Tributes as popular Sheffield radio legend Gerry Kersey dies after over 50 years at the microphone
One of the original voices of Radio Sheffield has died aged 86.
Gerry Kersey, who worked for both the BBC and independent radio, had been ill for some time and died on Friday morning with his wife, Christine, at his side.
Paying tribute, Katrina Bunker, Head of BBC Yorkshire, said: "Gerry was a true legend of local broadcasting, starting his career in 1968 as one of the first voices on BBC Radio Sheffield."
In 2018, he was interviewed by The Star to mark his 50th anniversary on the radio.
He said at the time: "Every week is a challenge to produce something interesting,''
"To do a three-hour show involves seven or eight, or nine hours' preparation sometimes. I produce, present and administer the programme. I don't have an assistant at all. It's driven, end to end by me.''
He remembered now in 1968, on his fist show, he interviewed The Star's then theatre reporter Terry Finch at Radio Sheffield's old HQ on Westbourne Road, Broomhill.
Gerry, was born in a two-up two-down house in Shiregreen, was schooled at Firth Park Grammar and began his working life as a wages clerk at Hadfields steel company. He did his National Service at RAF Norton, in Sheffield.
He got his own show on Radio Sheffield in the early 1970s, and also spent time on Radio Hallam in the 1980s, before returning to Radio Sheffield in 1997