I was shocked on Tuesday when I heard that Steve Wright had died.
I’d just pulled up in the car outside a shop when it was announced on the radio news. I uttered an audible ‘no, no’ before getting out and then walking around the Co-op like a tit in a trance.
Sudden death hits you like that, even when it’s someone you’ve never met. To many of us, Steve was like a member of the family. He was always there. We grew up with him. A broadcaster with great skill and flair, he was hardworking, funny and, well, nice.
He seemed a kind person – and those who knew him say he really was – and his broadcasting style appeared fun and effortless. And when things appear effortless you can guarantee they’re completely the opposite. Steve Wright was a true professional, a perfectionist in his craft.
He always had that knack of saying exactly what we were thinking, such as referring to the ‘winking’ line after this song was played (a record that makes most sane people cringe every time they hear it).
Or pointing out that, contrary to what Carl Douglas sang, surely not everybody was kung fu fighting.
I stopped listening to Radio 2 in the afternoons after Steve Wright was dropped. Always the professional, he never complained about the BBC’s decision, but it must have affected him deeply. I was furious. For so long, weekday afternoons were Steve Wright. And we loved it.
These days, I’m a BBC Radio 6 Music listener anyway, so it didn’t take much for me to tune into Craig Charles in the afternoons instead.
It’s my station of choice, bringing me new music and genres during the week and old favourites at the weekends with the schoolboy fun of Radcliffe and Maconie, the wonderful jazz, blues and world music of Cerys Matthews while I’m doing the ironing and peeling the spuds for the roast and then Guy Garvey’s Finest Hour, which is sublime for a cosy Sunday afternoon.
There are times, though, when Lauren Laverne’s got some rapping track going full blast and Mr Grigg walks into the kitchen that I have to switch over to Greatest Hits Radio.
I’m not averse to a bit of rap – my nephew will kill me but he was a great rapper in his day (he’s the first one on this video) – but it’s a boundary Mr Grigg refuses to cross.
He has his phone on today for Greatest Hits’ Radio’s ‘Make Me A Winner‘ – thousands of pounds of tax-free cash to be won every weekday!
All you have to do is enter online and if you get a call from the station after 3pm, answer within five rings but don’t say hello and say ‘Make Me A Winner’ you win the daily prize.
I have asked him if anyone has ever just said ‘hello’ and lost the lot but he says he doesn’t think so. But I know what will happen if Mr Grigg gets that call.
It’ll be like the local legend of the silver table my yarn spinner of a grandfather used to tell. The table was at the bottom of a well and all you had to do was pull it up in silence and the treasure was yours.
Gramp did it once, apparently, with a group of friends. They managed to secure ropes around the glittering prize and had almost hauled it to the surface when one of them uttered the immortal words ‘there the bugger be’ and the table clattered down to the bottom of the well, never to be seen again.
What will happen when Mr Grigg gets the call from Greatest Hits Radio is that he’ll dismiss the unknown number showing up on his phone as from a scammer or will pick it up and yell ‘*!*! off you, bastard’ and blow Ruby’s dog whistle down the line.
And there we’d be, having coming face to face with a hundred thousand pounds only for it to scatter in the gale of his expletives.
Radio has been a part of my life and, I suspect, yours for what seems like forever. What ever station you choose -and, for me, it’s nearly always a music station apart from the Today programme in the morning on Radio 4 – it’s the intimacy of the broadcaster speaking to you that makes the difference. Steve Wright was a master at that. We will miss him. Greatly.
Maddie Grigg 