DIANE KNOX: Audio and Radio Industry Awards 2022 prize would be lovely recognition for special radio moment of old friend and MFR presenter Garry Spence
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
When you move halfway across the world, life changes in many, many ways. Friendships fade, your old habits morph into new ones and you start to feel like a very different version of yourself.
You have to make a real effort to integrate yourself back in to your old life to avoid feeling completely disconnected. That’s why I love writing this column every week – I immediately sit down to write it and feel like I’m back in Inverness. I read local news stories, see familiar faces, read of familiar places and feel really comforted. It’s sometimes like I never left!
That’s why I want to dedicate this week’s column to a fellow Invernessian, and a dear friend. And he needs your help.
I’m sure you’ll know him, so he needs little introduction. If you need reminded, just tune in to your radio to MFR today at 4pm and you’ll be greeted by his dulcet tones.
I met Garry Spence when we were teenagers at high school; he went to Millburn (even though he lived in Smithton) and I was at Culloden Academy but we had mutual friends and soon became acquainted. He worked at MFR way back then, and I’m sure I would bug him with geeky radio questions every time we were in each other’s company.
Fast forward to 2010 and we’re both based in Glasgow, hosting radio shows on rival stations. But that’s where any rivalry ended; we’ve always been huge supporters of one another and have always kept in touch. When I left Glasgow to move to Florida, Garry was one of the first to send me his well wishes. And when it was announced not long after that he was moving to the Hits Radio Network, my old station and back on MFR, I was ecstatic.
Last time I was home in September 2019 we met up for a few glasses of bubbly and had a good ol’ catch up, and it was like no time had passed at all.
Last December, while hosting his radio show, Garry was running a competition to give away £102,000. What a whack of cash to win right before Christmas!
He called a random number and Mary from Glasgow was on the other end of the line. She sounded nervous, shaky, and emotional. Rightly so, a lot of money was on the line, but the audience soon found out that she had not long lost her husband to Covid.
Garry handled it incredibly well, like the absolute pro he is. He kept her calm, didn’t make a gigantic fuss and, while being sympathetic to the horrendous loss she had recently suffered, celebrated this huge amount of money she went on to win. It was a moment I have listened to 20 times since, and have cried each and every time – truly heart-warming.
Garry recently revealed he had been listening to a radio conversation just a week prior about mental health and grief, and really drew on what he had learned to help manage the situation. To this day, people still talk to him about it pretty much every other day.
His call with Mary has received a huge amount of press attention and has been nominated for the Radio Times moment of the year at the 2022 Audio and Radio Industry Awards. If you can spare a few minutes, please vote for Garry at www.radiotimes.com/audio/radio/radio-arias-vote-2022
Voting closes on Sunday evening, and you can listen back to this very special radio moment there too.
I’m extremely proud of my friend, whether he takes home the trophy or not. But it would be lovely recognition, not only of the talented radio presenter he is, but the wonderful person he brings to the radio every day.
Click Here to read more from Diane Knox.
