In 1989 Colin Stephenson answered an advertisement in the back pages of a daily newspaper that simply said, “Readers Wanted.”

“I really don’t think it even mentioned that it was for a radio station,” Stephenson remembers, sitting across from me in the studio of 2RPH, which overlooks the gardens of the St Helens Centre in Glebe. For just over 30 years now, Stephenson has been volunteering at the community station, which broadcasts readings from newspapers, magazines (including Limelight) and books for those with print disabilities, lack of access to published material or lifestyles that limit time for reading and remaining informed.

2RPH’s Colin Stephenson

“I’d always had a passion for reading out loud,” he says, describing how he auditioned for then station manager Jan Marchant at the stations former premises, “a broom cupboard” in Paddington Town Hall.

When he started, Stephenson had no experience with radio – except as a listener – but he quickly took to reading on air, eventually training to become a panel operator and teaching new recruits himself. Now retired from his job in the public service, Stephenson spends a day or two every week at the station.

He has also seen 2RPH evolve from what he describes as a “seat of your pants” operation, with very different technology – including a vinyl record player on standby to fill any dead air – to the more modern facility at Glebe. “You were never quite absolutely confident that the machinery was going to work,” he laughs. “I heard of a number of horror stories with the reel-to-reel falling onto the floor and unspooling. But you always had something whilst you were picking up the pieces,” he says.

“Recording on reel-to-reel was a different kettle of fish altogether and we’re quite happy to see the end of those days, I can assure you of that,” he says.

The set up at Glebe, where the station has been based since 2000, is more sophisticated, with automation meaning pre-recorded programs can be broadcast, particularly in the evenings, so volunteers no longer have to work into the night.

One of the pre-recorded programs Stephenson introduced was Limelight. A subscriber to the magazine since the days of 24 Hours, Stephenson has been reading Limelight for 2RPH listeners since 2006. “Up until then I hadn’t actually learnt how to record, so that was a bit of a baptism of fire,” he says.

Stephenson is a dedicated music lover, having learnt piano as a child, and he continues to play regularly for pleasure. “I’m quite dedicated to playing for an hour every day if I can,” he says.

He’s also a frequent face at live performances. “There’s nothing quite like a live performance. I love going to the Concert Hall at the Opera House and I love going to the City Recital Hall,” he says. “I also try to catch a couple of concerts with The Metropolitan Orchestra, usually in the Eugene Goossens Hall there at Ultimo.”

He’s not averse to a bit of theatre either, catching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory earlier this year, or opera, having seen soprano Jessica Pratt star in Lucia di Lammermoor for Opera Australia last year. “That was just an amazing experience,” he says, not least, he explains, because he saw Pratt win the Australian Singing Competition in 2003 before she moved to Europe.

It was his love of the performing arts that inspired him to read Limelight for 2RPH, which he does in a program twice a month on Wednesday evenings. “The first program is usually using heavily the What’s On portion of the magazine, and I add in a few of the smaller news items, and a couple of the columnists – I often include Guy Noble’s Soapbox, I like to do Rising Star,” Stephenson says. “The second program I like to do at least two of the features, depending on the length, and then I pad it out with other shorter columns.”

In addition to Limelight, Stephenson reads other publications, including the Newcastle Herald, which airs in Newcastle when the The Daily Telegraph airs in Sydney, and even books. He’s currently pre-recording a Young Adult fiction book, he tells me. “It’s a very enjoyable thing to do – it sort of borders on theatre a little bit,” he says. “So there’s a bit of a creative process going on there as well.”

While Stephenson finds reading for 2RPH enjoyable, it also serves an important purpose, providing access to printed materials. “At its outset the RPH network was addressing mainly those with vision impairment, but these days it’s a whole lot more,” he explains. “It could be those who just cannot, for whatever reason, handle printed material – an inability to turn the page, even – it could be those who are time poor, who would love to read the magazine but just don’t have time, so they may listen to it in the car.”

“And it’s also a great alternative to listening to commercial radio,” he says. “There’s nothing quite like hearing a voice that you can relate to, I think, rather than a shock jock.”

Walking through station’s kitchen, where volunteers sit at a table clipping stories from newspapers for the afternoon’s programs, you can feel a sense of bustling community, and for Stephenson this is part of why he’s stuck around for three decades. “It’s a very social atmosphere here,” he says.

Some volunteers, like Stephenson, come from a background in the public service, but people from all different careers have been drawn to the station. “We have a guy who works as a taxi driver in his real life,” he says. “We’ve got a few people from theatre backgrounds, we have nurses, ex-school teachers – so many different walks of life. I love that social aspect of it.”

With 30 years at the station under his belt, Stephenson has no thoughts of retiring from 2RPH. “It brings me great joy,” he says. “I’ll do it until I drop.”

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