HOLMSEY: Those were the days!

By Press Release Nov 7, 2022

It’s always hard to predict the future, but it’s safe to say there’s probably more chance of Island Line and the chain ferry both working reliably for 12 straight months than Isle of Wight Radio’s phone-in ever returning. Frankly, like offensive jokes, these days you just can’t do that sort of thing, we live in more enlightened times. To be fair, I don’t think you were supposed to do it back then either!

Big Al and The Doc’s daily ‘phone-in was often unmissable and, on more than one occasion, the subject of OFCOM complaints. On one especially memorable day, my partner in crime was hauled before the local magistrates, although thankfully they didn’t send him down because no specific crime was identified. The cause of the court appearance was a caller describing himself as ‘Squirrel Man’ who had phoned us, threatening to bring some grey squirrels over from the mainland. We knew such a stupid act would devastate our native reds, but we also knew allowing him on air would generate lots of angry calls. On reflection, it was all just a bit silly, and rightly we were punished – by being made to sit in open court for hours, listening to various experts on red squirrels explain why the release of greys here would be catastrophic. Those wildlife experts had a captive audience and seemed determined to make the most of their opportunity.

Doing a daily phone-in show could sometimes be a challenge, although no-one then had any other outlet for their opinion, other than the local newspaper. News was still something you read about or watched once a day on the telly. Nowadays, when anything significant happens anywhere on the planet, we all know about it instantly and can comment on various social media, sometimes even before the poor souls involved know what’s going on. Because it was impossible to have your say elsewhere, our phone-in radio show became invaluable. On slow news days it could become boring, because callers wanted to talk about the same old things, the terrible council, our woeful and overpriced ferries, Bob Seely being useless. OK, Bob wasn’t even the MP in those days, but you get my drift.

On those quiet news days, to make it more entertaining, we tried to be creative. For example, one day a woman called us saying her husband had been away on a short break ‘with the lads’ and on his return, had thrown his bag down in the kitchen. Thinking she was being helpful, the poor woman opened the bag – intending to wash the contents. She found a fancy shirt, with lipstick on the collar, and sensibly decided to call us two ‘men of the world’ for advice. Responding, we asked her a series of leading questions, such as had he been working late recently? Was he buying a smart new wardrobe? Going out more often, wearing aftershave or behaving furtively? The caller had a penny drop moment, and the listeners too assumed the man had probably not been away ‘with mates’ but was more likely, having an affair. Our switchboard lit up with people expressing sympathy with the poor woman and berating us for exposing him. Well, most did, one spoilsport listener reported us to OFCOM because she felt our line of questioning was too intrusive. Defending the complaint, we were forced to admit we knew the lipstick on your collar woman, she was my sister.

On the March 11 next year, if we’re all spared, you can join Big Al and The Doc’ at Medina Theatre for a phone-in reunion. We’ll have some classic ‘best of’ clips, a few special guests and who knows, we may even reveal a few more secrets!