- Chris Needs
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Christopher Needs MBE (born 12 March 1954[1]) is a radio broadcaster, currently working with BBC Radio Wales. He has been broadcasting for several years, and started his radio career with the Touch AM radio station before moving on to co-present the mid-morning magazine show Live Time on Radio Wales while also appearing on S4C television. Since 2002 he has had his own show, broadcast every weeknight on Radio Wales between 22.00 and 1.00.
Needs's listeners come from a wide and varied area, and not just his native Wales. Most of the people who call into his show belong to an organisation called "The Chris Needs Friendly Garden Association". The Garden as it has become known, has almost 50,000 members from places as close as Wales itself to as far away as Queensland, Australia. The garden is open to pets as well as people, and more than a thousand animals have to date been nominated for this service.
Members of the Garden are given their own identification code, usually starting with an M for male members, A for Animals, or without a letter for Female members. Needs may hold the world record for the largest number of registered fan club members for a radio show.
Shortly after his mother died in 2001, Needs had started having symptoms of diabetes. Eventually, when he went to his local pharmacy to have himself checked, his sugar level was 61 mmol/l (1,098 mg/dl). His pharmacist had never met anyone who had such a high blood sugar.
In the period 2001 to 2003, Needs was joined nightly on his radio show by his friend Nikki-Sue, a talented show singer and Tina Turner impersonator.
Needs is originally from Cwmafan near Port Talbot in South Wales, which he affectionately calls "The Land of the Moving Curtains". Needs lives with his partner Gabe Cameron who often answers the calls to the show.
Needs figureheads the Chris Needs Hospital Appeal a registered charity that supports South Wales hospitals. For his charity work and services to broadcasting he was awarded an MBE (Membership of the Order of the British Empire) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in the 2005 New Year's Honours.
Needs is an accomplished pianist and has accompanied Bonnie Tyler. His other jobs have included: language translator, actor, tour guide, and all-round vocal / piano entertainer, and through his work he has lived in Spain, Gibraltar, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Jersey. He speaks English, Welsh, Spanish and Dutch and is currently learning German.
Contents
Awards
1996 - Sony Radio Academy Awards Silver Award for Best Regional Presenter.[2]
2009 - Variety Club of Great Britain Lifetime Achievement Award.
Books
2007 - Chris Needs: Like It Is: My Autobiography
2008 - Chris Needs: The Jenkins's's's's's
2009 - Chris Needs: And There's More ... My Autobiography - part 2.
References
- ^ "Chris Needs" BBC Radio Wales [May 4, 2007]. Needs said the song Here in My Heart by Al Martino was from the year he was born.
- ^ BBC - Wales - Radio Wales - Chris Needs
External links
Categories:- 1952 births
- People from Neath Port Talbot
- British radio personalities
- Living people
- Members of the Order of the British Empire
- Sony Radio Academy Award winners
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