BLACKBURN Hospital’s radio station is celebrating two landmarks this year.

2014 marks the 50th anniversary since the station’s first live broadcast, as well as the radio station’s 60th birthday.

Radio Hospitals Blacburn began life back in 1954 when two enterprising men, Eddis Ellis and Bill Cunliffe, decided to collect music requests from patients in three Blackburn Hospitals.

The requests were then recorded onto a tape in Eddie's garden shed and played back to the patients.

The pair called their venture ‘Radio Blackburn’.

Four years later, Radio Blackburn became the first hospital radio service in the country to provide football commentary, which came from Ewood Park, the home of Blackburn Rovers.

This service is still going strong with current presenters Stuart Wearden and Barry Illsley.

Barry is the current radio station’s longest serving member with more than fifty years of service.

Ten years later, in 1964, the station began its first live broadcasts, which took place from a member's wash-house in Old Feniscliffe road in Blackburn.

The station later moved to its first studio, which was housed in a room at the local YMCA.

Current chairman, presenter and webmaster David Peacock, 40, has been volunteering for the station for twelve years.

His wife Donna Seddon, 37, is the station’s secretary.

David is one of 33 volunteers who keep the station going 24/7, and he usually volunteers for fifteen to twenty hours per week.

He said: “It was the early days of hospital radio when we began.

“It’s a proud moment to be at the helm.”

The station is planning a number of events to celebrate the landmark year, including a public broadcast in the hospital lobby on December 21.

Radio Hospitals Blackburn will also be taking part in an A to Z of pop programme involving hospital radio station nationwide, which will be broadcast for twenty hours continuously on New Year’s Eve.