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A Badge of Honour (Thanks to The Local News for Southsiders for this article)
Sunny Govan Radio presenter, John Macdonald, (52), was awarded the Veterans Badge live, on-air during his morning programme, by Group Captain David Ogg of the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency (SPVA).
John, who is a volunteer at the station, served in the RAF with ground communications from 1972 to 78. When he signed up at 18, he did 12 weeks of training to graduate as a Leading Air Craftsmen (LAC). A year later, after further training, he graduated as a Senior Air Craftsman (SAC). Then he was posted to various RAF stations in England and served 9 months in the Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean and a further 3 months in Hong Kong.
John left the Air Force because of military cutbacks when funding appeared to favour the army. Fortunately for him, he did not need to do any fighting because it was a relatively quiet time in the world when he was in the RAF.
In civilian life, John was an assistant manager for NAAFI, the army social club in Germany and worked as a radio presenter on an Israeli radio station. He was a volunteer for five years with the Southern General Hospital Radio and was the first presenter to broadcast on Sunny Govan when they transferred from net broadcasting to their 24 hour service on 103.5FM.
John said, ‘I am really happy to have been given this Veterans’ badge. It finally means that my time in the RAF has been recognised, which is really great.’
Group Captain David Ogg said, ‘It’s a great honour to be able to present this badge. This will show our appreciation and pride in Mr Macdonald’s commitment to his job with the Royal Air Force, which has not gone unrecognised.’
The SPVA was set up three years ago by the Ministry of Defence to provide information and advice to all former UK military personnel. It covers pensions, financial information and benefits advice. The Agency is also responsible for awarding the Veterans’ Badges.
In the past three years they have awarded 460,000 badges to veterans who served before 1984.
If you would like more information about the badges or wish any other information, call the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency (SPVA) on 0800 169 2277
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My Blog

A new week

Jusst a quick word about the old week first. I went off to a speedway meet for the first time last Sunday and it was more fun than I thought it would be. The organisers keep the action going with a ra...
Posted by on Sun, 13 May 2007 01:54:00 GMT

This weeks radio

Wow what a week. Owing to Scottish elections I had to avoid politics of political things so I decided to do tourist-type items instead. Various tourist boards were happy to come on-air and sell their ...
Posted by on Fri, 04 May 2007 07:40:00 GMT

This small radio world

What a small world we live in! Yesterday Radius Fm in Israel had a special Voice of Peace day to celebrate Abie Nathans' 80th birthday. It is possible that extracts of my interview with Hans Knot the ...
Posted by on Sun, 29 Apr 2007 22:24:00 GMT

It has happened

So now Sunny Govan Radio is on the air and broadcasting to Glasgow on 103.5FM. Imagine my surprise when I was invited to be the first presenter on air. The management opened the station after working ...
Posted by on Thu, 29 Mar 2007 06:11:00 GMT

The (sick) news

Boy, have I ever been sick these last few days. I think I can trace it back to a dodgy kebab which combined with a heavy cold left me horribly dehydrated and feeling like something washed up on a poll...
Posted by on Sun, 11 Mar 2007 13:47:00 GMT

Sunny Govan Radio

This week much of my time has been spent reaching out to community groups. Many of them seem up for getting time on a community radio station but there is a certain amount of shyness. A few, I feel su...
Posted by on Sun, 18 Feb 2007 03:37:00 GMT

This week

This week I presented the first talk show I had prepared since 1975. Gosh I feel like twice the age of the other people on MySpace. It went well, had a flow to it and the interviewees seemed to like i...
Posted by on Sat, 10 Feb 2007 01:55:00 GMT

A new radio station

Like anything else the first one is the hardest. So here we go, a new radio station with my first talk show since 1975. Tune in on Thursday between 2pm-3pm UK time (although it will probably be repeat...
Posted by on Mon, 05 Feb 2007 20:30:00 GMT