Sutton Coldfield Festival of Arts

TV weathergirl Charlie Neil may not be able to guarantee sunshine for the inaugural Sutton Festival Of Arts - but she’s sure it will be a sparkling occasion.

Central News forecaster Charlie, who lives in the Mere Green area, has agreed to be the patron for this unique event, and will introduce a number of performances, including the opening concert by Natalie Powers and Ian Palmer on Wednesday July 9, and some of the main stage acts on Saturday July 12.

The Sutton Coldfield News and The Mall Sutton Coldfield are jointly sponsoring the Festival, which will centre on a main stage erected specially in The Parade featuring a variety of acts between 12 noon and 4.30pm on July 12.

Surrounding this will be three large marquees containing a superb range of arts workshops and demonstrations, and an artists’ market.

All contributors to the Festival will be Sutton people - those born in the town and those based here now.
Charlie, who has lived in Sutton for 20 years, said: “The Festival will promote togetherness. I like the feeling that people have an identity, that they own something special.

“I’m sure the Festival will bring people together.”

She said she enjoyed a lot of arts activities, and was a keen visitor to exhibitions held by Sutton Coldfield Society Of Artists.

Redcar-born Charlie did a media studies degree in Cardiff and got her first job in the Midlands writing travel news scripts for BRMB in 1983.

“My boyfriend at the time lived in Sutton Coldfield and I visited a lot while I was studying,” she said.
“I got the BRMB job after hearing an advert on the station for presenters.”

Charlie worked as programme assistant for Tony Butler’s phone-ins, and soon began presenting features and doing interviews. She remembers one of her early assignments involving a review of The Police’s Synchronicity album.

She took to the air for Eye In The Sky, giving travel bulletins from a helicopter, then presented two late-night shows, Whispers and Romantica, spinning some “lurve” classics.

Charlie took over the early-shift programme, warming up for Les Ross, but had to move stations to break through into daytime radio.

On Radio WM she presented the afternoon show, and remembers going to pieces while interviewing one of her childhood heroes, Donny Osmond.

“I had got myself into a dizzy spin of nervousness!” she recalled.

“By the time he was sitting in front of me, my voice was an octave higher than normal. I was terrible.

“It was his first comeback tour, and I could see in his eyes he was thinking “Oh my God! Has it come to this? There’s this mad woman talking to me!”

At the other end of the spectrum was her interview with Duran Duran: “They were such good fun, very helpful and made it easy for me.”

Central came knocking in 1992, and Charlie started doing weather bulletins. Sixteen years on, she’s still there, having presented forecasts in all sorts of unusual situations, including from the top of a crane, 18 storeys high, and while handling an enormous python.

She said: “I’m very happy at Central. I’ve never been terribly ambitious, although from the age of about 17, I kept writing to Blue Peter because I wanted to be a presenter. I carried on doing this all the way through my early years of radio!”