Tell me again - what does that red button do?

It was a busy news morning and local radio presenter Andy Greener was on top form, chatting about Ian Paisley's resignation, the origin of the term Iron Curtain and the blustery weather sweeping down Teesdale in north-east England.

Manning, doing the breakfast shift on his own, he believed a succession of incoming phone calls were just appreciative listeners, and planned to call them back when he got a break from swapping music tapes and giving his take on world affairs.

But after an hour including an ingenious running gag about paranormal goings-on in Barnard Castle, he answered to find it was his desperate station manager saying: "Andy, for God's sake press the red button."



No one had been listening to the jokes, bulletins and specially requested dedications because Greener had failed to switch output from automatic overnight mode.

"Oh, what a dreadful mistake," said the former police officer, one of a group of volunteers at Radio Teesdale who broadcast to 25,000 people in the long valley from the outskirts of Stockton-on-Tees to the Pennine summit. "I've been doing the show three days a week for 10 months and always pressed the button at the right moment. Goodness knows why I forgot this time."

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