Radio Songs #49 - The Ghost (Part 3)

A Racks Room (not the one mentioned below)

The more I write about this section of my radio story, the harder it gets. Because I know what my reaction would be to the things I'm describing when it comes to "the ghost"... if I hadn't been there and seen / experienced it myself, I would have been sceptical at the very least, dubious... maybe I'd even think the person telling me the story had somehow lost some credibility in my eyes. Perhaps you feel the same.

I almost feel like skipping the major events because of this. But I've started now, so I may as well finish. Let's get on with The Racks Room then.

There were four studios in the station. Studio A was the main on-air studio. Studio B was used for the station's AM service, but only a couple of live shows a day came from there, the rest came from another station. Studio C was comprod - commercial production - where I'd spend much of my later radio career. And then, in the middle of them all, was the room where I sat and answered the phones. MCR. The Master Control Room. Makes it sound very fancy, but it was just another studio. Its central position made it ideal for controlling or supporting the other two on-air studios. It was also the studio that news readers often read live local bulletins from, although there weren't any of those at night time.

There were two ways into MCR. The main corridor led down one side of Studio A. That was the corridor I often saw someone walking down when I was in Studio A alone on a Saturday night, driving the Love Zone. It was always out of the corner of my eye because the desk didn't face the corridor, you were side on to that window. But I wasn't the only one who saw movement in that corridor. The phone-in presenters would often report it - sometimes buzzing through on the talkback and either telling me, "Someone's coming," or asking me, "Who's that?" Sometimes somebody did arrive. One of my colleagues calling in for a chat or to ask me to do something for them. More often than not no one arrived. Because there was no one else in the building.

In MCR then, there were three windows. One, facing forward into Studio A. One to the left, Studio B (most often empty at night time). One to the right, Studio C (always empty at night). There were also two doors - the one from the corridor I've just described, and another door into Studio C. (Studio B couldn't be accessed directly from MCR, you had to walk all the way around Studio A.) But there was another way in and out of Studio C. A back way. This led past The Racks Room.

This was the room where the studio audio was processed before being sent to the transmitter. It was full of large, quietly humming machines. This was the pre-digital age; I imagine nowadays the Racks Room probably fits comfortably inside one pc the size of a matchbox. There were all kinds of other machines in the Racks Room too. I never understood most of them. All I knew was that I didn't like going in there, certainly not alone, and certainly not at night.

There was a passage that led from Studio C, past the Racks Room, straight to entrance of the building. If I had to go that way at night, I'd hurry - sprint. There was something wrong about that room. It never felt right. It got really cold and really creepy and sometimes I couldn't even go that way. One night I turned towards Studio C and saw a white figure walking straight towards me. I screamed and they were gone. I couldn't tell you what they looked like, the details were vague at the time and haven't stayed in my head 20 years later. Possibly it was just a reflection or a trick of the light. I didn't think that then, but I could probably convince myself of it now.

For a long while after that, I couldn't even work in MCR. I started answering the phones in Studio B. I kidded myself I was safer in there...



If anyone's expecting me to play Rush - Spirit of Radio now, you'll have to wait. That may seem an obvious choice, but the lyrics aren't about ghosts at all, and that song will be much better suited to another chapter of my radio saga. Instead, here's some Tom Petty. You can't go wrong with Tom...