Todays Blog 25th February 2009

Had a good day shooting about South Yorkshire like a madman.

Headed off at 0900 am to Rotherham Central Library Arts Centre to cover the first in series of ‘Credit Crunch Roadshows’ organised by the council with a range of agencies there from pensions service to Job Centre Plus, CAB, Colleges, health and employment projects.

Seemed to be a lot of highly paid professionals in one room with few real punters about.  Did a few interviews there and then left with a carrier bag full of ‘bumpf’ I’ll probably never read.  Good to see a few old faces and some friends there. ( I worked in Rotherham for two years for the Council – no, I dont miss it !)

Then went up to Business Link Yorkshire’s new HQ in Barnsley to record an interview piece and some news clips with them.  50 staff taking hundreds of calls a day from businesses  and would-be entrepreneurs – impressive!

They’ve got a really switched on press officer Erica Smith who provided interviewees and actualite of callers which made a good package for the Saturday Breakfast Show and clips for news.

From there, I dived down to the Bluebell Wood Childrens Hospice in South Rotherham for a mic hold  for the Drivetime programme with Howie Pressman.

Good opportunity to use my latest broadcast kit ( ‘Lucy Live’ with a 3G dongle-basically using WiFi to broadcast over the internet)

We spoke to a lovely young woman Sandra, about her disabled daughter with cerebral palsy and what she went through. The big news of the day was the death of David Cameron’s son Ivan and she gave us an idea of what she went through with her daughter who was ’stillborn’ but later revived and is such a charming little girl.

Treated to a wonderful lunch at the hospice, much to the envy of my news colleagues and met Sarah Champion, the new Chief Executive, who is not from the care sector but has a background in arts administration. Great talker ! (always useful in this biz)

5 or 6 years ago we helped raise £475k for this hospice and it was really weird and slightly emotional seeing it up and running  full of mums and disabled kids.

Editing all afters for overnights and Sat brek.

Home at 7.00pm knackered ! (with apologies to Coal Miners and people with really tough jobs )