Basil Brush and Mike Read will be among those joining us for our big Christmas show on December 16th.

They will be talking about their new Christmas charity single, as well as about appearing in panto in Windsor.

Starting at 12pm on Sunday 16 December, the show will be live for 5 hours and include special guests, competitions, requests and the Great Christmas Cracker Dash.

There will be the return for one week only of the weekend prize draw and other guests will include Richard Smith who will be talking about the 42 hour BIG Broadcast which will end the year.

HRB's full Christmas schedule will be announced on December 10th.

It's our biggest show of the year, live from 12pm on Sunday 16th December.

Blue Peter Director/Producer of nearly 40 years Alex Leger joined us on the air at the weekend to talk about the show at the end of its 60th birthday week.

Alex first appeared on The Sound of Sunday in July last year after the death of former presenter John Noakes and was at the 60th birthday show broadcast from Salford on Tuesday.

Alex worked on nearly 700 Blue Peter films including that climb up Nelson’s Column and still keeps in touch with the show today – when current presenter Radzi Chinyanganya did his parachute jump last year, he wore an orange jumpsuit thanks to the advice received from Alex about how to film it.

Alex talked about his Blue Peter memories and behind the scenes gossip about the big birthday show which featured many of those who have been Blue Peter Presenters since the show started in 1958.

Alex follows other Blue Peter guests current editor Ewan Vinnicombe and Blue Peter legend Peter Purves as well as Mark Curry and Peter Duncan who have been heard on The Sound of Sunday over the last few months. 

A compilation of all the interviews will be on HRB at Christmas.

The world's longest running children's TV show is about to celebrate its 60th birthday and the person in charge of the celebrations is the current editor Ewan Vinnicombe.

Ewan will be appearing on The Sound of Sunday in September to talk about all the celebrations that will be happening and his memories of the show as he was growing up.  

He will be joined by Blue Peter legend Peter Purves who will talk about his time on the show alongside Valerie Singleton and John Noakes.

The Sound of Sunday will also tell the story of the show throughout September in Memory Makers The Blue Peter Years.

2018 will be the first time since 2012 that 27 July has fallen on a Friday.  That was of course the date of the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics, part of an unforgettable summer.

It was also the date where 3 years later, The Sound of Sunday's Neil Ogden conducted the last ever media interview at an official event on the original running track. 

Nowadays, the London Stadium is part of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and two years ago The Sound of Sunday broadcast live from the park for its 1000th show.  On Sunday 29 July, there'll be another chance to hear the highlights of that show.

The message is still the same – the park is still very much open for business and open for millions of people who go and see it every year.  You can swim or cycle at the Olympic venues and see a fantastic view of London at the top of the Orbit (before sliding down the slide).

Hear the show once again on 29 July at 3pm.

This Sunday you can hear our Summer Special recorded in JUne at Alton Lions Party in the Park.

The annual event  in aid of the disabled students or Treloars College in Alton was held in the Public Gardens in the centre of Alton and included all sorts of entertainment and activities.

HRB teamed up with Wey Valley Radio to invite visitors to come and chat and find out more about both stations. 

We went around the event talking to thos who were there including Hampshire Fire Service, Alton Community Hospital and ServWessex.  The town's Mayor was also therer and we recorded live music courtesy of the band Tripowire who are regulars every year.

Hear the show on Sunday 1 July at 2pm.

Blue Peter presenter of the 1960s and 1970s Peter Purves will be a guest on the show in September.  

Peter presented the world's longest running children's TV show alongside Valerie Singleton and John Noakes, a combination widely seen as the ultimate Blue Peter lineup.

Blue Peter celebrates its 60th birthday later this year and The Sound of Sunday will be marking the occasion with several Blue Peter names from the past.  Already featured have been presenter Mark Curry and the director and producer who worked on the show for nearly 40 years Alex Leger.  Chris Booith, the VT editor who recorded Lulu the elephant has also featured.

All the Blue Peter guests can be heard in September.

All of us at HRB were sad to learn in the last few days that honorary member of the station Paul Le Feuvre sadly passed away at the weekend.

Paul's first show on HRB was on 28 March 2007, but he has been on the radio much much longer than that.  He started on Radio Treloar, which was the hospital radio station for Alton.  In the late 80s, he was a big part of the campaign to get local commercial radio for Alton and was then part of the team that was on air on the original Wey Valley Radio, which became Delta FM.

When Radio Treloar closed, he continued to present his Sunday night request show on Delta FM, regularly attracting one of the largest audiences of any radio station on a Sunday evening in Hampshire.  When Delta FM was taken over, and his show finished, he joined Hospital Radio Basingstoke, inventing a new show called Pick a Word, editions of which were broadcast on the station right up until last Christmas.  

In 2008, he helped the station with its new studio and joined the committee as its first Training Officer.

In 2013, Paul received his honorary membership of Hospital Radio Basingstoke from Liz Padmore, Chairman of the hospital's trust.  Two days later he was in London to receive his second surprise of the same weekend on the ITV show Surprise Surprise from presenter Holly Willoughby after being nominated for 40+ years of service to community and hospital radio.

Paul loved taking the stations he worked for and his shows out to his audience.  He encouraged all of us at HRB to go out to local events and cover them for our listeners.  He was a regular part of many events in Alton including the Last Night of the Proms, the Alton Lions Party in the Park and the annual Classic Car Show.  He was the PA at the Froyle Fete for nearly 30 years. 

In 2015, HRB covered the Magna Carta Festival in Odiham and it was Paul who was a big part of that coverage which was then nominated for an award at the National Hospital Radio Awards.  

In 2015, Paul started presenting a new show called Sounds of the Fifties, which at the National Hospital Radio Awards in 2016 was nominated in the Best Specialist Music Programme Category.  Paul recorded the programme in his own studio at his home, from where he also read the local news each week.  

Paul's final role with HRB, and his involvement with The Sound of Sunday was as drawmaster for the weekly prize draw.  He became the voice of the "big blue bag of balls" each week, choosing the winning number by picking it from the bag.  He would do the draw live from his home studio, or sometimes he would take the draw out and about including live from a moving steam train on the Watercress Line, the Victorian Cricket in Alton, and, perhaps most notably, the sin bin at an ice hockey match in Switzerland. 

He was drawmaster for the final draw in February 2018, assisted live from Guernsey by Fred Setters, Station Manager at Jubilee Radio, the hospital radio station on the island. 

He always encouraged the use of new technology to push the boundaries of what was possible to do on the radio.  He came up with a way of enabling someone to be on the radio live while they were abseiling down the side of the hospital!

Paul enjoyed going to the events organised by the Hospital Broadcasting Association.  He described the HBA's weekend in Guernsey in 2016 as "the best HBA event ever"

Despite his illness he was able to be at the HBA's 2018 conference in Windsor, and although he was ill, he still remained cheerful and as interested in everyone as ever.

In 2017, Paul revived his Sunday evening request show on Wey Valley Radio, now back on air as a community radio station 25 years after the original station went on the air.  The show seemed as popular as ever, full of requests from his listeners which he continued to enthusiastically collect each week. 

Paul's final show on Wey Valley Radio was on Sunday 15 April 2018.  

The domestic football season is coming to an end and HRB will as usual aim to tell the story of the final day of the Premier League season.  All 10 final games kick off at 3pm on May 13th and although the champions may have been known for several weeks, all the indications are that it could be a nail biting afternoon for those at the bottom of the table trying to avoid relegation.  

We'll have reporters at all 10 final day matches which all kick off at 3pm, and they'll be sending previews, updates and goal flashes as The Sound of Sunday tries to tell the story of the afternoon.

The Sound of Sunday Last Day of the Premier League, Sunday 13th May from 1.30pm.

The special guest on this week's show is Basingstoke singer Jodie Steele.

Jodie will be talking about her experience performing in the BBC's brand new Saturday night singing competition All Together Now where she has made it throough to the finl after impressing 97 of the 100.

Jodie is an accomplished singer, actor and dancer and has appeared in many big musical oproductions.  She has in the past featured at Basingstoke Live and was a student at Queen Mary's College.

She will also be the guest drawmaster for this weekend's Sainsbury's prize draw.

Jodie Steele on The Sound of Sunday on 18 February 2018.