Sulviga Hedraily

That's how yours truly's name was pronounced on A Jolly Good Show with Dave Lee Travis. It was on BBC World Service Radio one Wednesday evening at 8:15 – circa '89/'90 if I remember correctly. The Pop Pal envelope was opened, amid fanfare, by the voluptuously voiced sidebabe whose name escapes me today.

The sound crackled, reception dimmed and voices wavered as the shortwave frequency gave in to the relentless interference by godknows how many weather systems between London and Karachi. It was all pure vanilla radio, beamed live from across half the globe, and on to my own homemade shortwave antenna. The 5-feet H-shaped aerial itself was constructed by yours truly, according to prescribed instructions from BBC's very own shortwave amateur's antenna manual that they had sent me all the way from Bush House, London WC2B 4PH, England! Yes, nothing matched the pleasure of receiving postal mail from a distance so far!

The reception on my Philips multi-band radio was not too good. Getting clear Multitrack I, II, and III - the latest chart playing shows - was the most challenging. Reception tended to get worse around 5:30 in the afternoon. I suspected the reason was direct sun scorching on my antenna in a west opened balcony, but I could be wrong. Most good rock shows, however, always eluded me because of their airing time, but I used to catch one or two, like John Peel and the Vintage Chart Show, once in a while nevertheless.

Ah, it was the simplest of pleasures in the world. Just directing your ears to one speaker, listening to the broadcast amid an occasional interfering Morse coded station (mostly maritime oceanic chatter, I was told). Simple radio. No remote-control flicking. No zillion channels of shit to choose from.

Anyway, coming back to the moment of glory. Together with awarding me a Pop Pal honour (a big chin-upper for Sulviga, believe me), I received a thick package from them. It contained autographed Jolly Good Show cards, a BBC World Service button, a key chain, BBC Music stationery, and the biggest prize of them all: A shiny full-length vinyl LP from the artist featured that week – Melissa Etheridge – album titled Melissa Etheridge.

My second-hand, solid-state Grundig turntable with a broken mechanical record changer had always been content with old 50's and 60's Hollywood B-movie soundtrack EPs that I bought from junk-sellers at Regal.

But believe me when I tell you that when the needle touched the slow revolving jet-black grooves of a crisp-clean LP, the sounds it produced simply landed me on the moon.

Sulviga Hedraily was rewarded indeed.