My friend Eric Simpson, who has died aged 71, left an indelible and unusual legacy through his involvement with the Hospital Broadcasting Service (HBS), the voluntary organisation airing programmes to hospitals across the Glasgow area.
While hospital radio was seen as a lark for some and a stepping stone to being a professional DJ for others, Eric’s mission was to ensure that the listener received the best HBS could offer, and he had a good ear for new talent.
The BBC presenter and announcer Charles Nove began his career at HBS. He recalled: “Eric took the view that, voluntary organisation or not, the highest professional standards were the aiming point. His critiques and pointers were often ‘direct’, but they were also right.” The BBC Radio 2 presenter Ken Bruce, who also began at HBS, said: “I would have had no career without the help and guidance of Eric; he was my biggest single influence and I owe him much.”
Eric could be persuasive. I recall the day he drove round and round my home, refusing to let me out of his car until I promised to make a demo tape for Radio Clyde. I was already making short features for the BBC, but Eric decided that more radical action would be better for me. He was correct: it led to my first work as a professional presenter.
Eric was born in Glasgow, son of Alice and Norman, and spent his formative years in Perthshire, where his father was a publican. It was an era when radio had yet to be eclipsed by TV in mass popularity, and Eric was captivated by the magic of the medium.
Although he had a long career as a librarian and teacher, from 1974 until 2005 at Anniesland Further Education College, where he rose to be head of Metro (multimedia education training and resource opportunities) and learning resources, his greater contribution was to hospital radio. Eric resigned as chairman of HBS in 2003, but his resolve to withdraw from broadcasting did not last long. Soon he was wooed back to lend his ear and insight to the training of new presenters.
In his later years he spent winters in New Zealand, sparked initially by the presence there of his sister, Norma, who survives him, and where he had built a firm network of friends; but when he was in Scotland, HBS matters were never far away from his thoughts, even while he was being treated for the non-Hodgkin lymphoma that proved terminal.
Few people prepare the order of service for their own funeral. Eric did: surely a way of ensuring his high standards were maintained.
