When Laurence Reed, the BBC’s longest-serving local radio phone-in host, first opened up the phone lines at Radio Cornwall 25 years ago, he swiftly discovered the issues that really got his audience excised.
“Dog mess! Twenty-five years on, they still talk about dog mess. They talk about rubbish collections, the closure of public toilets on a popular beach, street lighting, pot holes … ”
“Putting Covid aside, it has always been the little things that impact people’s lives,” said Reed, 64, as he prepared to sit behind the microphone on his award-winning show for the last time.
“I can talk about Donald Trump, and maybe I get one or two callers. I talk about dog mess on the beach, and you get loads.”
On air five days a week, taking some 5,000 calls a year over 25 years, Reed has been a constant presence in Cornish homes; a combination of agony uncle, consumer affairs champion, counsellor, friend, and – crucially, he says – entertaining agent provocateur.
After announcing his last show would be on Friday 6 November, the phones rang off the hook, with many in tears at news of his imminent departure. “They’ve heard me talk about my children, my marriage, my divorce. They have lived and breathed my life, and I’ve become part of their family,” he said, admitting it was the hardest decision to hang up his headphones and take redundancy.
The former mobile DJ began hosting the phone-in show five years after joining Radio Cornwall as a roving reporter, travelling his patch in his old Ford Escort with his huge, first generation mobile phone squeezed between two seats.
Since then he has been uniquely placed to chart the temperature of Cornwall for decades. And, dog mess aside, has noted some major changes in his audience.
“More recently, due to the presence of social media, we are appealing to a younger audience. They phone in about university stuff. They have been phoning in about Covid, and the perception that youngsters aren’t taking it seriously and are spreading it. They come on, and they fiercely defend themselves. It’s great. They are very politically astute, very switched on,” said Reed.
With social media also come the so-called “keyboard warriors”. The shouty brigade, used to hammering out their opinions on Facebook and Twitter. His job has been to persuade them to go on air, then open up the phone lines to let other callers challenge the more crank, conspiracy theories they espouse. If they are too shouty, he said, “they know they will get short shrift.”.
“We don’t censure anyone. They may have outlandish views, but what we’ll do is get others to criticise that view. You get a wonderful tapestry of opinion, with four phone lines open at the same time.”
The internet means the programme’s reach is now global. “Expats, who’ve left Cornwall for Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, New York … they all tune in. They are missing Cornwall, and it’s their window to Cornwall.”
One memorable call was from a terrified musician from Cornwall, caught up in Hurricane Irma in 2017 on the Caribbean island of St Martin. “The hurricane was raging, there was no electricity, no power, people were going around looting. He was in tears, and he thought he was going to die. And his first thought was to phone me to try and help him get off the island. I kid you not, it was a powerful call.” Reed had the local MP on the programme within minutes and 24 hours later the musician was rescued.
He recently won a prestigious award for his mental health phone-ins. He recalls an incident in Penzance, a couple of years ago, when a woman who was a complete stranger, approached him. “She said: ‘Thank you. You’ve saved my life. I was suicidal, I listened to the programme and through that I got help.’ Then she just walked away.”
“It made me realise that you have a responsibility, an absolute responsibility, to get it right. If we don’t, the impact would be horrific.” Some calls worry him so much, he feels compelled to contact the caller to check on them in a personal capacity after he has left the studio.”
Some radio stations believe phone-ins are “old-fashioned”, he said. He thinks it’s “a wonderful opportunity” for the person on the street “to quiz people in power”. He’s had every prime minister since Margaret Thatcher at the mercy of his callers.
Looking back on 25 years, he feels “exhausted”. But he came close to dying from sepsis last year, is still trying to regain his strength, and feels this is the time to swap the studio for the gym, the tennis court, and the bike saddle.
“I’ll be listening from somewhere. I will be pumping iron going ‘what are they saying!!’” he said. So, will he call in himself? “I am not so sure about that,” he laughed.
