Halifax man is among radio award finalists

David Adams has been nominated for the award for his documentary ‘Foot and Mouth 15 Years On’ which looked at how life changed for the Yorkshire Dales farmers after the 2001 foot-and-mouth epidemic.

The RAFA awards were created to celebrate and encourage excellence in audio documentaries, and have been generously funded by a legacy left by the celebrated journalist Alan Whicker, who died in 2013.

Whicker wanted to encourage curiosity, stimulate the senses and empower talent which might otherwise never find a place in today’s highly-competitive industry.

Speaking of David’s programme, RAFA judge, Rob Ketteridge, said: “We were impressed by the producer’s close access to farming families in the area and the rich seam of original stories this offers, together with his proposal to focus on those who were children at the time – has it bound them more tightly to the community in which they were born or pushed them away towards different ways of making a living?”

David will join other finalists at the Radio Festival, the annual celebration of all things audio, at the British Library on May 23 where he will pitch in front of a live audience.

The first prize is £5,000 and there is a runner-up grant of £2,000.

The winning pitches will offer new and exciting ideas for audio documentaries and will meet the Whicker’s World Foundation criteria of, ‘Taking us into new or hitherto unseen worlds; being authored but not partisan; and with an emphasis on strong original storytelling and development of the medium’.

The Whicker’s World Foundation was founded in 2015 by Valerie Kleeman and has awarded over £100,000 since it was launched.