A South Coast radio presenter is to send out a rather different show this Friday. Nick Girdler, of BBC Radio Solent, will broadcast from a decidedly damp office - a diving tank outside Southampton’s BBC studios.

Nick Girdler (right) trains with an instructor at Andark Diving, in Swanwick

Girdler will spend the entire show, from 9.00am to 12.30pm, in a Royal Navy Diving School perspex training tank, placed outside the studios in Havelock Road. A number of his regular listeners are expected to turn out to watch Girdler interviewing a number of guests, using a full-face mask with intercom system.

The diving broadcast will beat a record apparently held by a German radio DJ, Frank Niessen – although quite how many radio presenters have been happy to put their reputations on the line in such a manner is open to question!

But Girdler has no doubts about his decision to take his show under water. “What I’m really pleased about is being able to take my programme to new depths,” he quipped. “I’m really looking forward to being among the greats like Neil Armstrong, Mohammed Ali, and John Prescott.”

Girdler’s producer, Alun Newman, is fully behind the stunt, having joked that Girdler “wants to beat the Germans…as it’s a matter of national pride”, and that “the pressure of water and the mask make him sound a lot better”.

News Index Page