Dead Air

You know you love your job when it’s four in the morning, you’ve dragged yourself out of bed, you’re on your way into the office and you’re still smiling. I’m not saying I’d always feel the same - as the years went on it became more of a struggle, especially when it was cold, wet and winter - but in that honeymoon period we all enjoy for a few years, it was no trouble at all to be out on the road just as dawn was breaking over the Cleveland Hills.

After a couple of years producing radio shows and driving the radio car to events and happenings, I was finally given the chance to present programmes instead. At first, I didn’t get my own show - I was “the fill-in”, which involved filling in for everyone who was on holiday. Sometimes it was the 1960s music show on a Saturday lunchtime; at other times, the mid-morning current affairs programme.

Back in the days when there were more staff working there than could fit into the back seat of a Fiat 500, local radio was all things to all people. There were classical music shows, heavy rock programmes, ones full of folk, funk, farming news or the sounds of the fabulous forties. To be considered good enough for your own show, you had to present whatever they threw at you.

Once, when the manager at Radio Cleveland - in a prescient move - sacked a breakfast show presenter, I was told to fill in for a few weeks until the new one arrived. It meant being in the office by five in the morning. In my early twenties, this was an unholy time to be awake unless it meant I hadn’t gone to bed yet, in which case I’d have viewed the night as a raging success.

I lived about twenty minutes from the studios. The drive took me down winding country roads, over a humpback bridge and onto the A19 towards Middlesbrough. On the whole journey I passed a grand total of one set of traffic lights - and they were always green.

One summer morning I got up, jumped in the shower and was out of the door within ten minutes. A lack of hot water in the house meant life was hard, but showers were quick. I fired up the Quattro - well, to be more accurate, the white Vauxhall Cavalier. Shades deployed. Sunroof open. Stereo blasting. It was the 1980s. Shoulder pads and big hair were the height of fashion, and life couldn’t get much better.

I glided down the road, swooped over the humpback bridge and, standing in the road directly in front of me, staring straight ahead, was a big fat pheasant.

It gulped.

So did I, as I hit it at 50 mph.

The impact numbed me. Time stalled. Then, through the open sunroof, I watched the sky briefly turn black.

The pheasant - launched like a missile - completed its arc and fell back to earth, straight through the sunroof, landing with a thud on the back seat.

I remember thinking, Wow. What are the chances of that happening?

Silence.

A missed heartbeat.

Then all hell broke loose.

The bird wasn’t dead.

It was very much alive, exploding into a flailing mass of wings, feathers and blood - oh, so much blood - turning the inside of the car into a slaughterhouse, spraying the seats, windows, roof and me like a possessed hosepipe on acid.

There’s a scene in Pulp Fiction where Mr Wolf surveys the inside of a car after someone’s been killed and calmly explains how he’s going to clean it up. You get the picture.

I scrambled out and stared through the window until the flapping stopped. A blood-covered wing slapped against the glass and slowly slid down. I had no idea what to do. Were pheasants licensed? Was I supposed to ring a gamekeeper? My hands were covered in blood. The front of the Cavalier was completely caved in. How could a pheasant cause so much damage?

My mind raced. What if the police drove past and stopped to help? I’d be the lead item on my own nine o’clock bulletin.

Carefully opening the rear door, I dragged the bird out and unceremoniously dumped it on the grass verge before wiping my hands on my trousers.

I jumped back in and shot off down the A19.

Happily, the roads were clear and the show went out on time.

Sadly, the pheasant didn’t.