Paul Nero, of Radio Exe, writes for the Journal

Exmouth Journal: Paul Nero, of Radio Exe.Paul Nero, of Radio Exe. (Image: Paul Nero)

The first day back after the Christmas break is one for resolutions. Normally the Radio Exe team gathers in its (admittedly small) entirety to thrash out ideas for the year ahead. What new features can we introduce to our programmes? What will help promote local businesses.

We like to involve the whole team, which spans 68 years from teens to octogenarians, but covid had already put paid to that as being too risky. Then, when the prime minister cancelled the five-day Christmas break with just days to go, we reduced our team meeting even further.

Ideas are best generated when there’s a breadth of people – and having a wide group helps throw out the ones that should never see the light of day.

January always brings a spike in divorces, and every year I suggest we give away a free divorce. I’m always stopped by more sensible heads. It’s not long till pancake day, but my annual appeal that we try to find Devon’s biggest 'tosser' always meets with stony silence, and usually I’m told pointedly there’s no need to look far – and we’d end up with egg on our faces.

We want lovely promotions that people enjoy taking part in, particularly with the world as it is today. Ideas like our ‘Lockdown Love Story’, in association with the Family Law Company, where people who’ve found romance during the crisis can win a trip to a prestigious hotel and £500 cash in time for Valentine’s Day.

As we’re putting our minds to plans for the next few months, getting up to around Easter, comes news that Bojo is to make a statement to the nation that Monday night at 8 p.m. That doesn’t bode well. It’s the hour for bad news, and, as we now know, it is.

With lockdown comes closure of tourism, hospitality and retail businesses – the very partners that stations like Radio Exe, and local papers such as this esteemed one you’re reading now, rely on for our income.

As one magazine editor in the area said at the last lockdown, just because your local media are here now, doesn’t mean they always will be.

So as we go through these difficult months, we’re appealing for people to keep reading local, keep listening local and keep shopping local.

If there’s one idea we’d like to see come to fruition in 2021, it’s that we all support one another locally, not just through the crisis. But forever. If we achieve that, it will be more than a lockdown love story.