Twenty years of talking back

As BBC Radio Ulster's popular series Talk Back celebrates its 20th birthday, presenter David Dunseith looks back on the highs and lows of playing circus ringmaster in a programme where callers 'get it out in the open' and revel in a good rant.

David Dunseith looks back on 20 years of Talk Back

"Is your head not turned"?

"How do you stick it David"?

Stock questions and a stock answer: "I've a mortgage to pay!"

Isn't that the perception of Talk Back?

The presenter, a circus ringmaster attempting to calm down crazed listeners, incandescent because they'd heard something not actually said.

Why should we be surprised? This community has been brutalised down the years. Suspicion and hostility fuel debate.

Better to get it out in the open, better to talk about it than ignore it.

That has been the Talk Back philosophy over 20 years, giving rise to the description; "The People's Parliament - an institution".

An editorial in the Guardian dubbed Talk Back "An Alternative Peace Process".

In black and white - an early photograph of David Dunseith

The Scotsman's verdict: "The Voice of the People".

Those newspapers correctly identified Talk Back's role as part of the community it serves and not apart from it.

Another false perception is that Talk Back is dominated by raw politics laced with religion. Not a bit of it.

Consumer problems and consumer queries abound and where would Talk Back be without the quirky, the whimsical, the bizarre?

How about this stranger-than-fiction tale?

Much admired tender steaks, revealed as slices of human buttocks, supplied by a mortuary attendant to his restauranteur cousin.

That's Talk Back; a bran tub of ingredients, variety, banter, chit-chat. Anything goes... well nearly anything!

Colleagues who have come and gone down the years, proud to wear the Talk Back T-shirt, used their talents to give added value to this newspaper of the air, and none more so than the first Talkback presenter, the late Barry Cowan.

With advances in technology, we are now beamed across the world, drawing listeners' comments from these islands, from the United States, Canada, Australia and countries in the European Union.

David Dunseith with the late Mo Mowlam, former NI Secretary

The message board on our web site has attracted upwards of 180,000 hits a phenomenal achievement.

The programme has received many awards and accolades from the great and good down the years.

But the following endorsement is the most treasured one for me.

A Belfast paramedic recalled the occasion when he was stretchering an injured woman from her home.

"This is terrible", she moaned.

"Don`t worry, missus, they'll have you right as rain before the day is out", he replied.

"Ach, it's not that son, said she glancing at her watch, "I'm going to miss Talk Back!"