One of the scary parts of releasing a new book such as Adventures in the Radio Trade into the wild is you don’t know how it’s going to be received. Whether people will understand what it is you’re trying to do, whether they will like how you’ve done it, whether they’ll even care. Crickets is almost worse than no feedback at all. 

So it’s gratifying, and a bit of a relief, when positive feedback does start rolling in.

Here’s an email I received yesterday (reprinted here with permission) from veteran freelance writer/broadcaster John Pellatt, who shares a great story of his own about CBC Radio legend Allan McFee. 

Congrats on such an enjoyable read. Great stories, well told and in a clear size font I could actually read! (Thank you for resisting any temptation to squeeze more into less pages by using a smaller font.)

And it triggered so many of my own memories! (As I'm sure it will with many of your readers.) Reading your stories about the old Jarvis Street Studio R reminded me of the story told to me a long time ago by then CBC tech Bruce Evans. This would be in the early 1970s. I was visiting Inside From The Outside. (Producer: Jack Humphrey. Stars Max Ferguson, Jane Mallett, David Hughes, Judy Sinclair and Carl Banas. Up on the back wall of the control room for Studio R (or else nearby) where they taped the show (using one mike suspended from an overhead boom!!!) was a huge paper schematic diagram of the board. It was screwed in under hard clear plastic. I was admiring it (without understanding it) when Bruce (who teched IFTO) explained why it was protected by plastic. It seems Max's show in those days was also done out of R and whenever the control room was empty Allan McFee (his announcer/sidekick) would wander in with his newly acquired fine black tip marker pen and add very realistic squiggles and doodles to the schematics.

After several years of this - unnoticed by all - the board went kaput one day and everyone gathered around the schematic to figure out the problem. Except they couldn't! McFee's ingenious doodles had dried and were indistinguishable from the real diagram. The schematic was useless as was Studio R for days until they could send away to CBC Headquarters in Ottawa to get the only existing copy of the schematic. Once received it was placed under hard clear plastic to prevent McFee from ever again expressing his artistic talents!

Bruce swore it was all true and knowing (now) the legend that was Allan McFee I can well believe it! And if it wasn't, well, it's so good a McFee story that it should have been!

Again, congrats on a thoroughly readable, thoroughly enjoyable
"memoir".

- John Pellatt
Freelance Writer/Broadcaster
Vancouver, BC