page_title: Radio Wey
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Radio Wey / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Studio 2 at Radio Wey
context_page_description: Radio Wey is a hospital radio station based at St Peters Hospital in Chertsey, England. It provides entertainment to the patients and staff of Ashford and St Peters Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The station broadcasts using WiFi speakers at St Peters Hospital and Ashford Hospital, as well as on the internet to the local community of North West Surrey and Middlesex
  The station is run as a charity by volunteers. Today Radio Wey has over 60 members, who work together, to present a range of live programmes each week. They also carry out all the roles necessary to run the station, such as administration, maintenance of the equipment, and raising the funds. As Radio Wey has no income or grant aid, it needs to raise all money it needs to run the station. This comes from member’s subscriptions, donations and fundraising activities
context_section_description: The origins of Hospital Radio Wey go back to the mid-1960s when two friends, Alan Timbrell and John Best spent some of their leisure time visiting patients in Weybridge Hospital and finding out what kind of music they liked. The patients’ choices of music were then recorded onto a tape recorder in Alan’s home.  They then returned to the hospital with the tape recorder and played the music to the patients in the wards.
  Once acceptance was gained, the hospital offered a room for the production of programmes.  At that time there was no ready-made equipment for a home studio, therefore it was necessary to construct equipment from kits produced for radio DIY enthusiasts.
  A basic studio with an interviewer’s desk and record storage was constructed which made it possible to broadcast live programmes to the wards over the patient headphone system, which were initially Bakelite headphones, later to be replaced with the plastic tube Stethoscope system. The first live broadcast was on 5 October 1967. The schedule at that time consisted of 13 hours of programmes a week, presented by three broadcasters.
  The studio at Weybridge Hospital was then linked to other hospitals using (as it was then) GPO telephone lines, and eventually, broadcasts were made to Weybridge, Walton, St Peter’s, Ellesmere and Ashford hospitals.  There was also a link to Stompond Lane football ground, which enabled live 2nd half commentary on Walton and Hersham FC's home games. The first commentary was broadcast on 11 October 1970. At a later date the Hospital Radio Wey network was extended to Woking Victoria hospital.
  By 1971 Hospital Radio Wey had grown to 23 members who were presenting 30 hours of programmes a week. Programmes consisted of patient requests, collected by a Hospital Radio Wey (HRW) member visiting the wards.  Each member would visit a specific ward and the requests would then be played at a specific time each week for each ward.  There were also specialist music programmes such as classical music, country and western, big band and jazz.
  In the early years, most of the HRW members had day jobs and programmes were broadcast on weekday evenings and on Saturday and Sunday.  BBC programmes were available for the patients during the times HRW was not broadcasting its own material.
  As the network increased, more members were recruited and an increased number of wards had dedicated request programmes.  Some members used their experience gained from hospital radio to secure work in professional radio, which was being deregulated. With the introduction of commercial radio and BBC local radio, there came increasing job opportunities.
  Each Friday a special local news programme was compiled and broadcast. This programme was recorded and made available to another charity "Talking newspapers for the blind", who duplicated the content onto cassette tapes and distributed them to blind people in the area.
  Early in 1973 the DIY studio equipment was replaced by a custom built mixing console. The re-opening on Sunday 8 April 1973 featured a day of special programmes by guest presenters from BBC and commercial radio. Those participating were Tony Brandon, Noel Edmonds, Terry Wogan, Johnnie Walker, John Dunn and Keith Skues.
  One slogan used by HRW was "Bringing the outside to your bedsides."  Using equipment that had to be connected by telephone line, HRW members visited events in the catchment area served by the hospitals and provided reports and interviews from those events.  These included hospital fetes, shopping centres, and the Byfleet Parish Day. If no telephone link was available, recordings were made and taken back to the studio to be played on air later.
  The cost of the landline links had been met by the hospital amenity fund but in 1977 the hospital announced that it could no longer pay for the links.  The local press at the time picked up the story which made front page headlines. The outcome of the publicity benefitted HRW.  Not only did the hospitals agree to continue to fund the transmission links, but one local councillor offered support to HRW through 
caption: Studio 2 at Radio Wey
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