Dave's Blog

Hi and welcome to my Personal Blog. Let us begin with an apology for the missing couple of day's posts, but these days were taken up with hospital visits and also our Wedding Anniversary (Sept.28th) 47 years ago I married Alison, the love of my life!   We were married by Rev'd John Flory in the Parish Church of St.Chad, Patchway, Bristol and then we had the reception at Stanshawes Court Hotel, Yate, Bristol. It was a brilliant day celebrating with family and good friends and then it was followed by a Honeymoon in Paignton. Life then rambled on quite happily although there were a few ups and downs, there were  some fantastic moments plus a few horrendous ones, some comedy and some tragedy.  We have been blessed with 2 brilliant daughters who make us so proud and a little boy who didn't actually make a successful transition from womb to world but he is still and always will be our son. Eventually after navigating the twists and turns of life's journey we ended up livin...

The Story Continues… We are now coming more up-to-date – as I said at the end of the last part I had set up CauldronFM   The station was created to provide a resource for those who followed a Pagan path both nationally and internationally, and also to be the platform for music created by Pagan artists. The shows also contained articles and discussions that were of interest to a Pagan audience. The establishing of this service proved popular, and soon it had att racted enquiries from fellow Pagans with regard to them joining the station as presenters. One of the potential candidates was a lady from America who goes by the name of Raven Moonshadow. At the time she was co-presenting a podcast called Pagan Moonbeams which was a service designed to introduce young people to the Pagan tradition The podcast had been running for some time and Raven was seeking a new challenge.  I auditioned her (merely a formality) and she joined the team. Raven and I worked together and she is a hig...

Petrol Shortage - what? Yesterday I was preparing to write this post and I had the framework of what I was going to say within the post committed to draft form.   I was going to talk about EU drivers being unable to return to the UK because of Brexit and rule changes - all very plausible I thought! However, something (I don’t know what!) stopped me from committing that piece to the annals of time for all to see! This morning I was leafing through friends posts and comments and my eye was suddenly caught by a comment made by a local businesswoman - in that comment she posed the question “what changed?” I read through the rest of her article and what she said made perfect sense, so I will paraphrase it here…. Petrol supplies are delivered to garages in special vehicles called “fuel tankers”.  These vehicles are classed as “Heavy Goods Vehicles” and to be allowed to drive them a person must be in possession of an HGV 1 drivers licence together with an ADR licence (see below). “If...

So having completed our fact-finding mission Dave and I submitted our findings to the Council, but (to cut a long story short) the project was curtailed because Dave had accepted a promotion and that meant he had to move to another local authority. This effectively brought an end to the plans as far as we were concerned and I returned to working with music and musicians, and dreaming of someday having a radio presence. Eventually I moved to Devon  (where I still live) - a move that proved to be very worthwhile. I retrained and reskilled and became qualified as a life coach but I also set up an artist management business and predominantly began working with bands.  For one particular band I put together a major 6 week tour (something that they had never done before) and took them to have 3 tracks recorded in a professional studio (owned at the time by 10cc's touring keyboard player Steve)  During this tour I became acquainted with a number of local radio presenters that re...

Hi and thank you for joining me on today's blog post coming from a very dull and overcast top of the hill here in Ilfracombe.   The sky all around is grey and there is a modest breeze blowing.  I cannot see the Bristol Channel today - something that is normally visible from my office window. Last night I had a wonderful "catch up" with Marc over a couple of drinks at The Thatched Inn - it seemed very odd going to a pub to have a drink for the first time in many, many months.  It also seemed weird having to sit outside and order the drinks through a serving hatch. But, I detract from the main topic of today's post - the controversial subject of a lady called "Verity" "Verity" is a sculpture created by the artist Damien Hirst and this piece has been on loan to the town but that loan period is sadly* coming to an end. During this time she has been a major talking point and whether or not you like her, she has brought a large number of visitors to Ilfr...

Hi today is a crisp late summer day here in North Devon and I have been out and about – it feels like autumn is just around the corner. My car has now been serviced and MOT need and the bill will arrive with me soon. So today I feel that I want to give you just a little insight regarding some of the work I do…… One of my earliest productions (Musical Director) I am a therapist, life coach and musician on my own account  But professionally.... . For many years I have been involved in the entertainment industry – playing in bands, broadcasting, and for the past 20 years or so I have been a senior member of a team in a company that provides theatrical drapes and backdrops plus lighting effects to the World’s entertainment industry Working with this company has enabled me to experience places that I could only dream off as a child and meeting people that I have only been able to admire from afar. However I still remember the words that my Dad said to me when I was a teenager and I had ...

Hi and welcome to the third part of this series of insights into my life that was leading to:- how I became and still am a broadcaster (and more) It has been an interesting journey for me and filled with WoW moments all along the way. So when we left the story last time I promised a bit of a wow moment so here goes….. Dave Wycherley and I were tasked by Halton Borough Council to investigate how they could help the up-and-coming musicians of Widnes and Runcorn.  After some research we identified that around the county several local authorities had provided Rehearsal space (the old church/the citadel) but others had gone a stage further and had provided recording facilities. So we just had to go and investigate! The first place we went to was a “studio“ near Ormskirk – sadly this was a great example of how not to build a recording studio – it was basically a rehearsal space – and even that was definitely lacking. It was located in the heart of an industrial estate without any form of...