Passing of Heartland FM's Mentor
John Gray died on Thursday 21 December in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Edinburgh, after declining health was followed by a short period of acute frailty. His busy vitality during the past 25 years saw him through two triple bypass operations which enabled him to maintain his consuming involvement in wide-ranging aspects of sound broadcasting.
Active to the end in his training and consultancy work, he kept going long enough to receive his Honorary Doctorate in the Arts from Napier University on 13 December.
In the days of Lord Reith he was a sound engineer with the BBC and his myriad involvements with the corporation ranged across reporting, producing, war correspondence and administrative and senior management. |
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Local Broadcasting
His abiding belief in, and commitment to, local broadcasting led him to become involved in the mid 1980s with the Heartland Radio Association in Highland Perthshire.
It was with his training, advice and support that the group first achieved licences to run two special event broadcasts covering the Kenmore to Aberfeldy raft race in 1987/88, and subsequently went on to secure - against all the odds and accepted wisdom of the time - a full broadcast licence in 1990.
John Gray was justifiably very proud of this venture as the UK’s first smallscale, independent broadcasting service - at that stage run entirely by volunteers. One of his favoured maxims was ‘communities get the broadcasting services that they deserve’, and the mouldbreaking licence success for Highland Perthshire soon became a cause to be emulated in other remote parts of Scotland before spreading to Wales and the rest of the UK.
John exercised his lifetime honorary membership of the Heartland Radio Foundation through advisory input right up to the most recent meeting of the board of the community company in 2006.
Widely Missed
A founder member of the community radio movement in GB (CommComm), John Gray was also a longtime council member of its successor organisation, which is now the Community Media Association. He was, besides, a fiercely enthusiastic chair of the Scottish Community Broadcasting Group, and the Association of Scottish Smallscale Broadcasters.
Through his tireless proselytizing work and lobbying with these bodies, many people of all ages, in Perthshire and throughout Scotland, came to benefit from his patient training and vast editing and studio experience.
Throughout his time of official ‘retirement’, John’s network of contacts with the BBC kept him in touch with the shifting operations of the public broadcasting service. Simultaneously he was ever-vigilant of the manoeuverings of the commercial radio scene - for both of these centralising forces represented continuing threats to the potential local services to which he was so wholeheartedly committed.
The picture above shows John Gray (right) in 1989 with Heartland trainees Evan Tuer (left) and Sandy Moyes during a session in the temporary studios set up in the steadings of Miss Honeyman’s Ballechin House, Strathtay.
BM
The Funeral - GDS writes:
The funeral of John Gray – BBC sound engineer and former Assistant at BBC Scotland, documentary film maker, academic, poet, songwriter and extra-ordinary broadcaster – took place at Mortonhall Crematorium in Edinburgh on Friday 5 January.
The fact that so many chose to attend underlines the effect he had on broadcasting, and on Radio in particular. Although the great and the good were certainly there, it was the presence of so many of us who are simply “ordinary” that perhaps says as much about the man and his work as any amount of eulogising. For many, the most moving moment was to hear a recording of John himself, perfectly enunciated, bidding us farewell and urging us to celebrate, not weep – he was only sorry he could not be with us this time. On a technical note, we knew that even though his legendary editing skills meant that none of us would have been able to detect the join, he surely did it in one take!
John Gray’s passion was broadcasting, and when he died he was older than the medium itself. To know more about him, take a look at his web site – www.graymedia.info. Alternatively, speak to any of us who had the privilege of having met him and you will realise some of the profound influence he had upon how we communicate.
Memorial
Between 2nd and 9th February an event celebrating John’s life - involving poetry and music - will be held at the Theatre Workshop in Edinburgh - details yet to be finalised.
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