GERRY Anderson never dries up.

Whether he’s on air or off it he’s unstoppable. You’re tempted to wonder not so much what makes Mr. Anderson tick as what makes him talk.

Nonetheless. the fact that he has probably never been party to an embarrassing silence in his life, has paid obvious dividends on his morning Radio Ulster show.

Anderson, you see, is not just all empty chatter — well, he is all empty chatter — but he is entertaining, empty chatter.

You either love him or you hate him. If you love him you’ll write him a witty letter he’ll read out on air. If you hate him you’ll ring him halfway through the show to abuse him.

Either way it makes compulsive listening. Gerry Anderson and Radio Ulster, are onto a winner. And while part of the winning formula is undoubtedly a strong mix of audience participation, the rest is all Anderson.

Who else in local broadcasting would suggest swimming lessons in your own home — “Step one, first flood your living room” —who else would present the “W.D. Flackes Exercise Record” or Barry McGuigan singing “The Boxer,” or Eric Waugh doing the commentary for “Come Dancing?”

“I talk about things people are interested in, like budgies and varicose veins,” he says.

His choice of subject material may have limited his selection of studio guests. He did have one gentleman in recently with a budgie, which he hoped would become the first budgie to broadcast live
in Northern Ireland (It didn’t. It got stage fright from the studio lights), but that’s about it.

The mechanics of the studio guest system are not in his favour, anyway. Anderson’s Monday to Friday morning show is broadcast from the Radio Foyle studio in Londonderry.

“Nobody famous ever comes to Derry,” he says without much regret. “So who am I supposed to talk to? Today listeners, we’ll be talking to the local rates inspector.”

He joined Radio Foyle roughly three years ago, first as an occasional contributor, later with his own show. Before that he was a full-time musician with a local band, and editor of a community magazine. “I hadn’t seen a morning for 10 years”, he says.

Waking up for a morning show was a bit of an ordeal in the beginning. “I’ve had to train myself like a seal,” and it’s about the only concession Anderson has made to the traditions of Radio Ulster broadcasting.

He may not fit the mould of local radio presenter as we’ve come to know it (even his Derry accent has come under attack in the newspaper correspondence columns) yet strangely enough he looks every inch the BBC type in his cravats and bow ties and white jackets.

He looks (and I know he will forgive me for saying this) older than he sounds. He has the sort of face you expect a Sean Rafferty voice to come out of.

The success of the irreverent sketches that fuel his show, is due, he says, to a lack of rehearsal and Sean Coyle. Rehearsing, he argues, would ruin the show’s spontaneity. Coyle, the voice (or voices) in most of his sketches nods his head gravely with the guarded look of a man who has had one too many surprises sprung on him over the microphone.

“The way we operate is this,” explains Sean: “Gerry will mention while a record is playing, ‘When this finishes, I’ll say so and so and then you’ll say so-and-so. Then the record stops and he’ll say something completely different.”

Facing each show “blind” without a repertoire of well rehearsed pre-recorded items doesn’t appear to ruffle the laid-back Anderson, although you can’t help noticing his nails are bitten to the quick. He even says he enjoys handling abusive phone calls on air, although he claims to have his own complicated personal radar system, which can detect crank callers.

Making it all sound to easy is probably his greatest talent. That and a knack for getting his listeners to write his scripts.

After a recent sketch on a how to play the bagpipes, he received a letter from a listener, an air traffic controller, pointing out the regulations governing the playing of bagpipes in an aeroplane cockpit. Anderson just loves feedback like that. In a way you suspect it makes up for nobody famous ever going up to Derry.

Interview by Lindy McDowell, originally published in The Belfast Telegraph on 3rd September 1986.