Many thanks to Colin Newell who forwards the following birthday message from Ian McFarland:

Ian McFarland receiving his birthday card filled with your messages. (Photo: Colin Newell at DXer.ca)

To all my SWL friends & colleagues,

I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed reading all your birthday wishes & comments that Colin so kindly collected & transcribed from all your e-mails. For this old man it was a most enjoyable exercise in pure nostalgia. Thank you all so very much! There were lots of familiar names on those messages, and of course, to be truthful, lots of names that weren’t familiar after so many years. Memory loss is, after all, one of the unfortunate drawbacks of getting to the age that people refer to as “elderly”!

I find it hard to believe that I retired from RCI over a quarter century ago now, mercifully, some years before its impending virtual destruction over the next few years. I’m just grateful that I was at RCI during almost 25 years of RCI’s heyday. I’m also grateful for all the opportunities I had to travel to Europe, the U.S. and other parts of Canada to attend a variety of SWL gatherings and have the opportunity to talk with so many of my listeners. I’m sure that over my years at RCI I met many times more listeners than the rest of RCI staff and management combined.

Attending all those events, including the three ANARC conventions that were hosted by RCI, gave me many useful insights into what our listeners liked to hear about, and the determined efforts they made, especially in the noisy interference ridden listening environment in Europe, to tune in to my SWL Digest program. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me. Many thanks again for all your wonderful birthday wishes & comments.

Cheers for now & Good Listening everyone.

Kind regards.

Ian.