Scottish Radio Group

The Scottish programming Group has been part of Radio 4EB for many years. It caters for an ever-increasing listening audience around south-east Queensland and beyond.

Although our home country, Scotland, is small in comparison to others, a visitor there may hear a variety of dialects being spoken, including ‘Scots Gaelic’, (north-west), ‘Lowland Scots’ (Lallans), ‘Ulster Scots’, and (ask Tom Hamill) ‘Glaswegian’, and not forgetting the dialects of the ‘north-east’ which seem to change from village to village. (That’s our Broadcaster Grace’s specialty). The people who live in the area in the extreme south-west corner of Scotland, nearest Ireland (Gallovodians), also have their own dialect, as do the Borderers. (Just ask our Broadcasters, Sam & Heather Heron). That leaves our most recent volunteer member of our broadcast crew, Margaret Malone, from Edinburgh (welcome to the team, Margaret). Margaret will cater for the ‘escapees’ from Scotland’s Capital City and the East Coast. Myself? Well , my ‘beat’ will just have to be the beautiful West Coast and the Islands. Ho hum!

As you can see, “Scotland, we’ve pretty well got you covered”.

Our Programs

We try to have as many topics of interest as we can during our two-and-a-quarter-hour Thursday program, which is affectionately known as,

For instance, we broadcast “Get Well” calls to any of our members who are on the ‘sick-list’;
And we keep a log of our members’ favourite songs, music and poetry and play these for them in the week leading up to their birthdays or anniversaries. We also include the following items:-

- General knowledge quizzes about Scottish affairs

- Scottish History

- Scottish myths and legends

- Scottish poets or poetry

- Scottish recipes

- Information about forthcoming Scottish Community events

- Club meetings

- Highland Gatherings

- Scottish Country Dance classes

- Whisky ‘Tastings’ (where? where?)

- Plus Scottish News and the ‘Weather’ of course. (Always good for a chuckle).

All this has to be scripted into our one weekly spot on radio 4EB, which makes for a fairly lively program.

Sometimes we have two broadcasters on at a time, plus a Panel Operator and this allows for a greater interchange of wit and wisdom and puts an extra sparkle into the program which our listeners seem to approve of, judging by the letters of appreciation and the phone calls we receive.

Radio 4EB “Scottish” has virtually become the heart and voice of the Scottish Community. Through a lot of hard work and encouragement, many members of the Programming Group have helped to build the program to what it is today, ‘the voice of the Scottish people in Queensland on air’.

Where possible, we attend Scottish community events with our information displays and take along the ‘4EB Banner’. We love talking to people about our Thursday program, meeting and greeting our loyal subscribers who frequently attend the various functions. We know that we share our 4EB Radio world with volunteers from many nations and cultures, all of us doing the same thing, making our listeners feel good about being a member and supporter of their Community radio station. That’s what being a volunteer of any sort is really about, comforting others and making them feel better and happier.

Our membership of the Scottish Group has increased three-fold in recent years and this has allowed the air-time program to be extended from forty-five minutes per week to two-and-a-quarter-hours.

May we look forward with confidence to sharing our world for the next thirty years with all our friends at Radio 4EB, in peace and harmony.

Jim Johnstone, Scottish Group                                                                April 2010

Editor’s Note.
Last year, Jim was awarded a Special Honour from the Celtic Council of Australia, for services to the Celtic Community for his promotion of Scottish history, literature, music, and heritage, through the media of radio broadcasting.