Born at a fairly early age in Tipton, in the Great Western Midlands of England, and from the beginning I took quite a shine to that glowing box in the corner of every decent sitting room (!), the magical telly-box seduced me into watching such delights as The Flumps, Tiswas, Swap Shop, The Adventures of Rupert, Rentaghost… and so many more. One day I swore I’d be making something to go on it… and I did!
Following a successful career at Foxyards Primary School, High Arcal School and Dudley College, in 1989 I embarked on 11 years of fun & frolics at Beacon Radio. During this time I did almost everything in a radio station that you can think of. I produced & presented many programmes, made jingles, wrote & made adverts, and loads more… Beacon was eventually taken over by a larger group and I (and many others) moved to Heart FM in 2000.
By 2005 I found myself at WCRfm in Wolverhampton, where I was a presenter/producer/trainer. I’ve also run broadcast skills courses for a number of Colleges and Universities, plus I appeared on BBC1 & BBC2 as a rabbit, (I’m sure the clip will be somewhere else on this site!). I also appeared on ITV as both a TV studio explorer and applauder!
I’d met my future wife back in the early 1990s when I was at Beacon, though neither of us knew it then. Nikki and I kept in touch for years, and then we started ‘going out’, and then I asked her to marry me, and she said yes! It took us ages to get down the aisle (we bought a house together in the meantime, as you do…). We finally tied the knot in the Summer of 2010!
My lovely little lady, Nikki, keeps her own blog at www.nikki.bannister.org.uk
By 2013 I’d produced, narrated, music-designed, interview-conducted a 5-part documentary series about the ATV studios in Birmingham, as well as an international award-winning series about ATV Today, both of which continue to do great business.
In 2015 I joined Big Centre Television, which later became Made in Birmingham, where I was a Presenter, Producer and Director of many programmes – and here again I indulged by passion for old TV by compiling and presenting “Crossroads Check-In” (all about Crossroads – which Big Centre showed for a while); I was responsible for putting “Tiswas“ back on TV in a series of special compilations; I put together “The Big Centre Magazine”, “The Midland Weekend”, “The Big Magazine” and the “Birmingham News Weekend Magazine” – 4 titles, 1 programme – a weekend round-up of what’s happening in the Midlands.
And now begins a whole new phase… if you need me, I’m right here…
Some recent articles about me…
[rpwe limit=”10″ thumb=”true” cat=”8″]
And there’s more here