Читать книгу The Mumpreneur Diaries: Business, Babies or Bust - One Mother of a Year - Mosey Jones - Страница 17

When I was doing PR for a book I wrote a while back, I did the rounds of BBC local radio. This usually meant sitting in a little booth at Western House in central London, listening to a DJ in a far-off land via a pair of headphones and having a surreally pally conversation with the wall. One of the interviews, however, was with my local station, BBC Radio Berkshire, so it was just as easy to pop down the road and grace them with my presence. We had such a hoot that they invited me back again, and again, and again. What was a one-off puff for a book has now turned into a regular Friday slot doing the papers with Henry Kelly, the avuncular Irish broadcaster of Classic FM, Game for a Laugh and Going for Gold fame.

Though all of my stints are unpaid, I enjoy my weekly banter over the airwaves. Every now and again I entertain thoughts of sliding effortlessly into a job as a presenter but mostly I stick to the reality, which is that it’s a bit of a laugh and handy if I ever need somewhere to plug anything. In fact, I don’t fancy the thought of being replaced, which is why I go back less than a month after Boy Two’s birth.

Throughout last year, my growing bump had been the sole topic of conversation on Henry’s show. He delighted in telling me that ‘boys make a disgrace of ye’. When I occasionally turned up on the Saturday show too, the DJ looked petrified that I’d pop on his studio floor while he was inadequately stocked with towels. Henry also kept threatening to send the radio car round to the Royal Berks maternity ward for a live outside broadcast of the happy event. I had to subtly inform him that of the emergency numbers pinned to the fridge, the outside broadcast unit at BBC Radio Berkshire was not one.

They probably think it’s mad that a woman with a three-week-old baby is so keen to get back on air. But, now that I have some possible projects in the pipeline and there is still a rabid PR girl lurking inside, I’m damned if I’m going to let free airtime pass me by.

The bonus is that Henry’s Producer Man is quite happy to look after Boy Two while I’m on air. Breastfeeding, burping and nappy changing aren’t quite compatible with companionable banter on-air about the state of Reading Football Club’s relegation prospects. I’m not at all worried about how Boy Two will react to a bosomless stranger for an hour or so, but how is poor old Producer Man to cope? Since the episode in the hairdresser’s, Boy Two has been affectionately renamed ‘the vomit comet’.