BY STUART LINNELL
Stuart Linnell MBE is a UK broadcaster whose career spans more than five decades across radio and television. Born in Birmingham, he began his professional journey at the BBC in the early 1970s, before joining the launch team at Sheffield’s Radio Hallam in 1974.
He joined BBC Radio Northampton, where his weekday shows made him a beloved figure in Northamptonshire.
His many awards include an MBE for services to broadcasting (1995) and multiple Sony Radio Academy Awards. After stepping down from full-time presenting in 2019, Stuart continues to contribute to the industry through occasional shows and his voluntary leadership roles, including Chair of Healthwatch Coventry and Chair of Coventry Community Digital Radio.
His new autobiography, “My Granddad knew Rasputin… and I Met Elton John”, charts his adventures from hospital radio in Birmingham to encounters with cultural icons and public-life figures. It was published earlier this year.
You can read Chapter one of the book, that is available on Amazon and Kindle, below.
Chapter One
An Unexpected Hit
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Because I’m happy
Pharrell Williams, 2013 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC Warner Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing Group
“I didn’t expect to be in A & E at this time in the morning,” I wrote, “but then I didn’t expect to be knocked over by a police car.”
It was shortly after six o’clock in the morning on Thursday 16th January 2014. I should have been on air, hosting the Breakfast Show on BBC radio Northampton. Instead, I sat behind the curtain of a cubicle in the Accident and Emergency Department of Northampton General Hospital, tapping those words into a Twitter message on my phone.
Within the hour, the online editions of the Northampton Chronicle and Echo and the Coventry Telegraph ran the story of the ‘Radio DJ Hit by Police Car.’ It was certainly not the way I had anticipated my day would start.
Crossing the road at Abington Square in Northampton, on my way to the radio station, I had been hit and knocked over by a car making an illegal right turn through traffic lights that only permitted vehicles to go straight on.
It was a marked police car, manned by two officers.
The front bumper of the car made a direct hit on my ankles, forcing my torso up and over the bonnet, somersaulting across the fuselage like a Hollywood action hero. I crash landed, entirely unheroically, onto my back onto the road surface.
I can testify that tarmac is hard, particularly at five o’clock on a January morning. Fortunately, I was carrying a bag, slung over my right shoulder. As I was catapulted to the ground, the bag swung round under my body and broke my fall, literally cushioning the impact. Had it not done so, the consequent injury of a hairline fracture of my pelvis would have been far worse, and the back of my head may well have smashed against the ground.
The damaged pelvis and the assault of my ankles were the visible results of the drama, although it later transpired that I also suffered skin trauma on both my legs. That continues to this day, years after the incident, causing discomfort and irritation. The impact of the police car’s front bumper had caused a hole to open just above my right ankle, leaking a stream of blood. That took several weeks to heal, whilst a deep discolouration above my left ankle faded but even now remains visible.
As I lay on the road, the breath knocked out of me, one of the police officers jumped out of the car and called urgently for an ambulance to attend the scene. I was able to gulp in enough air to insist I didn’t need an ambulance and that, actually, I had to get into the building to start work.
“What building?” he asked.
“That one,” I gasped, nodding towards the imposing former premises which houses the offices and studios of BBC Radio Northampton.
I swallowed mouthfuls of air as I urgently attempted to restore normal breathing, and I managed to fill my lungs, enough to add, “I present the Breakfast Show, and I’m due on air at six.”
His obvious concern for my welfare now took on an anxious edge, his brow furrowing, as he realised who had been hit.
He helped me to my feet, whilst three youths raced across the road to assist. The trio, dressed in hoodies with scarves across their faces, had been walking behind me. They had engaged in quite loud, rapid conversation in a foreign, possibly Eastern European language. I had been aware of them behind me and a glance over my shoulder had revealed three young men saying things I could not understand, getting closer to me. In that early hour, it had put me on my guard, but never judge a book and all that.
It was January, five o’clock in the morning, and more than a tad cold. Hence the hoodies and the scarves. Those three young men raced to my aid when the police car hit me. They helped me to my feet, and they made sure that I was reunited with the bag which had saved me from more serious injury. Then, they were gone, after showing me only care and concern.
At my insistence, the ambulance was stood down, and I walked extremely gingerly, assisted by the police officer, into the BBC Radio Northampton building. With the police officer at my side, I limped into the first-floor newsroom prompting breakfast news reader Andrew Radd to simultaneously raise his eyebrows and his suspicions. His face asked the obvious question, “What on earth have you done to be arrested at this time in the morning?”
I managed to explain what had occurred, only for Radders to immediately insist that I go straight to A & E. My protests that I could still host my show were instantly brushed aside as phone calls were made to organise a change of presenter.
My producer, Ian Brown, got ready to host the first hour of the show, from 6 till 7, with lunch show presenter Helen Blaby rudely woken from her slumbers to arrive in time to take over for the remainder, between 7 and 9.
A cup of hot sweet tea was in my hands without being asked for, as the police officer who had guided me into the building took a very brief statement in his notebook, which I was then asked to sign.
By then, two more members of the Northamptonshire Constabulary were standing near me. One turned out to be the driver of the vehicle that had struck me. Obviously shaken, she was as white as a sheet as she offered her clearly heartfelt apologies. I asked if she was OK and if she wanted a cup of tea.
The offer was brusquely declined on her behalf by the third officer, standing next to her.
He was a sergeant, and his response was that she must not consume anything until she had been to the police station to be breathalysed and interviewed.
By now, assistant producer, Chaz Harrison, had her coat on, ready to whisk me down the road in a radio station car to Northampton General Hospital.
****
So it was that I sat in an A & E cubicle, advising the world of my demise via Twitter.
That morning the hospital was undergoing an inspection by the Care Quality Commission, and the inspectors had paused next to my cubicle. The drawn curtain prevented me from seeing what was going on, but I could hear an apparently anxious senior nurse asking what they wanted to do.
There were reassuring words along the lines of ‘Just try to ignore us, we will just observe and ask questions if we need to’ before they moved on out of my earshot. No great exclusive for me to reveal on my return to active duty, but just something to store and ask about when the opportunity arose.
X-rays revealed the hairline pelvic fracture, but thankfully nothing broken in my ankles, as had been feared. I was given extra strong painkillers to relieve my increasing back pain, and the open wound on my right ankle required cleaning and patching up.
A few hours later, my wife arrive by train. She retrieved my car from the car park and drove me home after a most unexpected start to the day.
The car radio was tuned to BBC Radio Northampton, with my good friend and colleague Bernie Keith playing Pharrell Williams’ big hit, ‘Happy’. Had Bernie realised we were listening at that moment, I am sure he would have wanted to ease my discomfort, and ‘Happy’ was at least a cheery tune.
****
The Police and Crime Commissioner for Northamptonshire, the county’s first PCC Adam Simmonds, later revealed that he had been woken at 6am that morning by a call from a senior officer, alerting him to a ‘Polac’, the force’s term for a road accident involving a police vehicle, in Northampton town centre. Adam said that he’d rubbed the sleep from his eyes, as he responded.
“OK, have a report of my desk first thing.”
“It’s just a bit more serious than usual”, the officer had said. “It involves one of the journalists from BBC Radio Northampton.”
“Oh, really? Anyone we know?”
“It’s the presenter of the Breakfast show. Stuart Linnell.”
By now, Adam said, he was sitting bolt upright in bed. As a man to whom his Christian faith was important, I doubt he utters profanities very often, but apparently, on this occasion, his instantaneous response drove him remarkably close to airing a four-letter expletive.
****
The process that followed was protracted, to say the least. My legal advisers acted to seek compensation for the injuries and the anxieties that I had suffered. It was not a swift process.
The police officer who had driven the car was initially suspended from all duties, and was eventually found guilty of driving without due care and for disobeying a road sign. A friend who serves as a magistrate in a different place said that had the case come before him he would have asked that the charge be reconsidered. His view was that the lady in question was guilty of dangerous driving, which carries a potentially heavier sentence than that of driving without due care.
As it was, she was fined and required to pay costs, with three points on her driving licence. She was also disciplined and told to undergo a period of retraining by the Northamptonshire force before being allowed to return to her previous role behind the wheel.
It was nearly four years later that my claim was fully resolved. The skin trauma remains, but more than 45 years after my broadcasting career began, I was grateful to still be around to carry on for at least a little while longer.
Takahe Publishing Ltd. 2025
“My Granddad knew Rasputin…and I met Elton John”, is available from Amazon in paperback and also on Kindle.