WE'RE giving a big Star hello to our newest 'recruit'.

For every week - starting next week - Radio City's Big Drive Home presenter Darren Proctor will be exclusively giving St Helens Star readers the lowdown on what's new on the music scene.

There will also be a guide to top music events in the North West and a run down of the North West Top 40, along with an big prize giveaway every week.

Darren, who is also Head of Presentation for Radio City 96.7 is looking forward to producing his own music column in St Helens Star.

And he revealed that his links with St Helens go back to his days as an apprentice electrician when he was working at Silverdale Colliery, Stoke-on-Trent in the late eighties. He explained: "It's great to be writing for the Star and believe it or not my links with the Star go back a few years to when I was an apprentice with Silverdale Colliery. As part of my apprenticeship I attended St Helens Technical College for two days a week.

"St Helens is a great town and the people are smashing. Every summer Radio City does a roadshow tour throughout Merseyside and I've got to say that the roadshow at the St Helens Show is my favourite.

"The crowd at the show always give us a fantastic reception and it'll be interesting to see how the public takes to my new column which should provide plenty of entertaining information for music lovers.

"I hear that the nightlife in St Helens is quite good so I'm hoping to try it out, you never know I may even be able to some DJ nights - breakfast presenter Kev Seed and I already do a night at the Paradox in Liverpool which goes down well."

Darren left his job at Silverdale Colliery in 1989 after winning Young DJ of the Year for Mecca Leisure and he started work at Signal Radio in Stoke.

In 1995 the enthusiastic 26-year-old presenter (who is still single) joined Radio City and he has been presenting the Big Drive Home between 4pm and 7pm (Monday to Friday) ever since. He also presents the North West Top 40 every Saturday between 10am and 1pm.

Darren's ambition is to work on TV and he hopes one day to present the Pepsi Chart Show, which is the most listened to chart show on commercial radio.

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