The Sound of Sunday on HRB

The 1000th show will be on Sunday 6 March and we are planning a very special show live from the home of London 2012, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London.

We hope to visit many of the venues during the afternoon as well as hopefully convey what else the park has to offer 4 years on. 

Plans are still coming together but hopefully 1 – 3pm on Sunday 6 March will be a show to remember.

So a brand new year is upon us and we're back to normal as far as the show is concerned on Sunday at 1.30.  It will be a special year for the show, 25 years on the air and 1000 shows on 6 March.

We revealed on our Christmas show that we are currently planning a live outside broadcast from Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park on that day.  Our aim is to take our listeners to the park via the show, to go to as many of the venues as possible live during the afternoon and show that the park is very much alive and well and the legacy of London 2012 very much goes on.

More details of the show will come soon, but it will be one of the biggest outside broadcasts we've ever done.

Talking of outside broadcasts, we've done a few of them over the last 25 years, and on last Sunday's show we were out and about again, on the Watercress Line.  Paul Le Feuvre joined us to do the Sainsbury's Draw live from the Christmas Leave event and the winning number was picked as the train drew into Alton station.  I hope we'll have a few more live outside broadcasts during 2016.

On this weekend's show, we'll take a look back at some of the memorable moments of 2015.  Anna Jones will present a look at the news, sport, show biz and musical highlights of the year and there will be a few musical memories of 2015 too.  All that will be ahead of HRB''s review of the local news which I'll be presenting on New Year's Eve.

We'll also be repeating our interview with Anvil panto star Mark Rhodes.

We will of course have your requests, Superman 1940s Style, the Quiet Quarter of an Hour and of course the Sainsbury's Draw.  It's the last show of the year, Sunday at 1.30pm.

The Sound of Sunday Christmas Show has been running in much the same format for at least 15 years, with elements of the current show going back longer than that.  It's the one show that is totally different to the rest of the year and as such we get one chance to do the show and a wait of 12 months to put right anything that doesn't work or could be done better.

This year, the show was one of the best we've done.  The technology worked, we had loads of crackers and jokes and loads of special guests and some very pleased winners of our competitions.  My personal favourite year was 2013 – everything just seemed to work the best it's done and the whole show just seemed to fall into place.

This year Amy from Maternity went off to see the panto at the Anvil thanks to our competition and Margery won the Sainsbury's goodie bag.  We linked up with Hospital Radio reading and Vernon in Spain along with Paul in Alton.  It was great to talk to Mark Rhodes from the Anvil panto, who, as with all the Saturday morning TV presenters I have talked to, could have gone on taling about their time on Saturday morning TV all afternoon!

We have another show this Sunday, just the 3 hours this week, but hopefully we'll be able to squeeze in a repeat of that interview along with lots of requests courtesy of HRB On Show at the front of the hospital.  As for the Christmas show, we'll retrieve the running order and all that goes with it ready for next year when preparation begins around November next year and we do the longest show of the year all over again. 

As of this weekend, you get two chances to hear the show each week!  We will be part of HRB Replay from now on with the show being repeated from around 12.30 every Monday.

The idea is to give everyone who has a request the chance to hear that request again, or just to hear it if they missed it the first time.

So that's HRB Replay from 12pm every Monday.