PATIENTS at Basildon Hospital were taken on a journey back in time by a radio broadcast from Billericay.
An outside transmission by Basildon Hospital Radio, BHR1287, was made at the Cater Museum on Thursday.
The show explored the rich history displayed within the walls of the museum in the High Street.
Curator Christine Brewster led DJ Frank Toohey around the five rooms describing the fascinating artefacts each with a unique story of their own.
Treasurer of Basildon Hospital Radio Christine Lee explained: "The radio station has been running for 39 years.
"This is the first outside broadcast which we've ran at the museum but we do regularly transmit from locations outside the hospital.
"We recently did a broadcast from the Chequers pub at a charity event with singer Keith Ball."
The station runs 24 hours a day and is kept in operation entirely by volunteers. The service is available to all patients and can also be streamed online.
The history of hospital radio goes back to 1921 when experiments were conducted at the York County Hospital with a transmitter and a receiver in the wards. But it was not until the arrival of the National Health Service in 1948 that headphones and the means to broadcast at hospitals became available.
Today there are just over 400 hospital radio stations in the UK with 12,000 unpaid staff.
Presenter Jacqui James said: "Basildon Hospital Radio is a registered charity and we take our role very seriously.
"We are there for the benefit of the patients and staff and to make the patients' stay in the hospital a more pleasant experience. I have been a part of this terrific team since 2009 and have enjoyed every minute.
"There is usually a lively presenter on air entertaining the patients. When we are not there we have what we call our 24/7 computer in place that continually plays a selection of music for the patients who cannot sleep. We also have the news every hour from the IRN newsdesk."
There is a variety of programmes scheduled at the station from Sixties tunes and jazz to country and western. They broadcast live every evening from 7 until 10pm and on Saturdays and Sundays from 9am until 8pm.
Mrs James added: "Music is very good therapy.
"We try to supply the patient with diverse programmes and are always on the lookout for interesting places and people we can bring to the patient's bedside.
"The broadcast at the Cater Museum in Billericay is a fantastic example of such a programme. We spoke at length with curator Christine Brewster, who explained various facts and figures with regards how the museum came to be set up, and the story behind why certain things were there.
"Each month the museum highlights a certain area, this month being very old books, one of which had a really delightful poem by John Lea that I could not resist reading aloud. At the end of the visit Christine had baked a 17th-century pie for the team to munch on with our coffee."
