:: Dinah Maiden
Presenter, 1970-90
How did you come to Radio Sheffield?
By invitation, following my time at local papers the Sheffield Morning Telegraph, Barnsley Chronicle and Rotherham Advertiser.
The Radio Sheffield team on an outside broadcast
What have you done since leaving Radio Sheffield?
I still live in the area.Μύ I've DREAMED of cruising the world, THOUGHT of writing a best-seller and IMAGINED being a star turn with my dog at Crufts.
Proudest moment at Radio Sheffield?
Being chosen as the station's representative for a one-off presentation of Woman's Hour from Manchester, and being privileged to inform the nation that "we are interrupting this programme to go over to the House of Commons where the Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, is about to make a statement".ΜύShe announced the Falklands War.ΜύI was also proud to spearhead the station's input into the campaign to raise Β£160,000 for a special baby care unit at the Northern General Hospital.
Dinah Maiden
What about funny memories?
With hindsight a funny memory was when the entire station was evacuated after I received a suspicious package. The police arrived and opened the package to find several loaves of homemade bread, teacakes, scones and a lemon curd roll from an 81-year-old listener.
Another never-to-be-forgotten experience was interviewing Dame Edna Everage.ΜύShe recommended crushed strawberries and cucumber slices on the eyelids as a beauty treatment.
What is your favourite place in the area?
The Rivelin Valley. Standing and looking down it on a summer's day, I don't think there's anywhere lovelier in the world. It's where I go for my spiritual renewal.
Dinah Maiden
What do you do with your free time?
I love walking the dog, gardening, reading, listening to music, and writing pleading/nasty/whingeing letters, when all else fails, to MPs, MEPs, local councillors and the Gas Board.
How would you sum up your Radio Sheffield experience?
An eye-opening 20 years filled with a procession of the most wonderful, irritating, brilliant, daft, stubborn, generous, boring, funny characters you could wish to meet, or avoid. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
