Last week Oxfordshire's Jack FM broadcast its breakfast show, 'Jack's Morning Glory', live from Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
This was done with the support of the Royal British Legion, and BFBS Radio and is the first time a local radio station has broadcast back to the UK from a war zone.
Before leaving for Helmand, Jack's programme director Sue Carter explained the reason for the trip as: "Our aim is to experience a taste of life ‘in theatre’ and meet up with many of Oxfordshire’s serving troops who are out there."
The whole exercise was the best part of a year in planning and included all four team members having to be kitted out with body armour and helmets; these were also labelled with their names and blood type!
During the week there were some moving moments, especially when Jack was able to reunite, if only temporarily, some serving troops from Oxfordshire with family back home.
As Sue Carter described it in a blog post: "I loved watching Matthew Cullinane from RAF Benson’s face when we managed to link he and his fiancée Sophie together for a chat, Matthew sitting with us here in the BFBS studios while Sophie was at JACKfm on Woodstock Road… and how he lit up when she told him she’d felt their baby kick the other day for the first time…. Similarly the twinkle in Verity Skinner’s eye when she managed to talk to her parents who had brought her dogs into the Jack studio…… But even more special was the heartfelt thank you that both Matthew and Verity gave me as departed the BFBS studios to head back into their busy world. Seeing how important those few extra minutes of talk time was to them meant a lot."
As well as the daily programmes, the team were busy uploading photos and video clips Jack's Afghanistan 2010 micro-site, as well as blogging their thoughts and impressions.
From a listener's point of view I found the week's programmes managed to convey a strong sense of what life must be like for the troops on active service in Afghanistan and produced some compelling radio.
For all of the team this will undoubtedly have been a great experience and I, for one, believe they can all feel proud of what they have achieved this past week.
This was done with the support of the Royal British Legion, and BFBS Radio and is the first time a local radio station has broadcast back to the UK from a war zone.
Before leaving for Helmand, Jack's programme director Sue Carter explained the reason for the trip as: "Our aim is to experience a taste of life ‘in theatre’ and meet up with many of Oxfordshire’s serving troops who are out there."
The whole exercise was the best part of a year in planning and included all four team members having to be kitted out with body armour and helmets; these were also labelled with their names and blood type!
During the week there were some moving moments, especially when Jack was able to reunite, if only temporarily, some serving troops from Oxfordshire with family back home.
As Sue Carter described it in a blog post: "I loved watching Matthew Cullinane from RAF Benson’s face when we managed to link he and his fiancée Sophie together for a chat, Matthew sitting with us here in the BFBS studios while Sophie was at JACKfm on Woodstock Road… and how he lit up when she told him she’d felt their baby kick the other day for the first time…. Similarly the twinkle in Verity Skinner’s eye when she managed to talk to her parents who had brought her dogs into the Jack studio…… But even more special was the heartfelt thank you that both Matthew and Verity gave me as departed the BFBS studios to head back into their busy world. Seeing how important those few extra minutes of talk time was to them meant a lot."
As well as the daily programmes, the team were busy uploading photos and video clips Jack's Afghanistan 2010 micro-site, as well as blogging their thoughts and impressions.
From a listener's point of view I found the week's programmes managed to convey a strong sense of what life must be like for the troops on active service in Afghanistan and produced some compelling radio.
For all of the team this will undoubtedly have been a great experience and I, for one, believe they can all feel proud of what they have achieved this past week.
(L-R: Greg Burke, Trevor Marshall, Rosie Tratt and Sue Carter)
Jack's team have done fantastic work this week. Lovely to see the video and text they've incorporated to their Afgh-blog.
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