Teenage dreams can come true..!

On the right is a list of the records I played on my BBC radio show on 29th August 1987 (New Order? Check. The Smiths? Yup. Billy Bragg? Of course). 

Incredibly, I was only eighteen. I’d been trained in how to operate a BBC studio desk and had now secured a co-presenting gig, in front of the microphone for ‘Revolver,’ a Saturday evening radio programme on BBC Essex.

I say ‘incredibly,’ as it was my teenage dream to work in radio & TV. So it did feel incredible! After all, it was only a few years before that - with a turntable and a couple of cassette players - I’d been playing at being a radio DJ in my bedroom. And here I was let loose on a real-life radio show, playing my own records.

On the left is the letter I received from the radio station the year before letting me know I’d passed the interview process to work on the show. I started reading the gig guide and progressed from there.

My teenage dream came true! I went on to have a successful career in music broadcasting across the 1990s, working on productions for Channel 4, MTV and across BBC and commercial radio.

I was thinking about our childhood dreams last week when I was reading Mark Vanhoenacker’s excellent book ‘Imagine a City.’ Mark writes how growing up in Pittsfield, MA he used to sit in his bedroom, spinning his globe, dreaming of one day becoming an airline pilot. Today Mark is a British Airways pilot and travels all over the world!

Whether we are teenagers or are later in life, many of us have these 'One day I will...' dreams. Sometimes we might think these aspirations are foolish or unachievable. Or people around us might tell us to forget them.

Well I’m here to tell you, teenage dreams can come true. Hold on to them…