We covered many subjects and she told me that she was looking to do a very interesting podcast in the future based on cities of the world. Now podcasts have always been a foreign country for me. I have promised myself that one day I would construct one but have never had the faintest idea about how to go about it thinking I needed vast amounts of microphones and other equipment.
Danielle introduced me to a mobile phone app by the name of Anchor. It turned out to be simplicity itself. Within half an hour I had recorded a podcast, set myself up with a channel and published my first one which was a version of my blog from a couple of days ago. Within minutes of publishing on the Anchor platform it was on Spotify and it should be on other Media sites within the next few days.
This is an exciting leap forward for me as I can now feature articles on music, history, sport and also carry out podcast interviews with local people of interest. It will act as an extension to my daily blog but have different content.
My podcast is on Spotify at:
https://open.spotify.com/show/6IOE2u58aVARzxu0dqP6ig
And for those not on Spotify you can find it at:
https://anchor.fm/peter-steward
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Sometimes I get the urge to write about personal things with this blog and that has been prompted by the television walk out by Piers Morgan a couple of days ago.
But this blog isn't about Morgan who to me is an irrelevance in my life. I couldn't care less whether he is or isn't on Good Morning Britain particularly as I prefer to watch Breakfast TV on the BBC where Dan Walker is everything that Piers Morgan isn't. But it did make me muse about why I went into journalism as a career and whether it was ultimately the right choice. I think I have touched on this in the past.
From an early age at school, I loved writing stories. I didn't realise it at the time but writing would become one of my passions in life - along with sport and music. But obviously the seeds were sown, although I did enjoy maths and numbers as well.
My first memories of being asked what "I wanted to do when I grew up" brought nonsense replies. I wanted to be a Norwich City footballer in the winter and a speedway rider in the summer - neither of which came anywhere near realisation although I wasn't a bad footballer in my time.
But when I became a tad more sensible, I wanted to be a maths teacher or a teacher in general and then that morphed into the fact I wanted to be a writer for a living. I'm not sure how or when I set my sights on becoming a journalist but it may have been something to do with a wish to report on Norwich City matches. I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Bruce Robinson and Dick Scales who reported on Norwich games for the Eastern Evening News and Eastern Daily Press Newspapers.
So I applied to Eastern Counties Newspapers who ran a trainee scheme for new intake reporters and was lucky enough to gain a place with them subject to gaining three A levels which I just about scraped together (English, Economics and History). That gave me access to a nine month course at Harlow Technical College run by the National Council for the Training of Journalists.
I had scrapped ideas of becoming a teacher and was fully into becoming a reporter. In many ways I felt as though I had drifted into journalism having made that decision. Whether it was the right one is something I often muse on. Having been also involved in education from a volunteer perspective - as a school governor and then chair of governors - I still wonder if I would have had a more enjoyable career as a teacher.
But having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed spells of working in Lowestoft, Norwich, Cromer and Beccles with Eastern Counties Newspapers (now Archant). I found myself integrated into the local community, particularly at Cromer and Beccles and realised that was where my strengths lay.
But then I did a stupid thing - After three years on the Beccles and Bungay Journal I was becoming jaded with covering the same stories year after year and needed a new challenge. I applied for a couple of sports editors jobs - one in Portsmouth and one with Radio Norfolk, but didn't get them.
So I went in the wrong direction and stupidly took the first job that was offered me which was working with a press agency in the Midlands - a job I was totally unsuited to and absolutely hated. There's nothing worse than having a job that causes you stress and gives no job satisfaction whatsoever. The only part of that job I enjoyed was covering professional football on a Saturday for radio stations and local newspapers. The rest of the week was a nightmare. I had no real idea of what I was supposed to be doing and my sojourn in the Midlands lasted a little over a year before a return to Norfolk and more stability.
I guess what I'm trying to give here is a piece of advice for younger people. Be careful what you enter into and think long and hard before leaping into another area or sphere.
I enjoyed the majority of my working life but there's a little bit of me wonders what life would have been like if I had gone into teaching.
I'm very pleased to say that some of what I write as an individual and also for the Hethersett Herald e-magazine is now being used by the Wymondham and Attleborough Talking Newspaper.