Let's welcome our new mayor

Wednesday is a special day for our city. It is Mayor Making when Council Member Sam Crooks will be formally elected Mayor for the coming year.

WELCOME Sir.

One of the first duties of our new Mayor will be to join us at SUNSHINE SMILE DAY. Sam will be with us at Manor Field's Irish Centre at 2pm.

Sam has a record over many years where he has shown love and dedication for Milton Keynes. We are so proud he will be joining the smiles on Sunday 19th May.

Our current Mayor, Martin Petchey, joined us at Sunshine Smile Day last year.

The Mayor cut my hair in the sponsored haircut.  Yes my hair is waiting to be cut again but Mayor Sam you are spared that dubious duty - Smiling Darren will be taking his life in his hands to shave away my hippie locks.

At Sunshine Smile Day 2018 Mayor Martin joined my dear friend Josh, aka The Eternal

Teenager, to receive a cheque from Asda Supermarket for Ronald McDonald House Birmingham.

I am racking my brains to work out how many years ago - a long time I can assure you, since I worked with Mayor Gerry Neil. More than forty I think. Heck, it feels like yesterday.

When Brain Baldry became Mayor he decided he wanted to come to Leon School where his son and daughter were

students, he wanted to address the entire school and explain the Milton Keynes motto.....

BY KNOWLEDGE, DESIGN AND UNDERSTANDING.

I was given the job of organising the visit. I packed 1,200 students and staff into the sports hall. Mayor Brian gave a brilliant talk inspiring the students.

After the assembly Mayor Brian chatted about our infant city. We call Milton Keynes a city but it  is not, we do not have city status. A few weeks after that assembly Mayor Brian was to

host HM Queen Elizabeth II on her visit to Milton Keynes. He hoped that would lead to Milton Keynes being awarded city status. Sadly we are still not officially a city.

In September 2017 Mayor David and Mayoress Susan joined me at the Frog Challenge organised to support Ronald McDonald House Charities.

That was held at Wrigglies Exotic Pets in Old Stratford. Mayoress Susan said to me: You will never get him to touch

that snake !  This is the most viewed picture ever on Google featuring Milton Keynes. 

Mayoress Susan, nobody did tell you did they that the skunk you fell in love with did not have its sweat glands removed.

Here are David and Susan at another event.

While my friend Graham played the music I was tearing round those attending West Bletchley Community Centre's 50th birthday trying to get people out of their chairs to dance. I FAILED but when David and Susan got up the dance floor was packed.

It was at that event Mayoress Susan said to me: It does not matter what good cause you support providing you support one.  Those words have stuck with me ever since

and are central to all I do....playing music to make people smile and support good causes.

David and Susan, during their year of office, supported me in so many different projects. David, I do not wear a tie that often these days but when I do I wear with pride the Milton Keynes tie you gave me.

Christmas 2017, David and Susan supported another project. Leaving

the music they were heading to Milton Keynes Winter Night Shelter. I had never heard of it ! Our civic leaders soon put me right on that and now Milton Keynes Winter Night Shelter is central to the music I play.

Recently David joined me on the radio to play some of his favourite tracks and talk about his year in office. CLICK HERE AND CHECK OUT THE PODCAST

David, you are coming back again soon aren't you ?  Your knowledge and love of music is legendary, I think you should join the team at CRMK and present your own show !

Mayor Martin you joined me in the radio studio on New Year's Day and brought some smiles to our listeners. 

As I tried to wind you up and tease you about your choice of music you kept a straight face to turn the joke back on me !

Here you are in he studio wearing that same chain of office Mayor Baldry wore in the sports hall of Leon School as he explained the Milton Keynes motto: BY KNOWLEDGE,

DESIGN AND UNDERSTANDING.

Opening my laptop at stupid o'clock this morning I have 174 e-mails waiting for my attention, 7 messages on facebook and two text messages on my not so smart phone ! I tell people I do not use a smart phone as I do not want to be at the mercy of all that lot 24/7. The truth is I am not clever enough to make one work, I am quite happy with my Dorro. Dorro - mobile phones for the elderly.

Former Mayor David do you use a smart phone ? All I know is when I send you an e-mail I will get a reply within minutes. I wish I was as efficient as you are.

One of those 174 e-mails awaiting my not quite so efficient attention is one from EMMA. Behind every good Mayor and Mayoress is a BRILLIANT PA.  Out and about yesterday I called EMMA to apologise, wonderful lady who laughed and smiled at my crazy schedule.

So Mayor Sam we look forward to welcoming you to SUNSHINE SMILE DAY on Sunday 19th May. I can see from your picture that you will be leading the smiles.

On behalf of THE SUNSHINE SMILE CREW and all of our music can we play all the very, very best for your year in office.

4.05am - another message has popped into Facebook, It's from listener Steve in Sacramento California - it's 8.05pm yesterday there ! Sam, I'll have a word with Emma to fix for you to join me on the radio, following in the steps of David and Martin, to share your favourite music. All the best for Wednesday.

I LOVE our NHS !

This weeks edition of WAKE UP WITH THE CLASSICS was to be the opera Faust. Last week I had a ticket to watch a performance by The Royal Opera Company but after a rather full day I was just too tired to make it.

For my Thursday show I like to use the word CLASSICS in the broadest possible sense and not to confine the music just to centuries past. A listener suggested I compile a show of kids songs which I have become classics in their own right.

So that's is what we are going to do. I am going to play these

songs today for children who are sick in hospital and for their families.

3.10am right now - at 6am I will be live www.crmk.co.uk - I am really looking forward to two hours of KIDS KLASSICS.  This will be my 143rd show here on Fabulous RADIO CRMK.

As I write today's blog I am listening to the PODCAST from yesterday's show.

THANK YOU to all who listened, checked out the PODCAST and sent in text and on-line messages.

Yesterday afternoon I was in a ward at our local hospital - UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL MILTON KEYNES. Walking into the ward I was hit by a wall - A WALL OF LOVE. I am going to widen today's show to include all the amazing people who work in our NHS.

This is a track from yesterday's show, I have the CD in the car and keep playing it, I just can not get it out of my head !

As I left the ward i spoke with a nurse and said: Are you working all night ?

She replied: I get off at eight but have been here since seven this morning.

Instinctively I said: You'd not find that level of dedication in industry.

You wouldn't would you ?  Just over a year ago I told the CEO of a major company that he should make his head of customer service shadow a nurse at Milton Keynes Hospital and learn from the love they have at the centre of all they do. He did not do that but he did replace his head of customer

services. Yesterday I had to phone his call centre, the genuine level of customer service had risen significantly. I was asked to fill in a questionnaire  after the call - I put a tick in the excellent box for everything.

I LOVE our NHS. When I go back to the ward to visit today I

am going to take in a giant tub of LOVE HEARTS for the nurses there. I will also be playing today's KIDS KLASSICS for them all.

Let's have another track from today's playlist.

Yep, I was too tired to watch Faust last week, it had been a very full day. I spent all afternoon with a company working on a project where patients could manage their appointments

and test results using their phones.

I pulled out my phone - DORRO, MOBILE PHONES FOR THE ELDERLY, and said How do I make it work ?

The guy with camera making a training video nearly dropped it !  I do not think the other members of the review team thought I was being that amusing but I hope I brought a sound contribution to the meeting.

I LOVE OUR NHS.

As a member of the hospital's review team I have wandered round with a clip board making notes and putting ticks in boxes. WARD TWENTY University Hospital Milton Keynes you put a great big tick of love in my heart yesterday.  THANK YOU for the love you were giving to patients.

Another track from today's playlist.

Here's a quick picture from the studio taken during yesterday's show.

Seriously.....

If it were possible to take the LOVE from our NHS and infect society with that wouldn't we have a better world ? Put it into our supermarkets, into every website on

the internet, OMG even into our local authorities !

Here's another picture from yesterday - Smiling Darren.

An eminent consultant once said to me: I do not treat my patients, I CARE for them !

My own GP says: I am not your doctor, I am your friend.

I LOVE OUR NHS.

I play music to MAKE PEOPLE SMILE, BE HAPPY AND TO INSPIRE LOVE FOR GOOD CAUSES.

One of those good causes is our wonderful, amazing, incredible NHS.

I am passionate about the plight of our homeless, rough-sleeping friends and so I do everything I possibly can for Milton Keynes Winter Night Shelter - a good cause with the same spirit as our amazing NHS.

I have never known what it is like to be hungry. I am passionate about the work of The Food Bank - The Love of The Food Bank.

If only we could take the love to be found within our AMAZING NHS and good causes like Milton Keynes Food Bank and Milton Keynes Food Bank then spread that love across all of our society what a fantastic world this would be.

Yesterday - Today - Tomorrow

To quote CRMK presenter John Brandom who presents HEART AND SOUL on this fabulous radio station....... "Do you ever sleep ?"

I don't quite know how to answer that !

I gate crashed John's show last week - do check it out www,crmk.co.uk 2pm to 5pm this afternoon.

I actually met myself coming back yesterday !  I did my show featuring music from THE FABULOUS FIFTIES - I'll play you a track from the show in a moment and you can check the PODCAST if you like. I raced home to begin work only to find I had left my folder with all of the work I needed to do in the studio !

Anyone old enough to remember that from the BBC TV

series ?

Back to the studio - collected the folder then home via Milton Keynes Food Bank's warehouse to drop off some posters and fliers for SMILE DISCO. 

I like to have my five shows here on

CRMK always prepared a week in advance - I am naughty, I had today's show ready but not Thursday so I sat down and prepared KIDS KLASSICS which will be broadcast tomorrow www.crmk.co.uk 6am to 8am.

Here's something from the playlist.

A chat on-line with Smiling Darren to talk about today's show

and a phone call from Lisa who is organising SUNSHINE SMILE DAY.

E-mails to Ronald McDonald House, Milton Keynes Food Bank, Curly Tails Pig Rescue and Milton Keynes Winter Night Shelter.

As Smiling Darren is joining me as my guest for today's show I typed out the playlist then printed it. Normally I scribble it in my illegible style.

Off then to the Food Bank's distribution centre on Bean Hill to drop off some invitations and posters for SUNSHINE SMILE DAY.  Lisa is asking for more posters, printer out of ink so will do that tomorrow.

In the studio for 3am, set everything up for the show then did the most important of all tasks. I checked my bank balance. 

PHEW !  Yes my quarterly investment income is there. Got to lend SUNSHINE SMILE DAY £400 and pay another £125 of bills for the party.

3.45am - at 4.30am I have to drive to pick up Smiling Darren 
then present today's show. Darren, of course, is a LEONITE = one of my former students from the days when I was Head of Year at Leon School. More than one hundred of my former students are involved one way or another in my music.

Today's show is entitled LIFE IS A DISCO SO DANCE. We will be playing disco tracks from the 1970's to thank LEONITES for their support.

Let's have a track shall we.............

As soon as the show is over Darren and I will brave the early traffic to meet LEONITE Lisa and LEONITE Paula, who runs

Milton Keynes Irish Centre which is hosting SUNSHINE SMILE DAY.

Darren and I will then go for breakfast to both sustain ourselves and to talk about my Sponsored Hair Cut which is taking place on SUNSHINE SMILE DAY to support Piggie Alfie who has been adopted by our music.

Dressed from head to toe in SUNSHINE YELLOW Darren

will be cutting my hair - YES head to toe - Darren is going to dye his own hair YELLOW.

Then I need to spend more of my investment income buying printing ink for posters and stamps for a mountain of letters I need to post.  

Will I have any money left I ask myself ? Good job my pension comes in next week.

I've got an e-mail from The Mayor's Secretary regarding SUNSHINE SMILE DAY so I need to answer that. No doubt there will be a mountain of work after the meeting at the Irish Centre.

This is my favourite ABBA track but sadly there is no way I can apply it to today's activities !

For the musically ignorant Andante means slowly.

Back in the studio to broadcast KIDS KLASSICS with every track dedicated to a child sick in hospital.

That's about as far as I have got planning tomorrow.

Actually I forgot, tomorrow I have to finish writing Friday's playlist. The playlist is written but I have to download the music. For Pick Of The Pops our time machine is going back to 10th May 1978 when this was in the charts.

1978 - that was the year I was married to the most patient

and amazing lady in the world - MAUREEN I LOVE YOU SO MUCH...

Yes, it is Wednesday and I will keep my promise to take you out for cream tea this afternoon.

THANK YOU FOR PUTTING UP WITH ME - I will retire some time - I promise - just as soon as I get time to think about it.

A bridge over troubled water

I enjoy doing my overnight radio shows - yesterday was the third.

Promoting the good causes taking part in SUNSHINE SMILE DAY we had listeners in: Turkey, Singapore, Kenya, India, Venezuela,  Philippines, Russia, Malaysia, Germany, USA, Egypt, Brazil, Australia and one or two in the UK !

Readers of the blog promoting the show came from: USA, UK, Russia, Ireland, Germany, Belgium, Canada and Oman...

Overall that's 18 different countries.

That's great but is CRMK listener Paddy really going to come to SUNSHINE SMILE DAY from Australia ! Has a flight been chartered from Kenya or Russia to SUNSHINE SMILE DAY...he he he........

I have split the show into four PODCASTS. It may not make sense but I suggest listeners start with PART FOUR.

Promoting the various good causes was spread across the full ten hours but towards the end I drew everything together. CLICK HERE AND CHECK THE PODCASTS.

But for ALFIE and friends at Curly Tails your tracks were numbers eight and nine on the playlist so you need PODCAST NUMBER ONE !

ALFIE, you and I know the significance of the next track but everyone else will have to listen to the PODCAST to understand !

Trying to drive home after the show was a nightmare, so many of the roads were closed for the Milton Keynes Marathon !

Sara from Milton Keynes Winter Night Shelter I was thinking of you as I negotiated the diversion and put my satnav into overdrive. THANK YOU for promoting SUNSHINE SMILE DAY on the stand.

The blog LOVE HEARTS from last week has had a fair readership.

Putting Winter Night Shelter banners up in the studio brought a lot, I felt, to the show.

Sara and for all runners yesterday let me play something for you.

Sara, you are nowhere near old enough to remember that song !  The Geriatric DJ was fourteen years old when The Spencer Davis Group had a hit with the number.

I have lost a lot of weight !  I can now wear skinny jeans.  Need to slim down the top half of me as well !

Throughout all of the show I had The Food Bank banner rolled out in the studio.

I had taken half a supermarket of food with me to eat during the broadcast, I just nibbled on a packet of crisps. You can have the rest for your friends in need.

I did, however, get through FIVE cans of Pepsi Max.  My music mascot BEN had a can as well.  I never play a note of music without BEN being there with me. BEN represents the love I try to inject into the music, love for good causes - love for the nine good causes I featured on yesterday's overnight show.

Let me play Ben's song....

Can you see on the can of Pepsi Max Ben is holding The Barclays Premier League trophy ?

After the overnight show I broadcast in March Barclays

Premier League listened to the PODCAST. From that they sent our music some amazing and valuable gifts to use on SUNSHINE SMILE DAY.

We will be using these gifts in our raffle at SUNSHINE SMILE DAY to support Ronald McDonald House as it supports families with a child sick in Birmingham's Childrens Hospital.

Children from all over the country come to Birmingham for specialist treatment, some are even airlifted from Europe.

In a book I wrote many years ago I reported on a blue light dash I made in an ambulance to collect a child from London Heathrow to take to Ronald McDonald.

It is hard to have a child sick in hospital at any time but when that hospital is far away from home Ronald McDonald is there with a loving arm around the family saying - we are here - saying it with love.

Milton Keynes Winter Night Shelter - Ronald McDonald House - Curly Tails - Milton Keynes Food Bank...... I get a little bit emotional when I talk about the work you all do.

Reading some case stories from this Winter Night Shelter poster live on air last week I choked up and tears pricked my eyes.

I can not support a good cause if I can not become emotionally involved. I do not believe any support for any good cause is worth a single penny if it is not wrapped in a thick layer of love.

My hippie hair is starting to annoy me ! It needs cutting. Ahead of last year's sponsored haircut I was the only hippie in San Francisco's Hippie Park !

This years's sponsored haircut is for Alfie at Curly Tails.

My hair for SUNSHINE SMILE DAY 2019 is actually longer than it was for SUNSHINE SMILE DAY 2018.

I can't wait for it to be cut off.

4.46am - I've just opened the first can of Pepsi Max of the day. 

Milton Keynes Food Bank - Ronald McDonald House - Milton

Keynes Winter Night Shelter - Curly Tails.... I have been speaking about you all as I am involved on a day-to-day basis with the work you do. 

These are four of the good causes involved in SUNSHINE SMILE DAY. As well as these four I was proud on the show to talk about THE WOODLAND TRUST - CATS PROTECTION - SHEARERS DIABETIC AWARENESS FOUNDATION - BLOOD AND TRANSPLANT SERVICES - BOB CHAMPION CANCER TRUST all of which are involved in SUNSHINE SMILE DAY.

Towards the end of the show yesterday I played two songs...

Black Lace's version of Rod Stewart's SAILING and Gerry And The Pacemakers YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE.

We all sail on the sea of life. The sky is blue, the water calm and we enjoy the cruise. When the clouds gather, when the

storm comes and the ship is in danger of sinking it is then we need an arm of love round our shoulders saying You'll Never Walk Alone.

I have been asked to do an

overnight show for University Hospital's Cancer Unit. I am, of course, involved in the work of the hospital as part of its Patient Review Team. I would like to do a show for Milton 
Keynes Food Bank.  I would like to do a show for Milton Keynes Winter Night Shelter ahead of the start of next year's season in November.

The greatest piece of music ever written is Bridge Over

Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel.

As a student it was impossible to walk through the halls of residence without hearing this song playing from someone's room.

Divorce the music from the words and you are left with a beautiful theme. Pick up the words alone and you have a powerful poem. Put the two together and you have the greatest piece of music ever written.

I was twenty-one years old when I heard that song as a student, in November I will be sixty-nine years old - 48 years during which I have tried to live my life like a bridge over troubled water. I have failed more times than I have succeeded but I have never stopped trying and never will. That music will be played at my funeral.

I applaud the work of all the good causes I celebrated during yesterday's show but if we all lived our lives like bridges over troubled water all good causes everywhere would be made redundant.