The song on the telephone

Text C: an original fiction extract.

Anika expected her first afternoon at the community radio station to be mostly about her voice. She had practised introducing herself while walking to school, choosing a tone between cheerful and important. The studio was smaller than she had imagined. A coat hung over a chair, someone had left half a sandwich beside a notebook, and the presenter, Dev, was searching for the spelling of a guest’s surname. He asked Anika to check the next three track titles before worrying about the microphone.

She read them carefully. Dev showed her which notes were ready to use and which were only suggestions. A red circle beside a name meant it still needed checking. Anika had assumed that anything printed on the running order must already be certain. She drew another circle beside a time which appeared on two lines. Dev thanked her and moved one item. The first contribution she made to the programme was invisible to the listeners.

During the request hour, a man called Martin asked for Across the Bridge by the Swifts. He said it had played every afternoon in the workshop where he had his first job. Anika searched the station’s collection. There was no match. She tried the title without the word Across, then the band’s name with a different spelling. Martin waited on the telephone, humming the opening whenever she returned. He was very sure about the tune and less sure about the year. Anika was about to promise that they would find it when Dev touched the red pen beside her hand.

She asked Martin whether they could describe his request on air and invite suggestions. He agreed, but did not want his telephone number mentioned. Anika wrote that condition at the top of her notes. Dev introduced the search without saying that the title had been confirmed. Two listeners offered possible songs. Neither sounded right to Martin. Between calls, Anika worried that the whole request hour was becoming a public demonstration of something she could not do.

Then the studio engineer, Rosa, heard him humming through the monitor. She went to a cupboard and brought out an old station recording. The melody belonged to a short announcement used years earlier before the afternoon programme. It had never been a song by the Swifts. Martin listened twice. He laughed, then explained that the workshop radio had usually been switched on at the same time every day. The music had become attached to the room in his memory, complete with a title he had supplied later.

Dev asked whether Martin wanted to tell that story. This time, Anika understood why he asked rather than assumed. Martin agreed. On air, his account lasted less than a minute, but it made the old recording sound different from the file Rosa had first played. After the programme, Anika crossed out the opening line she had prepared for her next visit. Instead of a sentence designed to make herself sound interesting, she wrote three reminders: check, ask, listen. Dev said she could introduce the next request hour. She practised her name once, then began checking the titles.

You are Anika. Write a speech for a school assembly about what your first afternoon at the radio station taught you.

In your response:

• explain your expectations and what you discovered about making a programme
• describe Martin’s request and what the team learned from handling it
• explain the approach you would recommend to other students trying a similar role

Base your response on Text C, developing its ideas in your own words. Write about 250 to 300 words. Up to 10 marks are available for reading and up to 10 marks for writing.