HULL TIMES Kingstown radio, the broadcasting service for Hull's hospitals, has been celebrating Hospital radio Week.
Kingstown Radio is the best medicine around, runs the advertising blurb for Hull's hospital radio service.
The station offers a valuable and important service by providing Hull's hospital patients with a vital lifeline to the outside world.
This year is a very special year as it is 21 years old - and it has certainly come a long way since it first hit the airwaves.
The forerunner to Kingstown Radio was a sporting service broadcast from Boothferry park by Hull FC and the Hull Telephone Department.
Then the Hull Tape Recorder Club, formed by Ken Fulstow, started a programme. This involved volunteers visiting the wards to ask patients what sort of music they would like.
They would then tape the music and take back the recorder for the patients to listen to.
Under this system it used to take six or seven hours to record a one hour programme.
Eventually, on July 16, 1961, the first official hospital radio programme was broadcast and the very first record to be played was Temptation by the Everly Brothers, which was then top of the charts.
At that time the station broadcast from two rooms above a record shop in Hessle Road.
In 1969 they moved to an attic in Wellington Street but unfortunately a tramp set the place on fire leaving a hole in the roof.
The volunteers managed to carry on even if it meant wearing sou'westers and wellingtons as protection against the incoming rain.
And other times presenters had to remove dead pigeons from the equipment before they could speak into the microphones.
So, when the station moved to its present home above the Red Cross headquaters in Beverley Road, the volunteers described it as new-found luxury. The roof did not leak and it was warm in winter.
At that time more than £1,000 was spent on new equipment and converting the room into a studio.
Eventually everything was ready for the first programme to be broadcast from there during March 1973.
Today Kingstown Radio broadcasts to five hospitals along special telephone landlines, called the Tigerfusion network - Hull Royal Infirmary at Hull and Sutton, Kingston General Hospital, Westwood and Caste Hill. Rediffusion provides the headsets and amplifiers.
Tom Robinson is just one of the presenters who manage to get together 23 hours of music, news, quizzes and interviews.
Said Tom: "We try to give a balanced output of programmes to the patients.
"We also try to get them involved - such as having quizzes, or taking telephone calls live and having a talk-in during the programme."
However, one of the most popular programmes seems to be the request show on Sunday, and Tom estimates that they deal with about 5,200 requests a year.
The most requested record is The Old Rugged Cross with any Jim Reeves records coming a close second. In third place is Abide With Me and fourth place is any Vera Lynn record. Cliff Rochard and Elvis often crop up too.
Kingstown Radio adopts a professional attitude towards its service. It has its own training programme based on the national radio network system.
At the end of three months the trainee has to undergo an audition in front of the programnme planner and two members of the Hospital Broadcasting Service.
"All our programmes are done as if they are going out to a million people," said Tom.
Kingstown Radio is particuarly proud of the exclusive interviews it has manged to get when famous names have visitied the city - such as Shakin' Stevens. Other interviews have included Little and large, and Judie Tzuke.
Continued Tom: "Our biggest expansion has been in outside broadcasting. We are now hoping to introduce a live religious broadcast into our programme. That is the only thing we don't do."
Finance is always a main consideration and the money is raised from membership subscriptions, donations, and special fund-raising events.
As part of its 21st birthday celebrations members held a 50-hour broadcasting marathon to raise money for the Hospital Broadcasting Service and the NSPCC.
Also during its 21st anniversary year Ken Fulstow was made the first life member and president. The station is very proud of Ken who played an important part in setting up the National Association of Hospital Broadcasting Organisations.
During this week an exhibition in a display window at Binns has indicated just what Kingstown Radio is all about.
and to round things off it will broadcast from the window all day tomorrow.
The programme is: 10: Good Morning, A selection of music. 11: Kingstown radio with sporting guests. 12: Kingstown Radio 21 in 82. Tapes of early programmes. 1: Flat Spin. Requests programme. 2: Afternoon Dial. Musical Programme. 4: Sound Stream. Music Of Today.
August 6th, 1982
It's the best medicine in hospital
And this year is extra special as the station is celebrating its 21st birthday.
An exhibition is one of Binn' display windows has shown passers-by just what the station's volunteers do.
But the highlight is tomorrow when Kingstown Radio will be broadcasting all day from the store.
Reporter Val Watts visited the studios in Beverley Road to find out more about the station.
And the thousands of patients lying in their hospital beds around the city would probably agree.