Mary Anne Hobbs



Mary Anne Hobbs (1964- ) is the presenter of the Weekend Breakfast Show on BBC 6 Music and a former longtime colleague of John Peel on BBC Radio One. As her show followed his on Tuesday nights in the late 90s and early 2000s, she was often invited into his studio for an on-air chat about what she would be featuring on The Rock Show. It was also common for Peel to play a death metal track near the end of his own programme as a taster for her show.

Career
A fan of rock, metal (and with a love of motorbikes) from an early age, Hobbs fronted the Radio 1 Rock Show and the experimental / electronic Breezeblock on BBC Radio 1 for 14 years, until September 2010. She returned to radio in the primetime slot with Xfm in July 2011. On 3 December 2012, the BBC announced that Hobbs was to become the new Weekend Breakfast presenter for BBC Radio 6 Music … (read more at Wikipedia.)

Links to Peel
In a 2008 interview, Hobbs described her early years of listening to Peel:

"When I was young, my dad banned music from our house and would routinely smash up all my records. The only thing he never found was a tiny transistor radio I had about as big as a can of tuna. I used to hide under my blankets in the dead of night, scrolling across the dial, looking for John. For me, he stood at the gateway to a magical alternate universe. He was the only evidence I had that this place existed, but he set me on a lifelong journey to find it."

Peel was obviously fond of the younger DJ, who clearly admired him personally and professionally. After his death, she commented on the John Peel's Record Box TV documentary:

"In spite of all the managerial pressures on him to change, to compromise, to sell out, he never did it, and he’s a shining example to all of us, about how you live your life, basically."

In interviews, she continued to mention Peel often; for example, citing his reaction to punk as a precursor to her own conversion and championing of dubstep. In a December 2011 blog post, she recalled how the last time she saw Peel was to give him a 65th birthday present of a specially made neon sign featuring the words in pink letters “Dream Dad.”

Links

 * Wikipedia: Mary Ann Hobbs
 * Radio 6 Music: Mary Ann Hobbs
 * May Anne Hobbs blog: the story of John Peel’s ‘Dream Dad’ neon light…
 * Observer: Mary Anne Hobbs: why John Peel was my dream dad (30 Dec. 2012)
 * Mary Anne Hobbs: 50 Songs I Love