James: I was very aware that I was doing something illegal as well. Although if you are in a valley in the middle of the North Yorkshire Moors, probably nobody's going to care.

Alex: James Cridland was just 7 years old when he first grasped the power of radio.

James: We lived in Somerset. And we lived in a beautiful old building that was called the monks' dairy. Because a long, long time ago, apparently, there used to be some monks living there. And it was a dairy.

Alex: In that part of southwest England – think sleepy villages, rolling green fields – it rained… a lot.

James: One of my first memories was of the place flooding. And the water lapped up into the, into the dairy. You know, we couldn't go anywhere because the entire house was surrounded with floodwater and the floodwater would get into your boots if you tried to walk outside.

Alex: James and his family were stuck inside the house for a few days.

James: And the only thing that we could do was watch telly or listen to the radio. And the BBC had actually put up a special radio station just for us. Because there were so many people affected by the floods.

Alex: Listening to the presenter’s voice coming over the airwaves, James felt a real sense of comfort – like everyone listening was in this together.

Over the coming years, James would have this feeling many times over. It’s what led him to work in the audio industry for 30 years. There are two role models who guided him on this path.

James’ journey begins in a remote valley in northern England. At a boarding school, to be precise.

James: It sounds a bit like Hogwarts.

Alex: The school was a grand old building in the middle of the countryside, with towers and turrets and corridors stretching for what seemed like miles. To get there, James took the train up from London - just like a certain young wizard.

James: Kings Cross Station was huge and dirty. And I remember the trains, you know, they were massive. And then we would get the big trunk, the school trunk, of all of my belongings onto the train from Kings Cross, not from platform nine and three quarters, but it could well have been and then that train would take you up. It was a school train that would have all lots of other school kids on there.

Alex: There was one school kid in particular who would make a lasting impression on James. His name was Michael.

James: Michael was very, very geeky. I was always taken with people that understood technology and I'm not quite sure what he's doing now, but I would guess, you know, if he's the professor in a university, he would be the person with the dishevelled look, and the person with the, you know, with the trousers that aren't long enough. And, and everything else, he had a particular way of walking, I seem to remember which was a…struck me as being very unusual.

Alex: James was 13 at the time – Michael was four years above.

James: He was also a bit of a maverick. You know, he liked using technology and new things to play around with authority.

In those days, if the students did something wrong, they would be sent to the headmaster.

James: who was almost a Dumbledore character. But without the beard.

Alex: The headmaster was a monk called Father Dominic (monks seem to make repeat appearances in James’ life).

James: Father Dominic would occasionally get very, very, very annoyed if you've done a very bad thing.

Alex: On one particular day, one of the school’s sporty kids had been caught smuggling some alcohol into the school.

James: He had been hauled in front of the headmaster and everybody was really keen to find out what the headmaster would say, and how mad the headmaster would get. But of course, we had no way of knowing.

Alex: Enter …. Michael.

The whiz kid who James looked up to – – he knew exactly how the entire school could eavesdrop on the punishment of the century.

James: And what Michael did in just a day, is he went to the electronics room at school, built a FM transmitter with a little microphone. And it was an FM transmitter with a little antenna, which he ended up, you know, sticking on to this thing so that it would transmit the audio, stuck it into this guy's top pocket. So that it would end up broadcasting the headmaster shouting at this guy, it would end up broadcasting that on the FM waveband, across school.

Alex: The bugged student walked the long corridor to his fate at the hands of Father Dumbledore – I mean, Dominic. But then – something went wrong.

James: The wire needed to be straight, I think, in order for it to work. And for whatever reason, the wire ended up bending.

Alex: The transmitter broke, and all those kids waiting with baited breath – – couldn’t hear the punishment being doled out.

But for James, that was almost besides the point. He was dazzled by Michael’s brilliant idea.

James: I thought, Wow, that's a pretty cool thing, isn't it? And I just suddenly thought, from that moment on, I thought wow the power of someone taking technology and subverting it to such a way that we could actually hear what the headmaster would end up saying, I thought that was a wonderful thing.

Alex: Michael opened James’ eyes to the potential of technology. And not just to toy with the powers that be – – but also to unite people.

James: He would get like minded people together.

Alex: Michael started an electronics society at the school.

James: Where many other people would learn how to use technology how to, you know, solder how to, you know, build things. He would end up producing communities around what it is that he was interested in, and giving other people the freedom to be interested in the same sort of very geeky things

Alex: And we’re talking about a school where rugby was the thing.

James: If you weren't interested in rugby, you're already an outsider. But what Michael was very cleverly able to do was to bring people – bring those outsiders and make them feel insiders, but just in a different inside.

I remember him being this, this sort of unifying force.

Alex: Michael also figured out how to use the transmitter to run a pirate radio station from the school. When Michael graduated, James took over on the station.

James: And I was very aware that I was doing something illegal as well, you know, because you're not allowed to broadcast on FM – that's actually illegal. Although if you are in a valley in the middle of the North Yorkshire Moors, probably nobody's going to care.

Alex: The station was run off a couple of cassette players. They had their own jingles and everything.

James: I used to think it was terribly amusing to play The Cure’s ‘10:15 [on a[ Saturday night’ at 10:15 on a Saturday night. I thought that that was tremendously clever. Possibly wasn't that clever week after week after week, but nevertheless…

Alex: Michael helped James get a very early glimpse into how intimate radio can be.

James: Radio and audio are able to give you an awful amount of community feeling, an awful amount of company, companionship.

Alex: Fast forward a few years and we find young James working for a small local radio station called The Pulse.

That was where he met Steve Martin.

No not that Steve Martin.

James: Steve looked like the sort of person that would work in a council, doing bus timetables

James: So he used to, you know, turn up in a sports jacket, he wore glasses, he had a very sensible haircut. He was always wearing a shirt and tie as well as his jacket. And he was a person – incredibly introverted, as in fact, many people are in radio. I think he was a person who you wouldn't see very much. He would sit in his office and do an awful lot of hard work.

Alex: Steve thought that James might just be good enough to be a radio presenter.

James: I remember him putting me on for a week just to try me out on the afternoon drivetime show, which was a pretty big show.

Alex: Clearly, the trial went well. At the end of the week….

James: Steve, sort of, you know, ushered me into the office and said, Yes, James, we'd like to offer you a contract, when can you start?

So he ended up giving me a job. And I ended up doing the afternoon drive show for a year, followed by the evening show for a year

Alex: James was thrilled – a real job,, on a real radio station! A legal one this time!

James: And I remember thinking, wow, this is it, this is, you know, I've, I've made it.

Alex: Steve Martin didn’t give all that much feedback, but his few words of advice were gems that James held on to.

James: He was one of those people who was very particular about what it is that he wanted his station to be, and how it is that you would speak on the air.

Alex: For example, he encouraged James to say “This is James from the Pulse” rather than “This is The Pulses’ James” – – which didn’t sound as good.

James: He used to say, It's weird, isn't it that magicians or painters, you know, all of these creative people will spend hours and hours and hours practising. If you're an instrumentalist, if you play an instrument, you will spend many, many hours practising. If you're a radio DJ, you don't spend any time practising. You don't practise your craft, you just go on the air and do it. And why is that? Why shouldn't we be practising things, getting things right, really thinking about how we do things? And I thought that was a really interesting way of thinking about the world that I hadn't thought about before then.

Alex: Steve Martin was full of praise – at an early impressionable stage in James’ career.

James: Praise is something that you don't get an awful lot of. There's an English phrase of a shit sandwich, but it's much easier to praise people, but then to instantly dive into but it could have been better if you'd done it this way. And Steve was very good at not doing that.

Alex: Steve was also really good at building systems that fast-track the boring, administrative parts of the job – and let James concentrate on the fun stuff. For example, for the radio presenters working on Christmas Day, there would be a regular script to follow. Same for when the clocks change.

James: Steve taught me that it's absolutely fine to cheat, if you like, with stuff that isn't creative, that doesn't help the overall product. It's absolutely fine to cheat with that stuff and to focus on the actual creative work.

Alex: These days, James lives in Brisbane, Australia. (And yes, in case you’re wondering, it’s M&S food that he misses the most from home).

James: I am editor of pod news.net, which is a daily newsletter which is a daily newsletter about podcasting

Alex: All the lessons that James has learned through his life – – the intimacy of radio, the way it brings people together, how it can question authority – these are all things James uses every day.

James: The other week I had to carry a statement from a spokesperson at Spotify, and it was the most dull legal statement that you've ever heard. But I felt that I had to get it into the newsletter.

Alex: The newsletter has an accompanying podcast — so when James included the boring corporate statement in the podcast – he saw an opportunity to have some fun.

James: When you listen to it on the podcast, I'd speeded up that boring legalese by 30% just to make it sound even more ridiculous and legal. It's these little things that I really enjoy. Again, coming back to you know, subverting authority… is something I rather enjoy doing.

Alex: And like Michael all those years ago, through his newsletter – James now brings the outsiders in.

James: There are lots of people who are reading this who are consuming the same thing. And there is a bit of a community out there. And building the community around it is something that I really enjoy doing too.

Alex: One of the things that James’ role models have in common is that they were both outsiders who brought people together. Michael brought people together during his school days by sharing his passion for technology. While Steve brought people together at work through his passion for radio broadcasting. James’ own experiences with radio from childhood to adulthood act as a testament to how technology can unite us. The way in which it can create and establish a community of listeners is quite magical. All those who listen to a particular broadcast will have something in common; something they can discuss, recall, reflect on and debate. It is not a surprise that James now works within the podcast community. It enables him to continue telling the stories that create memories and establish communities.