Biography

DAVE BUSSEY – THE EARLY YEARS

I was born in a nursing home in Drayton, Norfolk and left school at fifteen to pursue a career in the Royal Navy. I joined HMS Ganges, a training establishment for boy entrants, before being drafted to HMS Colllingwood, near Portsmouth for specialist training as a electrician. In 1970 I joined the Royal Navy’s largest ship HMS Ark Royal and travelled the world before being deployed on a Polaris submarine. Weeks underwater in the service of this country turned me into the man I am today, apparently.

In 1979 I left the services and pursued a career spinning discs on my “Double Decks” until an opportunity to work in Radio was offered with the opening of a new radio station in Dundee. Five years later and bored with just playing music, I looked for a move to the BBC and the chance to do something more challenging. There were periods working in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire before an opportunity to present the “Weekend Early Show” at Radio Two. It was an incredible opportunity considering my lack of experience. The highlight of the whole five years in London was on day one, walking through the doors of Broadcasting House, I couldn’t believe it was happening to me.

A MOVE TO LINCOLNSHIRE

Whilst still working in London, BBC Radio Lincolnshire asked me to join the county’s radio station full time, replacing the then Breakfast Show presenter, John Inverdale. Since then I have presented many of the stations’ programmes, run dozens of quizzes for the annual charity appeal and met thousands of people during talks that I've given to the many different organisations throughout the county.

THE HIGHLIGHTS

In 1993 I received an award for a gardening phone-in, which was the result of a programme broadcast with Daphne Ledward from her garden, but my biggest honour was to head south to London for the Sony Radio Awards in 1989 at which I received a nomination in the Breakfast Show category, the first ever Sony nomination for BBC Radio Lincolnshire. I've appeared on television just twice. The first time I presented a short film about a Lincolnshire charity and the second didn't see me on screen at all. I provided the voice for the second BBC1 series of "Dog eat dog". A great experience but confined to voicing links in a sound booth, I never did meet Ulrika Jonsson.

And now . . . .

More than twenty one years after arriving in the county, I've moved on and I'm happy spending as much time as possible playing golf, taking or planning holiday’s with friends, drinking gin and tonics, decent red wine and not worrying too much about what comes next. I take with me some wonderful memories and who knows when our paths will cross again.