One of the small rooms in BBC Broadcasting House is called the Captain Mainwaring Room, some of you might recall that one of the catch phrases from that long running British television show about the wartime ‘Home Guard’ was ‘Don’t Panic’! I recall a meeting with the Disasters Emergency Committee (the BBC broadcasts the charity’s Emergency Appeals) scheduled to be in that room. A senior BBC advisor took one look at the name and the small size of the space and moved us all. My small studio space (picture above) is now up and running and I feel I need a name for it, so if you have a suggestion please do pop it in the comments.

With the new microphone I have started to record the scripts and it seemed a good time to share the story of the theme tune. As a features producer you won’t be surprised that my passion is for voices. So I would often have many hours of interviews to cut together into a Radio 4 programme but then suddenly there was the question of did I need some music. This could be tricky because the listeners also wanted to hear the voices and you could quickly get complaints if they felt that the music had drowned out the words. I also recall in my time making radio appeals, the comments from those who gave to the Radio 4 Appeal, that they didn’t need music to ‘move or manipulate their feelings to encourage them to give’; if the cause were strong enough, they would give.

So I started my search for the podcast music with a bit of trepidation and found a site where you can audition tracks and sort the licence. Thinking of it as another ‘learning curve’ I sent off many questions to an incredibly helpful guy called Samu, who patiently answered them all. I found a track that felt perfect to me but then discovered that the site wouldn’t be able to licence that one so Samu kindly send me all kinds of other suggestions. But as he said: it's a very unique track and it was hard to find music that really captured the spirit of that track.  I agreed and when you’ve found the sound you really like and it has conjured the mood that you feel suits your podcast, nothing else quite fits the bill. So Samu suggested I contact the artist Howard Levy directly.

There’s a happy ending because I received this lovely response from Sarah, Howard’s Manager: Thank you very much for getting in touch. We are happy to know that you are interested in Howard's tune "Fade to Black"…….we would like to assist you in getting it licensed for your podcast directly from Howard. 

There’s also a bit of serendipity because the first time I put this track down to mix it with an episode about the Peasgood’s Nonsuch Apple tree, I didn’t twig that there was a little bit of bird song recorded by Andy Peasgood, that was floating around on another track and they just seemed to come together perfectly. A moment of birdsong to take the listener outside and then Howard’s music. These kinds of moments used to happen in studio by chance and stay in resulting programmes. So I’ll share with you the start of The Mint - Mentha programme and I hope you enjoy both the music, the new mic and the birdsong. (The ending of the track is also lovely but I will leave that as a surprise.)

I am sure that the next 9 weeks to the launch will go very fast. Thank you to all of you who have signed up and encouraged friends to sign up. Creating something in a vacuum can be a bit challenging but I really feel I am creating this with a room full of friends and that makes such a difference.