I was absolutely schooled on Melbourne Gold 104.3 and soon to be national broadcaster Christian O’Connell last weekend.

I was running a Voiceover class and my students had just introduced themselves to me. I’d given my spiel including my (beloved) role here at Radioinfo when one student, Barrie, stopped me and asked:

“Have you spoken to Christian O’Connell?”

There was a long and dramatic pause before I asked where this question had come from.

“Because if you haven’t you should.”

I thought Barrie must have read my interview with Christian published a couple of days before. But no. Living in Canberra none of the rest of the students knew him either. By the end of the weekend, Christian had become quite the unwitting star.

Barrie is extraordinary. Daytime IT professional. Extracurricular skydiving judge. He terrified us all with his stories of speed skydiving, the fastest non-motorised sport on Earth. People drop from planes headfirst and reach speeds in excess of 500kph. Before Barrie understood how to move his body in such a dive, his arm was broken from the intensity of the velocity. Alongside his work, personal life and skydiving judging which takes him around the world, Barrie listens to the Christian O’Connell Breakfast Show every day.

Barrie is from the UK and from Bournemouth where Christian started his radio career in 1998. He has listened to Christian from then wherever he or Christian was, and rejoiced when they both ended up in Australia. But the story gets more incredible.

During Covid times, and in between lockdowns, Christian talked on the show about how his mother-in-law Jackie was coming over from the UK to see them. Jackie, in her late 70s, didn’t know what would happen during or at the end of the flight and was incredibly anxious. Christian and Sarah, his wife, weren’t allowed to meet her at the airport.

Barrie was listening to Christian and realised that he was on a flight from London that sounded like it matched Jackie’s. Without thinking he scanned the boarding lounge for a ‘Jackie’ matching Christian’s description. He approached the woman who he felt was her, and bingo! Then Barrie, so comfortable in the air, and Jackie, so anxious, embarked on that flight together. I’ve included the audio below.

The next part makes me emotional. This was a gift that Barrie gave Christian and his family. Yet Christian made Barrie feel so seen and appreciated afterward that he became a champion of the show for life.

I was going to use the word ‘fan’ above but Barrie is more than that. He listens every day. He gets involved where he sees an appropriate opportunity (I understand skydiving has been part of that in the past). In a room full of people who don’t know Christian, Barrie introduces them.

At the start of training courses that I run I ask my students to stop me if I use jargon, go too fast or if they have a better way or knowledge to share. I learn more than I teach, last weekend particularly. I discovered that valuing your audience and making them feel seen and interesting creates a connection that prizes and giveaways can’t buy.

From Barrie, the most loyal of Christian O’Connell listeners.

The main image was taken by Barrie who is at the front of the weekend Voiceover class. Radioinfo writer of this article Jen Seyderhelm is smiling to his left.