A RETIRED butcher has staked his claim to fame after joining just four other people nationally chosen as new local radio presenters.

Vic Kidgell, 56, worked for 16 years as a butcher in Clows Top before a shoulder injury forced him to give it the chop. ex-butcher Vic Kidgell prepares to rule the waves.

Now he will be swapping his meat-cleaver for a microphone after beating 1,400 people in a nationwide BBC competition, 'New Voices for Local Radio.'

"I've always been well into local radio and have got involved in the past by ringing in," he said. "I like a laugh and once played a bit of privet hedge on a BBC Hereford and Worcester phone-in about unusual instruments."

Mr Kidgell added: "I'm interested in people and never short of something to say so when I saw the competition advertised I decided to go for it.

"I sent in a tape I did with a friend of mine, and we thought it was pretty naff. It was our seventh attempt and we'd had a few drinks."

The wireless wonder, who has just moved to Little Lakes, Bewdley, with his wife Tina, went on to win a six month contract with BBC Hereford and Worcester to present a weekly show.