‘You’re fired.’
I stared at the man sitting opposite me. The programme controller of St Kevin’s hospital radio. Barry Dingle, or ‘Bazza’ as he insisted we call him. No one ever did.
‘What?’ I said. ‘But I haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘I … I know that, Spike. But you can’t work here any more. I’m sorry.’
What kind of a man sacks an eleven-year-old boy from his dream job? A monster, that’s who.
‘Why?’ I spluttered. Later, on the bus home, when I replayed this moment in my mind (as I will do for the rest of my days), there were many things I wished I’d said to the bald-headed man ruining my life. Such as:
1. You’re a monster.
2. Technically, you can’t actually fire me as I’m a volunteer.
3. My mum said you live in your mum’s basement. Who’s the bigger loser here?
4. Have you got any tissues as I think I’m going to cry?
But I didn’t say any of that. Annoyingly, my face was letting me down. My bottom lip had started to wobble, and my eyes flooded with tears. The tears of a dreamer who’d just had his heart RIPPED out, put into a blender and then force-fed back to him. My fantasy of being a famous DJ with a detached house and gravel driveway (and personalised gold-plated headphones) was no more.
Barry Dingle was firing me from the only hour of joy I had in my life, my radio show.
The Wacky Kids’ Wonder Hour, Saturday mornings at 6am. Maybe the name of the show hadn’t helped. For the record, it came from ‘Bazza’, not me. But I loved doing that show. It was sixty minutes when for once I felt I was funny and good at something. It was the highlight of my week.
Well, it had been.
Sure, it was only hospital radio, and most people don’t even know hospitals have their own radio stations. But they do: run, for the most part, by overly enthusiastic volunteers with bad breath and sandals. The thing was, I’d read in all the interviews with my favourite DJs that they’d started off in hospital radio. I collected these interviews in a special folder under my bed, safe from my sister’s prying eyes. Codenamed ‘My Favourite Stamps’. I’d learned my lesson after she found a notebook I’d been practising my autograph in.
I thought I was following in these DJs’ footsteps. Not any more. Me getting fired was also going to be bad news for the fellow members of our AV Club at school. The AV (Audio Visual) Club is an after-school club run by Mr Taggart. There are only three members: me and my best mates, Artie and Holly, and each week Mr Taggart does his best to school us in the magical worlds of broadcasting, video and print.
There had been a fourth member, Dave Simpson, but he quit for Jazz Club. We could hear them practising, and I’m no expert, but it sounded like they were all playing from different pages in different books.
I liked to think I was held in some regard by Mr Taggart and the AV Club, as I was actually doing radio. Spike Hughes – the country’s youngest radio DJ.
Now I was the youngest sacked radio DJ. A scandal like this could ruin the AV Club. I just hoped we were strong enough to survive.
The bald-headed monster man started to speak again, his coffee-flavoured breath hitting me in the face. Ugh.
‘It’s awkward, Spike, and I feel dreadful having to do this face to face. I was going to tell your mum, but …’
He drifted off, a thousand-yard stare appearing in his eyes. This was a look I’d seen a million times when people said the ‘M’ word.
Mum.
It was the look of fear, and my mum was the source of it. A force to be reckoned with. Confident, protective – very protective – and always on the lookout for possible danger in everything around me and my sister. She’s a ward manager at the hospital and that’s how I got the show. My mum ‘persuaded’ Barry Dingle to give me an hour on the radio. Her ability to get people to do what she wants is, according to my dad, ‘nothing short of a superpower’. Running a hospital ward is the ideal job for my mum. It puts her in charge, looking after people, and it provides her with an endless supply of grisly stories to justify her need to protect us from the modern world.
‘See, just today we had a boy come in who got a skateboard for his birthday. Yes, it seemed like fun to him, Spike, for the two minutes before he fell off … Now he only has one eye, one leg and no arms. They have to pull him around everywhere on the skateboard.’
No, Barry Dingle wouldn’t have dared give my mum this news or she would have done something to him that would’ve made him a patient at St Kevin’s. I’m not saying she would’ve physically hurt him. No. She would’ve made him hurt himself, using her special powers.
Bazza started to clear his throat to bring his attention back to the job in hand: sacking me.
‘You know I like you, Spike, and you’re a talented kid; you’re a bit odd but I don’t mind that. It’s just that we’ve got the results back from our yearly audience review. It tells me which shows are the most popular and which aren’t … and that leads me to your show … I’ll just come out and say it …’
‘What?’ I snapped, defensively.
‘It has no listeners. Actually, that’s not true – there was one.’
‘Well, that’s good; you always said the key to radio is to imagine you’re talking to just one person,’ I reasoned.
‘Yes, but it turns out that one person was an elderly lady called Beryl who had sadly passed away and no one turned her radio off. Tragic really.’
Oh.
‘Look,’ Barry went on, ‘I can’t justify your kids’ show any more. The show after you, Graham’s Gardening Gang, is our biggest by far so I’m extending his slot by an hour.’
This was even worse news. The shame of it. Graham Bingham is a really patronising old man with a huge beard that has bits of food in it, and on one occasion I think I saw a small mouse in there. Graham actually resembles a garden gnome. All that’s missing is a red hat and a fishing rod.
I was being sacked and replaced by a show about allotments and hedges, presented by a gnome.
‘When’s my last show?’ I asked, thinking at least I could have a big send-off.
‘You’ve just done it.’
And that’s how my career in radio ended. The dream was over. Part of me wished it had never begun. How cruel to be given hope and then have it taken away. By a gardening show. My dad always said supporting England at football was like this.
‘It’s the hope that kills you, son.’
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