Radio Forest
.JPG) |
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| Broadcast area | Essex, UK |
|---|---|
| First air date | 1976 |
| Owner | Radio Forest Community Broadcasting |
| Website | www.radioforest.co.uk |
Radio Forest Community Broadcasting [1] is a registered charity [2] in the UK and has been providing a hospital radio service in West Essex, for the last thirty years. Currently based at St. Margaret's Hospital in Epping it broadcasts two radio services to five different units within the West Essex Primary Care Trust and the North Essex Mental Health Partnership Trust. Radio Forest is a member of the Hospital Broadcasting Association and is run by a team of unpaid volunteers.
Forest One broadcasts 24 hours a day to everyone at St. Margaret's Hospital and the Derwent Centre and is aimed at a younger audience. Playing only the biggest songs from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s (decade) together with today's new music.
Classic Hits Forest Gold was launched in 2002 and caters for the older audience at St. Margaret's, Brentwood Community Hospital and Saffron Walden Community Hospital. Forest Gold broadcasts 24 hours a day the best music from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s with specialist music shows playing, country, classical and showtunes.
Radio Forest (originally known as 'Forest Radio') was established in November 1976, the brainchild of local estate agent Heather Thirtle, providing music and entertainment to the patients and staff of the Forest Hospital in Buckhurst Hill, Essex. A small team of eight people including co founder Nick Churchill, Noel Carter, Christopher Potter and Kenneth Warriner, built studios and equipment and got the station on air. In 1978 Stuart McDonald became the first elected Chairman and registered Radio Forest as a charity "to relieve sickness through entertainment"! By 1980 the organisation had grown with 30 people providing a radio service six nights a week. The studios expanded and moved to St. Margaret’s Hospital, Epping in 1980 but continued to broadcast to the Forest Hospital via a landline until it eventually closed. By the mid 1980s over 40 volunteers were broadcasting, ward visiting and raising funds seven days a week.
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