"It was a very special studio. It was local. It was Georgian buildings (I don't know why that should make a
difference). But at the same time, it was very well equipped and very efficient that the... living locally as I
did in Somerset, you had a kind of relationship with the producers that you didn't really have in London
where it's just more work somehow. It was because it was invisible, because it was local, something
special, and had a human had a human dimension that works very well, particularly in this area of radio
drama, where your relationship... if you're a writer, you do get to believe that you have a direct relationship
with the listener in this case, and there are a whole mass of people, like producers or publishers or
technicians who try to or editors or commissioning editors, who try somehow whose job it is to prevent
you getting to your ultimate audience. But you never felt this at Bristol at all. It meant change were easy. It
meant you could adjust; they could adjust, things were talked about on a very human level. And that, I
think, worked. There was a degree of intimacy and ordinariness, I think, that does work well with radio. It's
a great pity. And I haven't seen any real reason given for it other than the cuts. But one's experience for
cuts is that everyone deplores them, but that they bring about some change, which a bureaucracy, for one
reason, or another desires and needs heart. I don't know what this one is. But then I'm just a conspiracy
theorist, you see, probably is to return all power to London, which is not much good news for everyone
who lives outside it."
- Faye Weldon
"I think accountants. It was obviously an accountants' decision. Accountants don't take into account quality,
they don't take into account enjoyment, they don't take into account the creative spirit which exists in a
place like Christchurch. It was just a figure on their books, and it was something they could chop, and it's
absolutely scandalous. I'm mortified by it. I think it's the most appalling thing that the BBC has ever done. I
really do."
- Peter Tinniswood
"Oh, Lord, there was a day when radio was fun. There was a day when the BBC encouraged all manner of
experimentation. People dared to make mistakes. They dared to employ the wrong people. Those the-
Those- Now I am becoming passionate. And that is exactly what the danger lies in this kind of falling of an
axe. It's chopping off an extraordinary history"
- Paul Rogers