Yesterday was Jamaican Independence Day, which I had planned to celebrate with a little bit of discussion of reggae history. We got off to a slightly rocky start because my first guest, Jonathan Pinnock, had trouble finding the studio. Clearly I need to revisit the instructions I send to people. Huge thanks are due to Judeline and the two young lads who came in and improvised a discussion for the first 15 minutes. Fortunately Jon arrived in time for the next segment.

Jonathan was in the studio to talk about his new book, Take It Cool, which is the story of his search for his namesake, Dennis Pinnock, an early star of the Lovers’ Rock sub-genre of reggae. He also covers this history of the Pinnock family with the founding of Jamaica, which made the discussion especially appropriate for the day.

Also in the studio was Natalie Burns (who is part-Trinidadian) from the Small Stories group who are co-hosting the Ann & Jeff VanderMeer event later this month. Small Stories sounds like a really interesting group, and one I’d like to get involved with. Nat, Jon and I had a good chat about writing, including the value of experience of being an advertising copywriter.

You can listen to the first hour of the show here.

I had the second hour off as we had turned it over to the Second Steps group who are well used to running their own shows. If you would like to listen to their discussion of health issues, go here.

The playlist for my hour of the show was:

• My Baby – Dennis Pinnock
• Crying Eyes – Dennis Pinnock
• Jamming – Bob Marley & The Wailers
• Ricochet Man – Horslips

Next week I’ll be talking to Huw Powell (Gareth’s brother) about space pirates.