So what does a radio producer do?
We schedule programmes, decide who we are having in as guests and what music we want to get in on certain shows. Maybe somebody's coming into the country that you desperately want to get on the show so you have to drop everything else to try and get that interview.

How did you get the job?
I met somebody who helped me get into radio. I didn't know that a music producer job existed. This person was trying to get reporters in for a youth programme that they did on Radio 5 and they gave me a form for a BBC scheme. I just filled it in and I didn't think anything of it. They took me on the scheme and then I was learning how to be a local radio reporter/journalist in London. I did that for a bit and enjoyed it and actually found that I was quite good at talking to people and quite good at a lot of the things that you don't realise you need to have to be good in this job. But I decided that I wanted to work in music, not news so I started trying to get work experience in various places where they had music shows. I would make the tea, open the post and do whatever it took. I worked at a local black music station near my house and at Jazz FM and then the jobs came up at Radio 1 and I applied and I got one. I was a Production Assistant in the live music unit and I interviewed the bands before they went on stage and made packages that would go out on the radio. It was amazing. I did that for two years and I kind of slowly moved up within that and then I became the producer on the John Peel Show.

What was it like working with John Peel?
Working with him was just madness! I could hardly contain myself. For the first two months I didn't like people to say that I was working with John Peel because I thought that it would jinx I thought he would suddenly think 'she's a bit young' or 'what is she doing exactly?' or 'I want somebody else' so I just wouldn't talk about it, I would just be really happy

What advice would you give to people who want to get into radio, or the music media?
I think that it is the easiest that it has ever been to get into the media now. When I started there were schemes at the BBC and then it was just real pestering someone to let you come in and open the mail or make the tea on their show. Now most universities have a student radio station, most colleges have an RSL - a Restricted Service Licence. You can get experience there. They'll need presenters, producers and the person who rings up the record companies. If you do apply for a bigger scheme like a BBC scheme those are the sort of things that they look for - what did you do yourself to show that you wanted to work in this form of media? You can't expect to get all your experience once you get your stepping stone - you need to kind of do a few things for yourself.

What sort of person do you think you need to be?
Your personality is important - you have got to be able to get on with other people and you need to be reliable and work hard.

What sort of money can you expect to make starting out?
At the very beginning the media is very much a place where you almost subsidise yourself. You need to get that work experience which won't pay much money knowing that you can do a job and you are picking up skills. In terms of starting at radio stations we are looking at figures from like £6,000 as a runner, as a messenger and then of course your salary can go up to, for a producers salary can go up to about £50,000 depending on what you do and your areas of responsibility.

Do you have any advice for me as a parent on what I can do to help my child?
My friends and I at school used to read the NME cover to cover and go to gigs and my father said to me 'I only wish you would put so much effort into thinking of what you were going to do with your life as you do into this following of bands, knowing the names of the people on the stage, knowing what they play, knowing where they're playing, knowing that they have a great love for David Bowie or The Cure or whatever.' He said, 'I would feel so much happier because I think you could get a fantastic job, you will never get a job doing that and it's a pity because you're very good at it'. And at the time I never knew that you could get a job doing that but all those skills I learnt then just being a child and just being a child who liked music, are the skills that have got me to be a music producer at Radio 1. I am still that child, I am still that person who is going to gigs and I still know all the people in the band and I still know if someone's hurt their arm and they've got a new drummer in, so those things are important, don't rubbish them in your children, just realise that that is a skill, that interest - especially now, because the media does dominate so much of what we do and that interest can get them a job.

What are the pros and cons of working in radio?
There is a lot of mental stress - you think of things a lot. The hours can be long because if you have an idea and you need an interview with somebody and that person can only do an interview at 11:30 at night then you at you have to go then. You don't have fixed days. You have periods of time when you work in a frantic manner, trying to get everything and then you have periods of time when you are very quiet.