladesh
- Namibia
- South Africa
- Spain
- USA
... and happy to go just about anywhere - reliable, self-contained, frugal, safety-conscious, diplomatic
other media
Brief experience as a TV documentary researcher on a couple of programmes. Willing to consider any offers in that field.
Contributed numerous illustrated reports and articles to motoring magazines 1997-2006 (see separate item on my 'Photography' menu) plus occasionally on other topics, eg travel, cycling
Pennine Productions (the first)
In 2000 I formed Pennine Productions LLP with three other experienced freelance producers and presenters, and we made 100 programmes for BBC Radio 4 and World Service from the following year until 2007, when we divided the company in two - one half retaining that name but with a new website, the other half, comprising myself and Mark Whitaker, becoming Square Dog Radio LLP
Square Dog Radio
Since then Square Dog Radio LLP has made around another 60 programmes for Radio 4 and World Service, also a few for Radio 3 and occasionally other customers such as the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council. In that time we have acquired a number of associate producers, presenters and researchers, detailed on that site, and we now trade also as Square Dog Media.
the Radio Independents Group (RIG) - known as AudioUK since August 2018
In February 2004, frustrated by the absence of a trade body for radio indies, and impressed by what PACT was doing for TV indies, I sent an email round all the Radio 4 indie suppliers I could find asking if there was any appetite for setting up a group. That ignited a roller-coaster I am still trying to get off! To cut a very long story very short, we got a meeting together, that led to a steering committee, our first AGM, constitution as an 'unincorporated association', successful pressure on BBC Radio to give us a similar deal on new Terms of Trade as TV had won, conversion to a company limited by guarantee, and all kinds of activity to follow.
Now long established as THE voice of radio indies, respected as such by the BBC, HM Government, the Radio Academy, the Educational Recording Agency and a host of other institutions. And that is thanks to a whole host of people who have been giving a great deal of their time freely to RIG for many years, many of them since that very first meeting in 2004
There is much more information about the above on the relevant websites, so please follow the links.
I have recently been Exec Producer on 'the Truth About Tourette's' a fascinating and eye-opening programme that aims to dispel the misconceptions around the condition, and celebrate the achievements of people who have made the most of what the presenter Aidy Smith calls his 'superpower' - the creative brilliance that many with Tourette's display.
The programme was made by producer John Offord, working closely with Aidy, for the indie company Rosa Productions, headed by Rosemary Richards. Its first transmission is on BBC Radio 4 at 11 am on 31st May 2022, repeated on R4 at 9pm on Monday June 6. The BBC programme page is here. As well as summarising the programme, it will have a listening link after transmission, and it has details of where to find further information about Tourette's.