Last modified on Wed 21 Apr 2021 11.54 EDT
Last year I became a staunch Radio 1 listener again for the first time since my teens. I needed the ceaselessly refreshing joy of pop music during the pandemic, but also the pastoral bump on the shoulder from its presenters looking out for audiences considerably younger than me: the pure, giddy fun of phone-ins and running jokes, the gentle mood-guardrails and circumspect parcelling out of the dayâs events on Newsbeat. It frequently made me sentimental, and still does: just this week I had a moment at a sunny roundabout as Greg James played the new Wolf Alice song. Its entire presenter cohort deserves to join the national role call of pandemic heroes â and in particular Annie Mac, who yesterday announced that she was leaving the station after 17 years.