A working day in the life of Dave Marshall

going home. They are just some of the members of the dawn patrol with

whom he has become familiar during the 15 years he has been the early

morning presenter on Radio Clyde, going on the airwaves from 6 to 9 am.

He is Britain's longest-serving radio broadcaster in this time zone,

having joined the station on Day One and notched up another anniversary

last Sunday, New Year's Day.

Listeners trying to face the reality of another day have come to

depend upon him as a reassuring presence as he gently links in the

information about the state of the weather that is about to confront

them, the state of play in the air, on the rails, and on the roads. In

between, he plays the kind of music that helps people get out of bed on

the right side.

He is an easy-going individual, one of the few who could cope for so

long with such unsocial hours. His schedule begins with two phone calls

from the station security man at the Clydebank Business Park, the first

at 4.20 am, the second at 4.40 am. There is a third call shortly after 5

am when the line should be engaged because Dave takes the phone off the

hook while getting ready to set out. If it is not engaged, the security

man knows he is still in bed -- and so does Dave!

A recent luxury purchase is an electronically-controlled garage door

which can be opened from inside the house. When he used to leave his car

parked in the driveway there was the winter hassle of scraping the

windscreen; breathing on the frozen car lock. It is 17 miles, door to

door from his detached villa in Newton Mearns to the studio and he

arrives about 5.30 am.

''The roads are very quiet at that time although there is a lot going

on that most people never see...the foxes, the rabbits, and various

forms of city and suburban wild life,'' he says. ''You see the same

people each morning. The lorry tanker drivers, the others who have to

make an early start...we flash our headlights in recognition, although

we don't really know each other apart from having this time in common.

In the summer it is the best time of the day, with a lovely pristine

quality about it.'' Those out at that time know his car better than he,

a Rover with personalised number plates, 22 DNM -- for David Norman

Marshall.

Like so many others, he got into broadcasting through hospital radio,

having answered an ad in the Evening Times. Others included Tony Currie,

now controller of programmes with the Cable Authority, Tiger Tim, John

MacCalman, production controller at Clyde, Ken Bruce, Paul Coia, Ross

King, and Eric Simpson who is now in charge of Flight Watch. ''It is a

great training ground and knocks off most of the rough edges,'' he says.

He smiles as he says the public imagine him with an army of

assistants, bringing him coffee and cheese rolls. But he is there all on

his own, sitting at a control panel that looks like a mighty Wurlitzer

organ. There is something almost balletic about his practised actions,

as he presses buttons to put the other members of the team speaking from

distant studios on air, or snatches another couple of the carefully

numbered cassettes. As the morning light breaks, the window behind him

reveals a bingo hall up on the hill.

He works closely with helicopter pilot, Captain George, the ''Eye in

the Sky'', plus others like Maggi Lavender, Karin Spalter, and Eileen

Berry, who look after flights and roads. When he arrives he takes over

from Jim Waugh, the night hawk, which makes him a somewhat bulky dawn

lark. Certainly not a flip-talking Dicky Bird as played by Bill Paterson

in the Forsyth film, Comfort and Joy. He is more like the Clyde pilot,

steering the station into a new day.

There was only one occasion when he didn't get there on time -- a

couple of winters ago when the snows on the south side side were

drifting many feet deep. Jim Waugh extended his shift and told the

listeners about the problems.

Now aged 43, Marshall says: ''I sometimes think that when I get to a

certain age I will prefer an afternoon programme when I can rise at a

sane time. Then I balance that against the fact that the best audiences

are usually in the morning. And I still get a kick out of presenting

this package and putting the thing together properly.''