When I was
an eighteen year old tractor driver, putting in dawn ‘till
midnight shifts in the the English county of Nottinghamshire, the default radio station on in every cab was BBC Radio One.
It was unmitigated
toss.
If you have never listened
to it count yourself lucky; saccharine, amorphous, putrefying drivel
with a middle of the road play list that was on a thirty minute loop.
I was assaulted by this stuff sixteen
hours a day, seven days a week, for the entire harvest and planting campaign.
Then late one night shift I inexplicably fiddled
with the knobs and stumbled across BBC Radio Four, my life changed forever.
With news,
political talk, opinion, documentaries, stories, plays, travel, science and
some of the best comedy I have ever heard the long days in the tractor cab were
immediately transformed.
Now I could entertain and educate myself while driving in straight lines.
Recently I thought
my life was complete when that brilliant woman from the R4 Food Programme, @SheilaDillon
started following me on Twitter.
I topped
Sheila this morning by appearing on the Farming Today Programme talking about farming in Ukraine and Russia.
I think it’s
time to retire.