“Good morning.  It’s 7am on Saturday 23^rd April 1988.  Broadcasting to the Leicester Royal Infirmary, this, for the very first, is Hospital Radio Fox.”

That was how Bob Machon started our first programme when Radio Fox first went on air over twenty years ago, but those first moments were the culmination of a lot of hard work and fundraising.

Originally the Leicester Royal Infirmary had been served by Soar Valley Broadcasting, but financial problems had led to the closure of that station in the early eighties.  That left the Royal as the largest hospital in the country without its own dedicated hospital radio service, a situation that was to change when the three founder members of Radio Fox – including honorary member Graham Coley – met in a pub in Anstey to discuss the feasibility of launching a new hospital radio service in Leicester.

Initially the founder members wanted to start a service at the now closed Groby Road hospital or at the Glenfield.  Sadly there wasn’t room at either hospital for studios, but a portacabin had been set aside at the Royal for just that use.  Agreement was reached with the local health authority and fundraising to kit out the new studio began in earnest.

Space in the portacabin was limited to an office and just one studio, so at the start Radio Fox was only able to broadcast at weekends.  The first day of broadcasting was particularly memorable because power cuts at the Royal meant that we could only stay on air thanks to a generator, which proved so temperamental Bob Machon – dressed in a dinner jacket for the occasion – had to keep restarting it!

As the months progressed more parts of the Royal were connected up to Radio Fox and in 1990 a landline was installed to allow us to broadcast to the Glenfield Hospital.  On air the number of shows we broadcast were increasing too, and it was clear that Radio Fox would need to find bigger accommodation.  Although the portacabin had its charm (and was conveniently located behind the Victory pub) it was freezing cold in winter and boiling hot in summer; not a situation conducive to making good programmes.

A suite of rooms within the former Knighton Street nurses home was allocated to Fox with enough space for two studios, a dedicated record library, office/meeting room and engineering room.  On an early visit to the new site Steve England opened the door to what is now studio one and discovered a nurse asleep in bed – nobody had told her the rooms were now ours!  Being the perfect gentleman Steve quietly shut the door and left her in peace.

It took four years to prepare the new rooms for Radio Fox, which included reconfiguring the space allocated for the studios and building a large connecting window between them.  Finally in August 1995 we were ready to begin broadcasting from our new home although it would take a further two years for both studios to become operational.  Studio One was renamed ‘The Robin Tralau Studio’ in memory of our longest serving Chairman, who did much to publicise Radio Fox to the wider world prior to his death in 1996.

1997 saw the introduction of mini disc players to the studios and a year later we celebrated our first ever success at the national Hospital Radio Awards (see separate story below).  In 1999, Radio Fox teamed up with the Leicester Comedy Festival for a twenty eight day stint on FM to Leicester and surrounding areas, a project which considerably raised the station’s profile and made us many new friends.  In what was a memorable year, Radio Fox relaunched in August with our first new jingles package since 1988 and ended the year with a very successful Christmas special that remains our most listened to programme and included over thirty live on air calls in just two hours.  That was thanks to the introduction of Patientline (now Hospedia) at the Royal which meant almost every ward could hear us for the first time.

Further Hospital Radio Awards success was achieved in 2000 and we have featured in the Awards every year since.  2002 saw Radio Fox increase its broadcast hours to midnight seven days a week (previously the station had come off air at 10pm) and a year later we celebrated our fifteenth birthday by inviting Bob Machon back to recreate the very first programme.  Bob enjoyed it so much he returned to present a regular programme.

Improvements to the studios meant we could broadcast split programmes to each hospital for the first time in 2004; primarily this facility is used for request shows but has also been used during Christmas Specials and when Leicester City and Leicester Tigers are at home at the same time.

Perhaps the biggest event in our history happened in 2005 when Radio Fox began broadcasting twenty four hours a day, seven days a week for the first time.  This was thanks to a major fundraising drive that allowed us to purchase a computer playout system and appropriately, it was switched on on our 18^th birthday.

In 2007 Radio Fox enjoyed its first ever gold success at the Hospital Radio Awards when Sandy Iliff picked up the top prize in the Female Presenter of the Year category.  Two years later there were more celebrations when the station won gold in the Station of the Year category, meaning that we were judged to be the best hospital radio service in the UK.  This attracted a lot of media interest included an appearance on BBC1’s ‘East Midlands Today’ which you can see on our Youtube channel.  Inbetween this awards successes Radio Fox went back on FM to celebrate our 20^th birthday.  The broadcast, which took place to the whole of Leicester during May and June 2008, raised the station’s profile again and attracted a lot of praise for our friendly presenters and wide ranging music policy.

Radio Fox is a registered charity and all our achievements over the years have been possible thanks to the hard work and fundraising efforts of our members, who are all volunteers.  If you fancy getting involved, check out the getting in touch section of the website!

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