Hi, I'm Martin and every Monday evening at 6 pm, I present a programme called Solid Gold. I've been at Stoke Mandeville Hospital Radio since January 1979 (I think it's about time I went home!) And I've been presenting Solid Gold since 1990.

I play nothing else but the best music from the past 50 years and features on the show include the 'Introquiz', and 'The Mystery Year'

The very first programme I did for Hospital Radio was to present a 'new release' show, (I'm still playing some of those records, but they are classic oldies now!)
After that I went on to present request shows for a few years before moving on to do a chat show type programme.

One of the most serious interviews that I did was with Norman Tebitt who had been injured in a bomb explosion in Brighton where the Tory party were at conference, soon after I interviewed Noel Edmonds which was entirely different, We were both cracking jokes like two school kids.

Other guests on my show have included The late Norman Wisdom, Randal And Hopkirk star Kenneth Cope, Annie Haslam from Renaissance,Tony Hadley, Brian Nasher Nash, Members of The Move, ELO, and Wizzard, John Craven, Geoffrey Palmer, The late Paul Daniels, Tim Rice, John Otway, Mike Read, Tony Blackburn, Clem Cattini, and Colin Baker who was the 6th Doctor in the BBCs Dr Who series at the time,and many others, I also interviewed David Icke which was quite interesting.

I've seen many changes here over the years, when I first started we were only playing records, and to find songs that were requested we had to flick through index cards, over the years that has all changed with CDs and computers, but we still have a record deck in the studio and I still like to play some vinyl on the show at times.

I still do the odd interview every now and then; I recently interviewed John Otway on stage in Aylesbury's Market Square. John also performed his hits "Cor baby that's really free" and Bunsen Burner" to the delight of the crowd.

Another one I did with an audience was when I interviewed rock star Roy Wood in a pub; Roy's a big hero of mine so I was really pleased to do that one. It was a bit weird doing the interview in front of a crowd in the middle of a pub though.
A few years before that, I actually appeared on live TV with Roy, It was on Chris Evans's Channel 4 show "Don't Forget Your Toothbrush" He was booked to play a couple of songs on the show and they asked him if he knew anyone who could be in a quiz with him answering questions about his career and he gave them my phone number. I won the quiz; the prize was a pair of his red sunglasses!

On December the 4th 2018 at a party to celebrate 40 years of Stoke Mandeville Hospital Radio I was presented with a 40 year long service certificate by Ian Pinnell from the Hospital Broadcasting Association (It was a few weeks early as I actually started here in January 1979 but Ian was here anyway to attend our celebration and to hand out other long service certificates on behalf of the HBA)