Luton and Dunstable Hospital Radio plea for funds to keep messages and music on air

The radio station at Luton and Dunstable University Hospital has made a plea for donations to keep it running after nearly 60 years of serving the community.

The volunteer-led L&D Radio runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week and broadcasts in the hospital, across Luton and surrounding villages. The station and its 22 volunteers play music, send messages to people staying on the wards and have educational speakers to entertain those in the hospital and the towns.

The station began in Harpenden in the 1960s and now solely serves the Luton and Dunstable University Hospital. Station manager, Glyn Davies, said: “We are more like the old style Radio Two – easy listening. We've got some dedicated programmes that play new music and programmes that do jazz, blues and soul. It's nonstop all the time.”

After relocating from the hospital site to a studio in Marsh Farm, the radio station has faced the added cost of paying rent – which amounts to around £4,000. L&D Radio also pays for equipment as well as broadcast and copyright licence fees. A fundraising page was created to help get some much-needed donations to keep the shows on air.

For Glyn, who has been involved with the station for 43 years, being a part of the hospital community is very rewarding. He explained: “If we make one person happy, we’ve done our job. We had a lady in Australia send us an email saying her best friend was in the hospital and asked to send a message to her.”

Glyn and the team broadcast the message and got permission to visit the woman to give her well wishes in person. He added: “The lady was very poorly, but when got the message to her, she managed a bit of a grin.”

The volunteers fundraise in the community for their expenses and would also like to raise enough money to buy a transmitter to broadcast live from concerts and other live events.

If they can raise enough money to keep the station going, Glyn said: “I would be over the moon.” The fundraising page can be found here.