Jim Hawkins is a BBC radio presenter.

Personal

Hawkins was born in Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

 and brought up there and in Warwickshire

Warwickshire

Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...

 in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

Career

Hawkins' broadcasting career started on a student radio station at Warwick University. He worked for independent local radio station Mercia Sound from 1981 to 1983. He joined BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 in 1984, writing and presenting the News Stand programme. Hawkins has worked for various commercial and BBC local radio stations across the United Kingdom in various roles on both sides of the microphone, including spells as a producer and manager.

Hawkins has also worked for a disability-rights group and as a newspaper journalist, hotel restaurant pianist, and stagehand; and at one point ran the coconut shy

Coconut shy

A coconut shy is a traditional game, originally known as 'The love grove alley', frequently found as a sidestall at funfairs and fêtes. The game consists of throwing wooden balls at a row of coconuts balanced on posts. Typically a player buys three balls and wins each coconut successfully dislodged...

 on Brighton Pier

Brighton Pier

The Brighton Marine Palace and Pier is a pleasure pier in Brighton, England. It is generally known as the Palace Pier for short, but has been informally renamed Brighton Pier since 2000 by its owners, the Noble Organisation, in an attempt to suggest that it is Brighton's only pier...

. During his career he has interviewed notable figures such as Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown

James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...

, Gene Simmons

Gene Simmons

Gene Simmons is an Israeli-American entrepreneur, singer-songwriter, actor, and rock bassist. Known as "The Demon", he is the bassist/vocalist of Kiss, a hard rock band he co-founded in the early 1970s.-Early life:...

 and Steve Cropper

Steve Cropper

Steve Cropper , also known as Steve "The Colonel" Cropper, is an American guitarist, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as the guitarist of the Stax Records house band, Booker T...

.

Hawkins hosts a programme every weekday from 9 am to 12 noon on BBC Radio Shropshire

BBC Radio Shropshire

BBC Radio Shropshire is the BBC Local Radio service for the English county of Shropshire. Launched on 23 April 1985 it broadcasts from its studios in Shrewsbury on 96 , 90 , 95 , 104.1 FM and DAB...

 called "Jim Hawkins in the Morning". Hawkins uses Twitter

Twitter

Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

 to interact with listeners during the show, having been persuaded to try Twitter after finding his Facebook

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

 experience disappointing. Hawkins also hosts a Saturday night programme entitled "Saturday Night with Jim Hawkins" broadcast by BBC Shropshire, BBC Hereford & Worcester, and BBC Radio Stoke

BBC Radio Stoke

BBC Radio Stoke is a BBC Local Radio station in England, for the area of North and Mid Staffordshire, north east Shropshire and South Cheshire. The station began broadcasting programmes on 14 March 1968 as BBC Radio Stoke-on-Trent....

.

Awards

In 2002, Hawkins received a silver Sony Radio Academy Award

Sony Radio Academy Awards

The Sony Radio Academy Awards , started in 1983, are some of the most prestigious awards in the British radio industry. They are run by ZAFER Associates in association with the Radio Academy...

, in the "interactive" category, for his drive time programme The Baldy Brothers on
Century FM

Century FM

Century Radio was the brand name of a group of independent local radio stations in England. The brand was developed with the launch of 100-102 Century Radio in North East England in 1994, with John Myers as managing director and John Simons as programme director...

. He was also highly commended at the BT sponsored

BT Group

BT Group plc is a global telecommunications services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest telecommunications services companies in the world and has operations in more than 170 countries. Through its BT Global Services division it is a major supplier of...

 Regional News and Current Affairs Awards. Hawkins was one of five people who were shortlisted for the 2006 Sony Radio Academy Speech Broadcaster of the Year Award.

External links

• Hawkins' website
• BBC Hereford & Worcester feature
• Jim Hawkins's diary (BBC Shropshire)