The Diasboro In2views: In a series of profiles and interviews, Orginal Fat Bob first gives his personal view on the life and career of a guest who is associated with football, before sitting down for a chat with them and asking a few questions to give the reader an insight into their career.
He has recently met up with a distinguished north-east media personality, who recalls what it was like and is like, to rub shoulders with footballing and show business heroes. The subject of the latest In2view is John Foster...
John has nearly 30 years of radio experience broadcasting in all formats, in major markets across the UK for the BBC, local and commercial radio groups including, Global Radio, Communicorp UK Emap, Metro Radio Group, The Wireless Group and also national radio experience at BBC Radio 5 Live....
You can continue reading this latest In2view in it's full format at...
Nice one, OFB. A really good read.
Many thanks OFB, great stuff I really enjoyed that interview - his enthusiasm for his work really came across and sounds like a decent down to earth bloke who has followed his dream!
Good interview, Bob, very enjoyable, and since Today is my favourite programme and worth the license fee alone, I wouldn't have minded an interview with Anna Foster too.
Good interview, Bob, very enjoyable, and since Today is my favourite programme and worth the license fee alone, I wouldn't have minded an interview with Anna Foster too.
Anna has fitted in to Today very well hasn’t she?
A good interview, even I do not know the person other than by name at the BBC. I listen mainly the sports programmes of the radio station.
So well done, Bob. It is alwaus nice to hear about Boro fans. Up the Boro!
What a great piece about and then lovely interview with Mr. Foster. He comes across as a really decent man and it was nice to hear his story and thoughts. Thank you for that Bob: you most definitely have not lost your touch.
Excellent OFB, I enjoyed that, thank you. No pressure but who next? Mogga?
UTB, John
Excellent OFB, I enjoyed that, thank you. No pressure but who next? Mogga?
UTB, John
John
ive tried a few times to get Z Mogga but he’s been hijacked by Bernie to do some F2F interviews at local social clubs
OFB
It’s John Fosters Birthday today.
it would be nice if the Diasborians who are in Facebook could wish him a happy birthday and thank him for a great interview which was enjoyed by many.
OFB
@OFB - First of all, what a big coincidence! Secondly I am right there with @LenMasterman and @MartinBellamy about Today and Anna Foster.
As for the coincidence, the radio alarm on my bedside table comes on at 7am and is always tuned to the Today programme. After the news bulletin at the head of the programme (Yes! I know it will have been running since 6am but I draw the line at waking so early), Anna Foster came on, interviewing guests as usual. I knew she had local connections and had an idea she might for some time have lived in the Hartlepool area. Obviously I was aware she'd been on Radio5 and more recently she was the BBC correspondent filming pieces to camera on BBC News after the earthquake in Turkey and more recently in Beirut. Wasn't she also sent out to Los Angeles when the forest fires struck there last year?
Anyway I decided to look her up on Wikipedia as I listened, and I learned she was born in South Shields, attended Durham University, that she had married John Foster who was also a well-known radio personality and that they had been married at (nearby) Crathorne Hall. So, all-in-all, definitely One of Us.
THEN I somehow was alerted to your In2View with John Foster which I have just read. Thanks for that piece OFB! A pleasure to read. I hadn't known John Foster was the Riverside Stadium announcer. So HE is One of Us as well.
I agree with Len and Martin about Today and Anna. I really like her style of interviewing. I realise that many styles exist but she seems like the well-educated Girl Nextdoor who has an easy and friendly way of eliciting responses from the interviewee that other, more combative styles fail to do. Maybe if you asked for HER to appear in your series, John F would put in a good word for you? It is good that 2 people who have had such successful broadcasting careers (and I accept Anna's is nowhere near ended!) should have such local connections.
As one sometimes does, when looking something up on Wikipedia or in a dictionary, one ends up falling into rabbit holes and it may be some time before one comes out! Whilst looking up the Today programme this morning, I saw reference to Jack de Manio. He had a very colourful life and I'm sure would be considered far too reactionary now to be allowed near a microphone' He was prone to regular gaffes and despite being the son of an Italian aviator who died before he was born, and a mother who was Polish, he was described by the peerless radio voice that was Sue MacGregor (who disliked him) as having a "golf-club bore attitude to anything foreign". Yet he won an MC AND Bar in WW2 but was later dismissed from Service by order of a Field Gen. Court-Martial in 1944 (perhaps due to some insubordinate comments or hi-jinks that went WAY too far). He was the first Today presenter that I remember, when I was still at school.
I remember well some other presenters: Robert Robinson when I was at university, John Timpson, Peter Hobday, Sue MacGregor, Jim Naughtie, Sarah Montague, John Humphrys, Martha Kearney and Mishal Husain (with Montague and Kearney also presenting WatO).
Anyway, Bob, thanks again!
@forever-dormo A trip down memory lane there - I remember all of those presenters. I’ve got to admit, though, that I’ve stopped listening to Today after all those years - it’s not just the tone of one or two of the presenters that winds me up, but also the current state of political discourse generally. R4 used to be on all day in our house when we first retired but not any more, I’m afraid, which in many ways is a shame.
I never thought I’d be one of those people who avoids the news, but, for the sake of my well being, I’m very selective in where I get my information these days.
As we have come to expect from you, Dormo, some interesting, pertinent and reflective comments on this topic. One of my favourite presenters, bright, down to earth and with a distinctive Northern voice was Brian Redhead, a stalwart of the programme for many years
@lenmasterman. Agreed. Redhead was a great.