THREE decades have now passed since presenters first took to the airwaves on BBC Wiltshire. and the team are celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

Back then, the team would come into the Swindon studios each morning to a pile of tapes, each of which had been sliced and stuck together to create radio packages – interviews, soundbites and news reports.

A building on Prospect Place in Old Town which had been used for administration was gutted and revamped with studios, a newsroom, phone-in gallery and engineering room.

The building was renamed Broadcasting House, and would become the main home of the station for the next 30 years.

It was given the name BBC Wiltshire Sound – with the slogan “parish pump and proud of it” and the white horse as its logo. It was later renamed BBC Wiltshire.

Broadcasting House soon became a hub for local news and the radio a daily companion to many Wiltshire people.

One of the original presenters is still at BBC Wiltshire 30 years on, as Graham Seaman presents the lunchtime show from midday to 2pm.

“Wiltshire has changed massively over those years. We’ve seen the expansion of Swindon, we’ve seen a lot of successful companies grow like Dyson, but then again in many ways it hasn’t – the culture remains as was,” he said.

“We’ve been in the same building that whole time, there’s been a lot of changes and modernisation, but we still had a record player in the studio until five years ago.”

For nearly 11,000 days BBC Wiltshire’s bulletins have kept the county up to speed with the latest news, sport, travel and weather.

BBC Wiltshire assistant editor Shaun Hodgetts has covered Swindon Town FC for 35 years, including their unforgettable promotion to the Premier League in 1993.

“I’ve seen Swindon at their very best and their very worst – but there’s always a buzz covering them,” he explained.

“What hasn’t changed as a journalist is having contacts. Having relationships with coaches and players really makes the difference.”

Every big birthday deserves a party.