Gary Hopkins

Gary presents 'Blast from the 80s' every Sunday 3pm-4pm and 'Blast from the 90s' every Tuesday 1pm-2pm.

Brief background summary
My real background is with customer service away from Radio dealing with customers in a face to face format, and over the phone and internet and I wouldn’t say I have any interesting jobs in the past or expected to in the future, but you never know. I could be here all day and tell you some of the complaints and issues I dealt with but I’d be writing for hours, all I can say is these people roam our streets... 

What was your first job? Do you have a funny story about it?
My first real job was working in Bingo in 1993, And from there on I moved with promotions into the SW of the UK and South Wales, I was roving assistant manager by the time I’d finished with the leisure industry. Probably best job was when I worked for a sports memorabilia store, and so I could talk about famous people who we had in store autograph wise. The funny story here was when the shopping centre manager asked me as a manager to remove a £250,000 silver medal as it invalidated the shopping centres insurance (it was too costly!) So I had to hide the medal somewhere where it couldn’t be stolen, amazing what you can put into the top of a toilet 

What are you happiest doing when you’re not working and why?
This will sound Corny, but when not working I am happy producing my radio shows. Apart from that just being outside looking at nice views on top of hills or beaches with my family is the other way of making me happy in life.

What’s your absolute favourite song and why?
Can’t answer that, far too many….If I had to say one I’d say Queen's seminal "Bohemian Rhapsody".

What’s your favourite album and why?
Probably Tears for Fears – "Songs From the Big Chair", my brother played it all the time and I never got bored with it either and there are some quality tracks on this album. I was starting to get into the music vibe thanks to this song and my brother's other musical tastes

What song do you hate most and why?
Again too many, but "Crazy Frog", does my head in and basically anything copied by modern artists that ruin the original song!

Which artist/ musician alive or dead would you most like to get a coffee (whiskey etc.) with?
I’ve been fortunate enough to talk to some artists in the past, but I would say if I could talk to somebody, I would actually say the whole of ABBA together would be my dream. Don’t drink coffee but if this happened I would drink anything with them

Tell us something no one knows about you?
Keeping secret causes problems, so I have none that I can think of but know many about others :)

What’s your most useless talent?
Cooking and DIY probably, I try, but normally it's a disaster...

What will finally break the internet?
Not me, but surely somebody will and the world will go mad - if Facebook goes down it's like what do we do?

If we went to Happy Hour what would you order?
Hot and Spicy pizza with a glass or two of Cider.

Finally - is there anything specific you want the listeners to know about you...
Nothing really springs to mind (sorry.. I'm not that dull really!)