Patrons of The British Wireless for the Blind Fund

If you’re a charity searching for someone bubbling over with personality to help you raise funds then you couldn’t do any better than having Bucks Fizz star, Cheryl Baker on board!

With more than twenty hit records (including three Number Ones), leading roles in many plays and pantomimes, plus countless TV programmes to her credit, Cheryl has kept the British public continually entertained right from that memorable skirt-shedding moment in Dublin in 1981’s Eurovision prize-winning performance!

That’s why we are "over the moon" that Cheryl has generously agreed to become a patron of the British Wireless for the Blind Fund.

As Cheryl says : "For people who have lost their sight, having the support of the British Wireless for the Blind Fund must be wonderful. Providing people with the means to listen to music is so important."

"Radio has always been a particularly exciting medium for me. I’ve found it thrilling to listen to since I was a very little girl. When I found myself with a job as a broadcaster I could hardly believe how lucky I was to have such a wonderful, privileged job. Radio is such an intimate medium. I was taught from the beginning that you are talking just to one person. This is why radio is absolutely essential to blind people, offering that direct, one-to-one contact. A vital channel of information and entertainment.

I think the BWBF is absolutely marvellous. I’m thrilled to be involved with it."

"My first memory of the wireless is when, as a four year old, I sat with my Mum each day, hearing "Listen with Mother." We had a wonderful, old fashioned radiogram, a big piece of furniture that radiated a glorious warmth from the corner of the room…the dials and station window glowing orange, the valves getting hot. I would tune up and down the dial, my Mum would play records. My earliest memories connect the link between radio and music. As I got older I got to hear ‘Dick Barton,’ sometimes ‘Journey into Space’ and the Goons, all the time realising that this new medium encouraged me to let my mind put images to the sounds." 

"I didn't need to see photographs of the people whose voices I was hearing, or the places they were in. I could build a picture of it all in my mind, and make it as glamorous, frightening or comic as I wanted. Sports commentaries took me onto the pitch. When Bluebottle fell into the water, I was laughing from the shoreline. 

I found my Rock ‘n’ Roll when I was ten, through Elvis Presley. My search for more took me to ‘Pick of the Pops,’ Radio Luxembourg and the pirate radio stations, each new experience confirming how much I wanted to be in a studio, behind a microphone, playing records, soaking up the atmosphere and being part of the magic of it all. 

I’ve now been broadcasting for nearly thirty four years, yet I still get a fantastic thrill every time I walk into Broadcasting House to do a programme. I feel very lucky to have the opportunity and the freedom to broadcast the music I love on Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music. Radio has been a defining element of my life and throughout my lifetime and for longer the British Wireless for the Blind Fund has been doing its marvellous work. I’ve been a silent supporter of the BWBF. But now I have this opportunity to offer a million thanks for the work you do. You treat the medium I love with great respect and bring pleasure to people in a wonderful way. Turn the dial and you’ve turned them on. You’ve helped keep the spirit of radio alive, to the point where radio is as vigorous and successful today as it has ever been.

Thank you for caring about radio and thank you for caring about people."

"Radio is one of the great blessings of modern life, and all the more so if you are sight-impaired. 

I am delighted to lend what support I can to the British Wireless for the Blind Fund."