I recently spent a day in Bournemouth supporting Lydia with her Easter Radio show. I connected with Lydia on social media shortly after lockdown.

News is important to her, and she loves local radio. I would see her posting photos of herself with the newspaper she bought after hearing her local radio station’s review of the day's papers.

She sent her partner Frank out to get her paper of choice, he became known as Frank the paper boy!

Lydia has her health challenges. She has progressive MS and uses a wheelchair. Getting involved with radio projects is her way of connecting and feeling a part of society.

At the time I was producing a radio show with a small charity in Epsom. I reached out and suggested Lydia could do a monthly newspaper review.

That evolved into supporting her conducting various radio interviews for the show including with a Channel Five newsreader and Belle Kumble Rose, daughter of her favourite pop star, Lolly.

It was great to involve Lydia remotely, making use of Zoom, which became a great tool to record radio material during and after lockdown and something I still use today.

Lydia follows and interacts with my radio shows and I still work with her on radio projects. She picks a song on my Radio Woking shows and records her voice note introducing it. This has become known as Postcard from Bournemouth.

Last year she even got up at 4am on a Sunday morning to come to visit the Radio Woking studio. That was very special as the team who get involved with my shows got to meet her in person and enjoy a pub lunch afterwards.

Back to my recent trip to the south coast: we had arranged a recording at Lydia’s local church All Saints in Bournemouth. At the church we met Mike Powis, the vicar there. On Zoom we had Shelley Blunden, a trainee vicar from All Saints in Woodham.

Lydia and I met beforehand to discus and draft questions. Lydia then led a conversation where Mike and Shelley shared Easter greetings and a bit about themselves and their respective churches.

We heard how Mike was once a contestant on The Chase and Shelley told us about her past athletics achievements. Then I spent the afternoon recording and putting together the radio show with Lydia and her song choices.

The power of radio and giving a voice to people who may not otherwise get heard is such a powerful thing . I feel my Sunday show on Radio Woking is a community within a community that doesn't always have to be limited by geography.

Talking of my shows why not take a listen if you haven't already?

You will find me on Radio Woking Sundays from 9am – noon and Wednesday from 7-9am.

Over on Surrey Hills Community Radio you can hear Emma and I from 9pm on the second Monday of each month, and you can listen to Life on the Edge with Edge Disability Consultancy on the first Monday of each month from 10am.

Each radio station has a Mix Cloud page to listen on demand. Email me – [email protected] or send a voice note via www.speakpipe.com/jonandrews.