Sian Lovegrove moved to Church Stretton in Autumn 2024. She is a big consumer of podcasts, her favourites being The Beef and Dairy Network, The Rest is Football, The Rest is Entertainment, This American Life and Strangers on a Bench.
This gave her the idea of a podcast for Church Stretton and surrounding villages.
Originally from Mid Wales, she has spent the last 13 years working abroad in the Far East, where she started her own Chinese education company, and in East Africa where she worked in international development in the field of vocational skills development, online learning and teacher training.
She teaches master’s students at the University of Manchester, as well as producing social media marketing plans and content for local businesses. Her interests include technology, football (Aston Villa and Wrexham), writing, cooking and travel.
Pete Johnson was inspired by pirate radio in 1964, to build amps and disco gear and purely by chance, one of his tapes found its way to the new BBC Radio Manchester.
Liking what they heard, they offered him one show a week, then two, then more work as well at BBC Radio Merseyside. He became a staff member and in 1974 became music and outside broadcast producer for Piccadilly Radio.
He has recorded rock bands , The Hallé Orchestra, jazz , folk, presented
blues programmes and now a village podcast! BBC Radio 2 came next and later, Pebble Mill in Birmingham then presenting at Jazz FM and finally for SAGA radio in Birmingham.
Pete volunteers with several organisations locally using his skills to edit music for dancers and create nature video for people like the National Trust. He’s had some success at making craft cider and curing and smoking bacon.
Pete is the reason we’ve had such good feedback about the quality of our broadcasts.