From the Pit Villages to the BBC | Paul Stainton on Self-Belief, Rejection & Rising From Nothing
Download MP3Right. Let's get into it. And get the conversation started. Welcome to Inspired Men Talk. Podcast where we sit down with real people and talk about their journey.
Peter Ely:The stuff they've been through. The bits that shape them.
Gary Johannes:And the moments where things started to change. We talk about men's mental health. But
Peter Ely:in
Gary Johannes:a way that actually sounds like real life. Some of it's serious. And some of it is a little lighter. But it's always honest and brave. Because most of this stuff doesn't get talked about enough.
Gary Johannes:And if there's one thing we've seen time and time again. It's that there's always a way back. So I'm Gary. And I'm Peter.
Peter Ely:And this is Inspired Men Talk. Welcome to another episode of Inspired Men Talk. As always, we've got Peter with us. Peter is one of our team, and we've got a great guest today, which is Paul, who's quite a big name in Peterborough, if Peterborough has a big name. Paul, do you wanna introduce yourself?
Paul Stainton:Well, Peter was quite a long name. It's a lot of letters. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm I'm Paul Stainton. Some people probably know me from nightclub days in the eighties and nineties, DJed at Shango Sam's and 5th Avenue.
Paul Stainton:I was on Hereward Radio for about four years, sports editor at Radio Careers Show, editor and reporter at Five Live, TV sports correspondent for the 06:00, 10:00 news. Came back to Peterborough, breakfast show, was editor of the Peterborough office, presented me more show. Then I left to run my own company, and now I'm head of marketing and communications at Peterborough Cathedral. We're trying our very best to keep that building alive and make it viable, and at the same time, drive footfall into the city center, which is very, very much needed. So, yeah, I've had a quite a varied career from DJing to broadcasting to communications.
Peter Ely:Cool. So you were kind enough to send us a really detailed bio. And interestingly, one, you're not from Peterborough, and two, you're not from entertainment originally. So that was quite a
Paul Stainton:big shift. Yeah. I mean, I grew up in the Pitt Villages of South Yorkshire around Doncaster. I was born in Gould, furthest inland port in Great Britain. Oh, you need to know that.
Paul Stainton:And the reason I was I was in in Gould because my granddad came over to build the air and cold canal from Ireland. So I'm, you know, 10 parts Irish, which explains the temper that I sometimes used to show, but don't anymore. So, no, I I grew up in Pitt Village in South Yorkshire. I I struggled at school not struggled at school, but I struggled to engage with school. I I loved English.
Paul Stainton:I loved music even though I couldn't play an instrument, and I knew I wanted to do something with music when I left school. But my dad had other ideas because go and get jobs. Even though I did really well in English at school and my English teacher wanted me to stay on and go to, do a levels, my dad said no, so I had to get a job. And I ended up banging tin at British aerospace for a couple of years, which I hated, hated. And it's easy to say because when I was there at the time, I used to look at the people on the what they call the Tinners balcony, and I used to be filing off bits of exhaust, for tornadoes.
Paul Stainton:And I was rubbish at it because I'd start talking, and I'd be filing off too much. You know? And then something else would catch my eye, and I bang something. So I was I was I was awful at it, and I and in the end, I quit. But it My dad my dad chased me around the garden.
Peter Ely:What what where? Jesus. Wasn't that something like British air Wasn't that considered a job for life? If you get an apprenticeship with them, it was like gold dust.
Paul Stainton:Oh, yeah. I mean and and and to be fair, I did okay at school in the end because I did a lot of work at home because I was a class clown as well. So I couldn't do it. Do know you what I mean? I couldn't do work at school.
Paul Stainton:I had to do it at home in secret almost and then just hand it in. And so I got, I got three levels and I got, you see a lot of CSEs as they were then. So I had an offer of, I think three or four jobs. I could have worked at Gould shipyard. I could have worked to what the what was the YEB, Yorkshire Electricity Board.
Paul Stainton:I'd have been rubbish at that as well. And I had British Aerospace, and, yeah, you're right. It was a job for life. And that was the difficulty because my dad had been working in various pits around South Yorkshire. We used to move quite a lot.
Paul Stainton:I I think I had 12 schools and 10 houses, something like that. And so you just get the wood chip off.
Peter Ely:Yeah. You know?
Paul Stainton:And it'd running down your arm in all the water, and then we're moving again.
Peter Ely:But back in then days, wasn't it about putting the wood chip on?
Paul Stainton:Well, yeah, yeah, you go back. You wood chip. So you take it off, and you'd you'd put some more wood chip back on anyway. So it's wallpaper for those that are too young. So, yeah, it was a real it was a my upbringing was very poor.
Paul Stainton:We had no carpets upstairs. You know, you had a back burner behind the fire. You didn't have central heating. In the winter, was very cold. And I distinctly remember us living off my dad's allotment really because my dad didn't work a lot.
Paul Stainton:He didn't like to work too much, which which is why I think I've got my work ethic now because I always wanted to be better than him.
Peter Ely:Yeah. That's brilliant.
Paul Stainton:And aspire to be bigger and better and do better in life and not struggle in that way, self imposed struggle, if you know what I mean. Yeah. So so it drove me to get out of that situation, but we're still on that tennis balcony, British Aerospace. After about eighteen months, I thought, I've gotta get out of here, but how? How do I get out of here?
Paul Stainton:And I'm getting up at quarter to four in the morning because I lived in Bridlington and catching a bus to go to. It was brutal. I'm 16, 17, and going out Thursday, Friday, Saturday night. So I was never at work on a Friday very often.
Peter Ely:That's what you do when you're young, right? It's that whole twenty four hour drinking culture, no sleep, getting back on it.
Paul Stainton:Well, and that's your time, because you can't do it when you're 35. You've commitments, you know?
Peter Ely:Yeah, of course. And you also mentioned then, again in that bio, and thank you for sharing that with us, that you had a couple of things that came out of the blue. When you described it, I went into TV, I went into radio, I was DJing, sounds like a really smooth flow of career, right? But actually the bio shows us that it's not. So, do tell us a little bit about kind of some of the ups and downs in there?
Paul Stainton:So, I mean, I'll go back to that tinner's balcony, Bruff, because I stood there and I was getting more and more demoralized. And people from Goul are not well liked by people from Hull. And I had a bit of a bit of a gob on me then, and I'd always be cracking gags at there was a couple of bouncers from, a nightclub in Hull that worked on the balcony. They'd always be giving it some, you know, and I'd give it back. And they'd catch me in the lift, you know, and you get some of that, you know, but I was getting really, really fed up with it.
Paul Stainton:And and to the point, I'd I'd had enough. My granddad's bless his cotton socks. Bless his soul. He said, I I can see how unhappy you are. Would you like me to back you in in getting a taxi in Bridlington?
Paul Stainton:And bless his cotton socks, he set me off with this. He had a little bit of money, and he guaranteed me a taxi plate in Bridlington. Bear in mind, I was only eighteen eighteen, and I started driving my own taxi in Bridlington. Right at the time, all the tourists didn't come anymore. But but it got me out of there, and it allowed me to quit.
Paul Stainton:And then I got involved in hospital radio because one of the taxi drivers did hospital radio. And so I did a show, the blonde on Sunday show, it was called. All about me. Not anymore. And and luckily, the the the taxi driver that that told me about hospital radio also did mobile discos.
Paul Stainton:So then I used to do Saturday nights for him and get paid £20, I think it was.
Peter Ely:Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Stainton:And he lent me his old Vauxhall Viva with had very little had very little floor in it. You could see the road, and you'd you'd you'd hunt the speakers in the back and the double decks, and you'd going to all these places around the the North York walls. And you'd go, and it'd be lovely sunshine, and you'd come out at, like, quarter past twelve, and it's thick fog. You couldn't see me, you know, three foot ahead of you. So but brilliant, brilliant times.
Paul Stainton:But that's what got me started. So getting the taxi, eating the taxi driver, hospital radio, DJing, and then comparing a summer show, what they called Leisure World in Bridlington. And and then from there, I went DJing.
Peter Ely:So the lesson I've got is to take on I mean, you know, clearly, you passed your test at right. By the time you was 18. So
Paul Stainton:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So first time, 17. It's the first time.
Paul Stainton:Me too. Me too. Yeah. Not now, don't think.
Peter Ely:No. I don't think we should take a test now. No. But to take on a a your own taxi business, for a better word, And even DJing at 18, that's a lot of confidence. That's a lot of self confidence, self esteem even considering where you came from.
Peter Ely:What was your driver?
Paul Stainton:Well, he was that driver I've talked about about my father. I don't know whether he didn't want to go to work or he he but he if if he if he had a job, he had it for three days or five days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Stainton:And then he he come home. He'd have a asthma attack, and then he wouldn't go back. And that used to drive me crazy. I used to think, you know, life could be so much better if you just kept a job. You know?
Paul Stainton:My mom my mom worked three, four jobs sometimes. I mean, bless god rest her soul. You know? And she kept a happiness about it. He was a nasty piece of work, my dad.
Peter Ely:Yeah.
Paul Stainton:And lazy. It drove me. And I and the other thing that drove me was I know what it's like to be skinked. And I when I say skinked, I mean broke.
Peter Ely:Right. Yeah.
Paul Stainton:I used I used to go around our villages when I was younger with little boxes full of my dad's produce from the allotment and sell it. I'd have to he'd send me out to sell his produce. So I'd be knocking on doors saying, yeah. It's 3 p for a lettuce, but he didn't know that I'd put them up. I'd make the let I'd make the lettuce 3 and a half p.
Paul Stainton:So by the time I sold the whole box, I've got 5 p for myself, which doesn't sound a lot.
Peter Ely:It was.
Peter Ely:But back then Yeah. Yeah. Big money. Big money.
Peter Ely:It was a bag
Paul Stainton:of time.
Peter Ely:We remember getting a bag of chips for 5p.
Paul Stainton:Eggs eggs what? 2 and half p for a bag of chips and scraps when I was a kid.
Peter Ely:Yeah. I come from London. We're we're
Paul Stainton:little I remember watching John Travolta and the 11 Newton John summer nights on the telly in the chip shop Yeah. When they were number one and getting a bag of scraps for 2 and a half p because that's all I had. Anyway, going back to what you said. So the drive comes from that. You know?
Paul Stainton:Knowing what it's like to be completely broke and skint and having that work ethos and that drive to be better than your forebears. So when you say it was it was a lot of self esteem and confidence to drive a taxi to to compare a summer show for forty nine nights on a trot. On the trot, I listened to a band destroy wind beneath my wings forty nine consecutive nights. They were and I'll tell you what they were called. They were called schooner, and they were the club band of the year, but they were bloody awful.
Paul Stainton:People have said to me down the years, you know, you mentioned self confidence. People have said to me down the years, oh, you're a big head. You're full of it. And I say some the best people and the people I think who do stuff, and you need a certain confidence to be able to do it. You know, you need a certain confidence to stand in front of a thousand people or as I used to, Shanghai Sam's 1,200 people or 2,000 people at Black Orchid at nightclub in Nottingham.
Paul Stainton:And to command that space, you know, takes self confidence. It borders on arrogance sometimes. Yeah. And, you know, I can be accused of being arrogant in my twenties, and I'll take that on the chin, and I'll say sorry. But you you need that drive.
Paul Stainton:You need that self esteem. You need that confidence.
Peter Ely:I think confidence is massively misjudged because I think arrogance can be a problem for people, and they quite often show arrogance to hide their faults. But genuine confidence and genuine self esteem where, do you know what? I belong here. I've earned this, and I'm really happy to be here. It's different to the arrogance where people put a front on because actually they're right to be caught out.
Peter Ely:So I I tend to have that. I know you're driven by, I don't want to be like that, but to have that knowledge in yourself, that complete understanding of who you wanted to be or who you didn't wanna be more like, that's that's quite big for most 18 year olds, I think.
Paul Stainton:Yeah. And I think I think I decided early on, probably 10, 11, this you know, living in a pit village in South Yorkshire was not a life for me. I I I this sounds arrogant. I I felt different. Do you know what I mean?
Paul Stainton:To the kids who lived in my village. I felt I felt like I could entertain people. I could make people smile. I I could I could make them feel warm. And I I always had that at school.
Paul Stainton:I I could always make a room erupt in disarray or make people smile. And I I've always looked to make people smile, and and I think I enjoy that. I miss it a bit now. I miss the radio a bit because I I've never laughed so much in my life as the last ten years on the radio with producer Ben. We had we had wonderful times and great listening figures and local radio when it was at its peak, I think.
Paul Stainton:And and I miss that sometimes, but we I still have a crack. I still still make people laugh at the cathedral.
Peter Ely:Yeah.
Peter Ely:Yeah, no, it's a big one for me. I like the thing about the whole forty nine nights of being able to go through that. Did the Edinburgh festival a couple of times. I used to do standup comedy. And you're right, if you watch someone in their bed, you've got to watch them for twenty days and it's really hard.
Peter Ely:It's it's it can be really hard work, and it can almost We some derail you.
Paul Stainton:Yeah. Yeah. We have some nice dancers as well. So, you know, I I watch them as well for forty nine nights. But, yeah, my job was to my job was to sort of keep them in.
Paul Stainton:So the crowd would come in for, the early part of the show, then I would DJ for an hour. I wouldn't didn't really DJ. Used to wander around the audience taking a mickey out of everybody and say, oh, lovely jacket. Did your wife choose it for you? You know, all that sort of stuff.
Paul Stainton:Just wander around the audience, but keep them in for the late show. So you had a real job if you had 700 people in an auditorium. I had an hour to keep them, and you you learn quick. I'll tell you now. You learn quick.
Peter Ely:A long time in that scenario, isn't it?
Paul Stainton:Yeah. Yeah. And nobody's telling you what to do. They're saying, yeah. Go go on, Paul.
Paul Stainton:Yeah. And again and again, somebody had seen me DJing at a different place in Bridlington and offered me that gig because he'd seen how I interacted with kids. Because I used to do a kids before I went to leisure world, I I used to do a summer thing with with kids, and families would come, and we'd play games and corners and, you know, stand still, and you you couldn't do this now. And I'd walk around the dance hall and, you know, don't move and then tickle them, which you can't touch kids these days, obviously.
Peter Ely:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Stainton:But back then it was a I say it was a different time. It was, wasn't it? Was, mister Savile was doing all them other things.
Peter Ely:Yeah.
Peter Ely:It it wasn't yeah. There are there's the height, there's the profile. Because that's my childhood. Right? I remember that.
Peter Ely:That's my childhood and they were great days. They were great fun and yeah, okay. Some things went on, but that's not everybody. So, I mean, we can't tar everyone with the same brush and I don't think we can and should, but let's move on a little bit and say, okay, you went from that leisure world place and you started moving more into the DJing side and the sports side. Tell us a little bit about that.
Peter Ely:Because it sounds glamorous, right? From someone on the outside, it sounds a bit glamorous.
Paul Stainton:Well, I'll tell you now it wasn't. The interesting thing was the band who played, the drummer, I told him I was a bit fed up doing because when I wasn't comparing, I was like assistant stage manager, so you're painting the stage and all this. I didn't wanna do that. So I'd said to the drummer in the band, if you see anything, I'm interested in leaving. And this is chance and fate and, you know, sliding doors, and when you got no commitments.
Paul Stainton:And he phoned me up one day, and he said, well, there's a nightclub in Leeds looking for a DJ. I said, brilliant. I applied, went to Leeds. Bear in mind, I'd never mixed a record together in my life. So, you you know, you you know when you're DJing, you can mix records together, beat match.
Paul Stainton:I'd never done it. So I just went and bluff my way through it and used my voice because I was always good on the mic, and I could do all that. And I was just chopping records into each other. And the guy said, yeah. You've got the job.
Paul Stainton:You've a great personality, blah blah blah. And then I went up to Middlesbrough where they had another club. He taught me how to mix, and then I went to Newcastle, Madison, Newcastle. Whatever you play at midnight is a scrap, but, you know, great times. I remember I remember one of the bar staff because I was I was staying.
Paul Stainton:This is the other thing. It was such a punt, by the way. Because my mom and dad had divorced at that point.
Peter Ely:Right.
Paul Stainton:And my mom was with a new man, And I won't have a go at my mom because she was lovely to me growing up. But at that time, she didn't want me coming home. So I took this punt to go and work for this company where you stayed in their houses. So if I got sacked, I would have been on the street. I'd have been on the streets.
Paul Stainton:And I never thought at the time, I just thought, oh, big shiny thing. Go for it. And I remember being in a B and B in Newcastle, a company we're paying for. I got a knock on the door. There's a knock on the door quarter past five, and it was one of the bar staff.
Paul Stainton:I said, I'm not at work till 09:00. And she went, no. No. No. No.
Paul Stainton:Get get dressed. It's, trebles for doubles at O'Hannigan's. I went, what? And we went trebles for doubles at about 10 different bars until quarter nine, and my first night DJing at Madison, Newcastle, I was hammered. And that that is Newcastle for you.
Paul Stainton:They love a drink.
Peter Ely:I go there regular.
Paul Stainton:Yeah. And I remember going back years ago when I I was working for TV and when Bobby Robson was Newcastle manager. He he used to make me a little cup of tea. Bless him. He was a lovely old boy.
Paul Stainton:And I remember going back and sort of reminiscing and seeing all the girls oak toad sandals, you know, minus 10. Yeah. Little flimsy tops and thinking Hasn't changed. Great place. It's but it's a great place.
Peter Ely:I love They're
Paul Stainton:great people. They're great people. Yeah.
Peter Ely:Yeah. I do
Paul Stainton:love that. That's how the DJing started with. I worked for this company, but it was, again, you know, I think back now, I think, so close. And that's why when I look at people on the streets and people have a go at homeless people, I think, hold on a minute, mate. Come on.
Paul Stainton:You're one or two steps from that. Everybody is.
Peter Ely:Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Stainton:Yeah. Keep it in your head. Keep it in your head.
Peter Ely:And I think it's another good example of your, of your confidence though, right? To not even be thinking about that at the time. I know if I lose my job, I'm going to be out just to be going, yeah, this is great. Well, I'm just going to have so much fun. So that's it.
Peter Ely:I think that's really nice.
Paul Stainton:Yeah. Confidence, cockiness, arrogance. I mean, I've Use. When I came to Peterborough, I it did go to my head for six months. You know?
Paul Stainton:Everybody won't take your picture. Everybody wants to be with you. You know? I got a bit too cocky, but I reined it in. I met my wife.
Paul Stainton:She reined me in.
Peter Ely:Mhmm. It's interesting because I I think I come to Peterborough. Well, I I started in Peterborough in early eighties '79 to '85 in the air force and moved into Peterborough at '85. Heraldwood Radio was the big radio station.
Paul Stainton:Yeah. 24% share. So 24% of people in Peterborough listened. Everybody had a car sticker. It was amazing.
Peter Ely:Yeah. And everybody read the ET.
Paul Stainton:Yeah. They did. Yeah.
Peter Ely:You know, it doesn't I don't think it exists now. As
Paul Stainton:There's still a few printed copies, but they don't sell many online.
Peter Ely:Was huge. And they they were you know, I used to listen to it a lot. And and it was a bit of a a local thing, wasn't it?
Paul Stainton:Yeah. It was.
Peter Ely:You must have really traded or jumped onto that wave and felt quite you know? Because people were Yeah.
Paul Stainton:But it's annoyingly kicking people. Took a while, Gary. I didn't just jump on it. I mean, I was DJing at so I'd I'd left Nottingham by that point, and acid house parties behind illegal raves as we used to call them, but they boy, they were fun. And I come to Peterborough's.
Paul Stainton:I worked at Shanghai's, then I left there to go to 5th Avenue. And I was working there, but I I'd always have this yearning to go back and do radio because I'd done it in Bridlington and, you know, again, confident. I thought I'm pretty good at that. And, I rang the station controller, a gentleman called Adrian Crooks. I rang Yeah.
Paul Stainton:Him every week for a year and said, if anything comes up, can you give me a job? If anything comes up, can you give me a chance? I'm doing this. I'm doing that. I've done this.
Paul Stainton:I've done that. And there was one, and I'll forever be grateful to Kev Lawrence for this. Yeah. There was one Friday night that Kev Lawrence was doing drive time on Heraldwood Radio, and he got a job on the South Coast. I think it was somewhere like Ocean Sound, and he just didn't turn up for his shift.
Paul Stainton:So they had to fill it. So there was nobody to do the Friday night dance show. So I got a call at, like, 04:00 saying, can you do the dance show at 07:00? I thought, well, I'm supposed to be DJing tonight. So I got cover for the DJing the nightclub, and I went I took my box of records and did a Friday night dance show.
Paul Stainton:And I was I was never off the radio. I did Friday nights. Then I was around when they needed somebody for drive time. And I learned on the job really because I had a thick Yorkshire accent back then as well. I don't know how why why would you put me on the radio in in Peterborough?
Paul Stainton:You know? I was, oh, no. Thick Yorkshire accent. I I've got a tape of it somewhere.
Peter Ely:Was Stuart Farneson there at the time?
Paul Stainton:He was. Yeah. Bless him. Yeah. He he and and me and him, you know, we've done quite a few things together over the years.
Paul Stainton:Bless him. He's he's not with us anymore. But, he gave he gave me a shot. He signed it off. And I remember the day I left actually to go to the BBC, and I I went to see him in his office.
Paul Stainton:I said, I've got something to tell you. You want Saturdays off to play cricket, don't you? And I said, no, mate. I'm leaving. I'm off to the BBC.
Paul Stainton:That was right at the point when they were taken over by GWR, then Hart, and they were bringing cue cards in, and you can only say this, and you can only speak three times an hour. I'm like, I've got an audio I had a 22% share audience at eleven till 02:00 in the afternoon. Telling me how to broadcast to them. I don't think
Peter Ely:so. No.
Paul Stainton:When you look now, Radio CareMish has got a, like, 8% share all day. You know?
Peter Ely:Yeah. It's it's interesting your story about the persistent phone calls. It reminded me of a friend of mine who went to the comedy store, the King Gong Show, and he made his five minutes and phoned the guy every Friday. Every Friday at ten in the morning, would phone him and go, have you got a spot for me? Have you got a spot for me?
Peter Ely:Have you got a spot for me? So much so that Friday at 10:00 as the phone got as the phone rang, the guy would pick it up and go, hi, Will. How are you? Yeah. I'm good.
Peter Ely:Have you got a spot for me? And he got his spot, right? And that persistence works. And it clearly did for you. And and I guess what was the driver behind that?
Peter Ely:What was what helped you in the face of a year of rejection to keep going forward?
Paul Stainton:Because I've done a similar thing with the PT, and I'd managed to get a column out of them looking at all the new music every week. And I never got paid for it, but I I thought, well, it's good exposure. You know? I'll do it anyway. And I remember doing that and doing that and think, well, I could and I was at that age.
Paul Stainton:I could do anything I want. I could do anything. You know? It's that confidence of of of of trusting in your own ability as well, and not being afraid of rejection, not being afraid. That's what I'd say to people.
Paul Stainton:You you mustn't be afraid of people saying no because they will. But what what if they say yes? So that was always my ethos, and it always has been my ethos with everything I've ever done, really. And to get that yes, to get that call after all that is so rewarding. And then you start thinking, I don't know what I'm doing.
Paul Stainton:You know? And I have to thank thank another gentleman who's who's not with us anymore called John Collin, who was my lighting jock at Shanghai's and 5th Avenue, but he was also an engineer at Herrwood. And he helped me through the first drive time show because we used to have cut, like, cassettes for all the adverts, and it was across three stations. So it was across Herrwood, E and FM, I think it was then, in Cambridge, and KLFM in Kingsland.
Peter Ely:Yes.
Paul Stainton:And all the adverts were different. So all different lengths and all changed all finished at different times. So you had to put fillers in, five second fillers, and you had to fill these cart. And I remember filling all the cart machines up and getting all the adverts right and going, woah. I've done it.
Paul Stainton:And John's saying, have you queued up your next record? And I went, oh, god. No. Put the next CD in. You know?
Paul Stainton:So, yeah, I I've I've I've bullshitted a lot. I've flown by the seat of my pants, but I've never felt I couldn't eventually do it, whatever it was.
Peter Ely:Yeah. That's amazing. Belief again just like whether I can or I can't, I will. Yeah.
