Community / End of an era as Mary hangs up the microphone
All photos: BBC Radio Shetland
LISTENERS of last night’s Books Programme on BBC Radio Shetland witnessed a rare moment of local history that rightfully can be described as the end of an era.
When Mary Blance, and colleagues, started a programme on the local book and literature scene back in the mid-eighties, no one knew that it would run for four decades.
But Thursday night’s packed programme was the last in the series, as Mary is switching off the microphone for the last time – and so, her familiar and reassuring broadcasting voice will no longer be heard from folk’s wirelesses.
Turning 76 later this year, she says the time is right to do other things in life, though after a broadcasting career that spans back to 1978, she admits she isn’t quite sure what that new life might entail.
But things are definitely slowing down as one gets older, and in any case, there are still so many books that want to be read, including those that don’t feature in the Books Programme.
So, looking back at 40 years of close inspection of the local book scene, what has changed and what stands out?
“Once upon a time a new Shetland book was rarity, it was uncommon,” she recalls.
“We had local publishers like the Shetland Times, T. & J. Manson and Nelson Smith and everybody interested in books went out and bought that new book.
“Now, there are folk living in Shetland who have publishers on the mainland, and there are Shetlanders living on the mainland who are getting the Shetland way of speaking into the work they do and publish south.
“Shetland writing has a higher profile beyond its shores, and then there are the folk that do self-publishing, which made a huge difference.
“So, if you want to collect every Shetland book in recent years you are not going to have the bookshelf space to hold them all.”
And her advice to budding as well as established writers is clear: “The best books are those where folk have been edited.
“I think you need a group of friends who you really trust to read your work and tell you where it is not working. I think that is vitally important.
“In the old days of me making programmes I had Rhoda [Bulter], and Rhoda was an honest critic.
“She told me where I was not managing to get things right, and she always, in any cassette I sent her, identified whatever I was worrying about, and I think, however you get published, you need around you a group that are your honest critics.”
There is a lot of work, and not just the reading, that goes into an hour-long radio programme, and Mary freely admits that over time it has become more and more stressful to produce.
And so the final programme was another bumper edition with 12 different items ranging from Marsali Taylor’s latest crime novel and the story behind a handmade book with stories from Yell to an interview to mark Karen Fraser’s retirement from the library to Paul Moar’s book about trolls.
BBC Radio Shetland staff, former colleagues and friends of the programme were at hand last night to show their appreciation to Mary’s contribution to local radio in Shetland.
The station’s editor John Johnston said: “Mary has been such a stalwart of Radio Shetland and a champion of the language. I’m going to miss her so much.
“We’ve worked together for nearly 34 years. From the moment she picked me up from Sumburgh airport to help report on the aftermath of the Braer oil spill [in the winter of 1993] she’s been such a close friend and mentor.”
However, not all is lost, because Mary will be back with one final programme in the autumn. “What I am going to miss most about this whole process is the recording the stories and interviews with the winners of the young writers’ competition,” she says.
“So come hairst, I am going to record this year’s winners and do interviews with them, and then I am going to look at the history of the young writers’ competition and speak to some of the previous winners and organisers.”
“That will give me closure. And it’s another programme to make me feel better,” she jokes.
Meanwhile, the BBC Radio Shetland confirmed that there are plans afoot to revamp the Books Programme to become a wider cultural and arts programme including book reviews and interviews.
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