I was a very lucky boy. When it came to leaving school I didn't just go wide eyed into the big bad world to see where it took me. I knew. Since being at least 8 years old I wanted to be a radio presenter. I loved listening to Manchester's Piccadilly Radio. I listened all day and all night. Timmy Mallett was my first favourite and when a lad called Mark Lupton from 2 years above me at St. Dunstan's won the top 10 singles on his show I was insanely jealous! My teenage insomnia was never a problem because it meant I could listen to ALL of the Late Night Funster Show, all the way through to 2am. I had a notebook full of ideas for features and would walk around Moston with my Walkman filling the gaps between tracks on whatever album I was wearing out with (eventually) perfectly timed links. In 1991, aged 15, I started my own weekly show on Northern Air Hospital Radio and from that moment I was regularly broadcasting, joining the hospital radio station in my uni town, the univer...