To mark The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee local, community radio station Riverside Radio has embarked on a mammoth project to interview seventy local people aged seventy and over across south west London about their lives during the Queen’s long reign.

The interviews will be heard throughout the Jubilee month of June every day on the not for profit radio station who’s studios are based on the Doddington and Rollo estate in Battersea.

Riverside Radio was successful in gaining National Lottery Jubilee Community Funding for the Platinum People project which is being conducted by the Riversiders Radio Club. The club consists of a number of local children of secondary school age who come into the Riverside Radio studios every Saturday morning to run their own radio show while gaining a nationally recognised qualification in radio and picking up vital media skills.

Riverside Radio Managing Director Jason Rosam said

“Platinum People has been a wonderful project bringing the generations together. I was thrilled to see some of our radio club teenagers happily getting to know those in their 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. The children heard some stunning stories about the war and how the local area has changed over the last seven decades. It was a superb example of how the young and elder members of our community can connect beautifully and I'm so looking forward to hearing the interviews over the next month.”

A Platinum Jubilee Street Party in Doddington Square is being organised for Friday 3rd June where some of the Platinum People interviewees and Riversiders will meet again for tea, cake and sandwiches to celebrate. The team have completed interviews with around 40 over 70s and are looking for more so please get in touch with the radio station if you’d like to take part. Here’s a selection of some of the Platinum People featured in the project.

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Kenneth, 90 joined the Metropolitan Police in 1961 and spent time guarding Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace and met quite a few members of The Royal Family. Ken was also on duty at the Palace gates during many Royal events such as Trooping the Colour, the Silver Jubilee in 1977 and at the wedding of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer. He thinks the Platinum Jubilee will be a marvellous weekend and we should all enjoy ourselves.

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Gillian, 73 grew up in North Yorkshire and moved to Battersea in 1992, staying till 2016. She then moved back to North Yorkshire for 5 years and has just come back to Battersea again. She’s gone from living in the mansion flats in Prince of Wales Drive to living on the Doddington estate which has been huge change but she really loves the sense of community where she is now. She thinks the Queen is remarkable and feels privileged we live in such a stable country and Her Majesty is the figurehead of that and she’s done her very best in the role she was given at birth and Gillian feels very grateful for that.

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Philip, 96 has met the Queen many times at Buckingham Palace garden parties as Her Majesty was colonel of his regiment the Grenadier guards. He grew up in a council house with 3 sisters and 2 brothers. His eldest sister was 99 last month. He came to London in 1950 to get married. and he remembers the old streets. He has stayed living in Wandsworth because he says there’s more parks and open spaces than any other borough in London.

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Lilias, 90 was brought up in Glasgow and was evacuated during the war. Her Glasgow house was bombed in the blitz. She came to London in 1958 and moved south of the river in 1962 and has lived in the same house ever since. There are only 2 or 3 houses who have the same people in them. She had two children, there were two children living next door and the school was in the street so it was very much a family street at that time. Then it became an old person street but now its gone back as there are more children in the street again. Lilias says she doesn’t know how people afford to live in these houses as they are so expensive now. The Queen is a little older than Lilias but she thinks Her Majesty is an example to keep going, and she hopes to keep going till she’s 96 too.

You can listen to all the Platinum People interviews on the Battersea Jubilee Festival website batterseajubileefestival.com and on air at RiversideRadio.com on DAB Digital Radio, on the Riverside Radio app or as your smart speaker to ‘Play Riverside Radio’.

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