Walking The Talk
It was day at the Ö÷²¥´óÐã in Inverness this morning and Yours Truly was part of the team showing visitors around our refurbished building. My PA, Michelle Walls, greeted each of the three groups of 12 people, Maggie McKinnon, from the Gaelic Department, revealed the inner workings of the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Alba news studio and I did what I do best...yes, I talked about the vending machine.
Well, no, I began my spiel with a bite-sized history of the building. I explained how it had been built in 1830 as the professional classes in Inverness moved away from the polluted, smelly River Ness and into street after street of two-storey townhouses. The last private owner died in 1942 and the house was taken into public ownership. It was occupied by the Highlands and Islands development board until it was gifted to the Ö÷²¥´óÐã in the 1970's.
The majority of the visitors were local people who were able to confirm some of these facts and add little details of their own. The lush gardens in this part of town stem from the soil that was originally used as ballast in ships arriving from North America. Or so I was told.
As we arrived at the radio studios, most of the questions turned to the technicalities of broadcasting and about why things go wrong. Then questions about the amount of football on the radio, the diction of pundits and the best way to get into broadcasting as a career.
On that last point I've been floating the idea of starting a weekly radio club for local teenagers. Many of the parents I spoke to today were enthusiastic about that, but there weren't enough teenagers in the tour to guage the likely take-up.
Meanwhile, having conducted three back-to-back tours in three hours, I have soaring admiration for the people who do this kind of thing for a living.
It really is about walking the talk.
P.S. Some photographs below show the refurbishment work from February to July last year.
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