BBC’s Burnsy: ‘I’m a normal bloke - I just have a platform to gob off’

MAKING A DIFFERENCE: BBC Radio Humberside’s Burnsy with The Hull Story’s Rick Lyon. Tom Arran Commercial Photography

His is one of the most recognisable voices in local radio. Award-winning broadcaster ‘Burnsy’ sat down with Rick Lyon to discuss his career, how he hopes his show makes a difference, and why he loves people from Hull

David Burns has just finished one of his morning shows.

The show was a good one, he says. His personal highlight was a call from a gentleman in his 80s wanting some advice to help his 14-year-old grandson with a homework project about the Second World War.

It is this platform to make even a small difference to people’s live the broadcaster commonly known as Burnsy insists is what makes his job so special.

“I just want to make a radio show that makes a difference somehow, but do it hopefully in an entertaining way,” he says. 

“We do the serious stuff and we do the less serious stuff and just try and mix it up.

“We’ll just talk about what is going on – whether that is rattling someone’s cage at the council, helping someone who might be struggling with a company to get something done, or something lighter.

“I get most satisfaction from trying to make a difference – whether that is on a bigger scale, making a difference to the wider community, or just making a bit of a difference to one person’s life.

“I just like the variety of it and I’ve got the flexibility in the three hours to go where I or the audience want to go. We go with the flow.”

His Burnsy Show – on BBC Radio Humberside, 9am-12pm, Monday to Friday – has been going strong for nearly 10 years now. Not bad for someone who had no intention of working in the broadcast media when he was younger.

The key to its success, he says, is the audience and the ideas they give himself and his two producers, James Hoggarth and Olivia Cubberley. 

“A lot of it comes from the audience and a lot of it comes from just talking to people,” says Burnsy.

“It’s a two-way street. I’ll give them stuff and they’ll give me stuff and we see where we go.

TALKATIVE: David Burns. Tom Arran Commercial Photography.

“We’ve done a few shows now called ‘The Radio Show with Nothing in it’ where, genuinely, we don’t have a plan. I trust the audience to come up with interesting things they want to talk about. It might turn into a really big story for the region or it might be Rose from Pocklington ringing up to say ‘there’s a frog in my toilet looking up at me’ and I’m saying to Rose ‘well think what the frog’s thinking’.

“There are days when its 9.05am and I’m still not sure what we are going to be talking about, but I trust the audience and hopefully the audience trust me.”

The show is not aimed at anyone in particular. Burnsy insists the content and subject matters he covers are not directed at a particular demographic, but rather are shaped by what people tell him they want to talk about – whether by calling, emailing or tweeting the show or speaking to him outside the studio.

“I’d like to think the show appeals to everybody,” he says. “Traditionally in BBC local radio it has been an older audience and, you know, I’m knocking on a bit (Editor’s Note: Burnsey is 60 but trying to deny it!), but I’m doing all the things I did as an 18-year-old, except slower!

“I still love going to see bands, going to see the football, getting out and doing stuff. So some of the audience will be the same age, some will be younger, some will be older. Personally, I’m not aiming at a particular age group. 

“We do broad ranging subjects and we do specific subjects but I never think ‘that’s who I’m aiming for’, I just want to talk to as many people as I can.”

Burnsy appreciates he is in a privileged position and believes his listeners relate to him – and vice versa – because he one of them.

“I hope they think that,” he says. “I’m an ordinary bloke in an extraordinary job really, in that I’ve got a platform to gob off.

“But I love talking to people and I’m absolutely comfortable with people coming over and having a chat. I’d like to think that the person I am in the studio is the person I am in the pub, on the bus, whatever – that’s just me. The show’s just an extension of me.”

Burnsy was born in Glasgow but moved to Nigeria when he was five-years-old after his father, who worked for Dunlop, was transferred to run a factory there.

MAKING HIS POINT: Burnsy at the BBC studios in Hull. Tom Arran Commercial Photography

He has also lived in the West Indies, Edinburgh, London, Birmingham, Sheffield and Cleethorpes, among other places.

He didn’t ever set out to be a radio broadcaster but found himself working for BBC Radio Humberside in the finance and personal department over 30 years ago.

His passion for football eventually led to him taking on commentary duties around seven years later and he’s never looked back.

“I wish someone had said to me when I was at school ‘you can be a football commentator, or a broadcaster, or a journalist’, but nobody did,” says Burnsy. “Back then, career advice was rubbish and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I just thought ‘I’m going to end up in an office’.

“As things went along here I thought ‘actually, I know as much about football as some of the lads that are doing this’. I’d done a couple of things for Clubcall, when people used to ring up, which was good experience for me. The reporter covering Grimsby was ill one time so I covered the game and got really good feedback from it. 

“The BBC is very good at letting you explore your possibilities within the organisation and it went from there. There was no career plan – I still don’t know what I want to do really!”

Having travelled so much, Burnsy insists he is now home – and that is because of the people who live here. 

“This is home to me,” he says. “I love it. I love this area and I love the city.

“I like Hull people. They are very down to earth and they’ve got a sense of humour. They do themselves down a bit and I’m quite self-deprecating myself at times. 

“I think sometimes people here don’t realise what they’ve got in the city, in terms of the building blocks and the settings, things like that. I always say there are two sets of people who knock Hull – those who’ve never been and those who’ve never been out of it, who don’t really appreciate what the city has got. 

“But I do like Hull people because they are straightforward and will say it like it is, and that’s what I like to do as well. I think they are great people. They are open, they will chat to you and there’s a warmth and love about them that I like.”

That openness has led to some difficult conversations live on air, when people have spoken about trauma they are going through or tragedies that have affected them. At times, Burnsy says, he has been reduced to tears.

But it is those moments, if he is able to help, that give him so much satisfaction.

 “People are very trusting and feel they can pour their heart out to you and share their stories,” he says. “There have been times when I’ve been in tears in the studio when people have shared those stories. Maybe somebody has died or somebody is at their wit’s end and don’t know what to do with their life – things like that.

“Sometimes it might just be the fact that we’ve had a chat on air and I’ve listened, and perhaps made some suggestions.” 

If he has been able to make a bit of a difference, it has been a good show.

Editor’s note: interview conducted pre-coronavirus lockdown.