When Zoe Ball announced she was stepping down from her Radio 2 Breakfast Show there was the usual storm of headlines and conjecture as to why she was leaving. Sometimes it is as simple as just wanting to get your life back. I’ve only ever heard kind words spoken about Zoe in our rather cut-throat industry and she deserves the respect to be able to leave on her own terms with dignity.

Ups and Downs

Presenting any Breakfast Show is the greatest broadcasting gig going but it comes at a cost. I’d like to spend a couple of minutes delving deep into the reality of the Yin and Yang of hosting a flagship morning show. I realise that getting up early to chat on the radio and feeling a bit tired is nothing compared to working a 12-hour shift in A&E, working down a pit or having no job to go to. When I point out some of the downsides of the job I do so not out of self-pity or self-delusion but rather to give an insight into how, although it may seem glamorous, it can have an impact on other areas of your life.

The Best Bits

I spent thirty years presenting daytime radio and the last 18 of those was on the Breakfast Show. It was the dream job, in the dream location with the best colleagues and listeners I could have hoped for. Every single day my heart sang with the sheer pleasure and thrill of being the voice people woke up to. The magic of broadcasting at this time of day is very hard to convey in words but trust me, it’s exhilarating. If you can make people laugh and ask a few pertinent questions along the way then you feel you’ve added a tiny bit of value to people’s lives. To be asked to set the tone at the start of the day is a great honour and I savour every moment of my 18 years. I always tell younger broadcasters that if you put the joy of doing the show on a set of scales, it must always outweigh the less enjoyable bits of the jobs. Once those scales even out or start to balance the wrong way then it’s time to get out. I was lucky the joy always outweighed the bad bits.          

The Challenges

I hated the 3:30am alarm clock. Hated it. It made me feel almost physically sick. For the first twenty minutes of my day I was in a dark, acrid stupor as I delayed getting out of bed until the last minute, got dressed in the dark and drove 37 minutes often through rain and ice to work. I’d get to the studio at 4:45am and I’d work like a dervish to prepare for that morning’s show. I’d get home after midday and try and get an hour’s kip. Sometimes I’d end up in a three-hour coma and then not be able to get to sleep that night. I spent my whole life battling exhaustion living in a jet lagged fog. Occasionally I’d win the battle, find a consistent routine, eat well, sleep okay and have the energy to exercise. This, however, was the exception to the rule. Quite often weekends would be spent in bed with a headache and I often didn’t unwind on holiday until the day before we had to come back. I could never control my eating pattern and my weight yo-yoed excessively.

Conclusion

Despite the wider impact on my life I chose to go through that for nearly two decades because it was worth it. I look back and wonder how I did it but I’ve just answered my own question, it was joyous, exhilarating and meaningful. I was lucky to choose to move into my new life which allows me the time to sleep, eat well, exercise and the chance to raise a glass of red wine at 11pm on a Sunday night to all the Breakfast Show presenters I know who should have been in bed by 8.