www.ablemagazine.co.uk/Pages/interviews/peter_white.htm -
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Published on: 3/19/2008
Last Visited: 3/19/2008
Peter White has been presenting In Touch, Radio 4's programme for blind and visually impaired listeners, since 1974.He's also a regular presenter on consumer affairs programme You and Yours and is the BBC's disability affairs correspondent.But Peter is not just a radio journalist and presenter , he's also an enthusiastic listener,
peter white articlePeter White is passionate about radio.
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As a child, Peter started listening to a range of programmes, many of which he now realises were probably much too grown-up for his young ears."I remember I found out from Any Questions that Father Christmas didn't exist, when I was about five.I ran out to the kitchen to tell my mother that she had been lying to me!"he recalls.The young Peter listened to all sorts of radio, from political programmes to plays to pop music, in the days when the BBC had two main channels , the Home Programme and the Light Programme , both of which had mixed output.Nowadays most stations are much more targeted to specific types of music and speech, and Peter has become an inveterate channel-flicker."I'm very annoying to be in a room with if I've got a radio because I'm always searching around for something else," he admits.
MOVING INTO THE MAINSTREAM
Although Peter is a fan of what he calls "mixed radio" he appreciates the choice that is now available through the sheer quantity of different stations on-air today.However, he does have some concerns about the provision of programming aimed specifically at disabled listeners.Peter got his first break in the radio industry presenting a specialist programme for blind people on BBC Radio Solent, at a time when it was common for local radio stations to broadcast such shows.Nowadays, Radio 4's In Touch , which Peter has presented since 1974 , is the only programme on mainstream radio to focus on visually impaired listeners.
"In terms of radio programming, one of the things that's happened as far as disability is concerned is that people have shied away from the special programme saying they don't want to put people into boxes," Peter explains."My appointment as a disability affairs correspondent was part of a philosophy [of inclusion].Because the BBC now has a disability affairs correspondent whose job is to interpret disability to everyone , not just to disabled people, to other people , they could put [disability affairs] on mainstream programmes."While Peter gives credit to Radio 4 and particularly You and Yours for "keeping the faith", he points out that many other television and radio programmes aimed at disabled people , such as On The Edge and LINK , have been lost, without anything else being brought in to replace them.
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
One advantage of having a regular programme focusing on the needs of disabled listeners is that it provides an opportunity to campaign for change.Peter is proud of the lobbying he has been able to do through In Touch."For a start, the whole business of questioning charities made a difference," he says.
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Braille literacy is something that Peter fervently believes in , not just because he recognises the importance of literacy in everyday life, but also because his Braille skills proved very significant when it came to starting a radio career.
When BBC Radio Solent first opened, Peter was having an unsatisfying time at university and decided he wanted to work in radio , so he turned up at the station on spec and asked for a job."I only got as far as the receptionist, who pretended to do an interview with me and then sent me away with a ,we'll let you know'," Peter recalls.He later received a phone call from the man who had responsibility for presenting the specialist blind programme (but didn't even know any blind people himself)."He'd seen this rather dejected bloke with a white stick going into the lift and asked the receptionist who I was.She said ,it's some nutter who wants to be Tony Blackburn'."Three months later Peter was presenting the programme."My great piece of fortune was having a good Braille-reading speed , something which not a lot of people had then and even fewer have now," he explains.
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