I have my own show called Floor Fillers, about music, on BCB on Saturday nights. It came about because of my own background. When I was going through tough times, I needed to create my own space and I was listening to music a lot. I came to a point where I realised music does not judge anyone.

So when I joined the radio station, I said I wanted to present a music show where when I am playing my music, those people who are lonely out there can listen and imagine they are with someone. I always share a piece of my story on it, just a hint, when I play a song.

Music is like therapy. Wherever you are, music unites. You can have music at a funeral, music at a party. It’s a therapy because, when music is being played your mind takes you somewhere, it can make a sense of connection.

I have created many friends at BCB, and it brings the community together in so many ways. When you go to interview people you get to appreciate something from them, you create a network. It’s not just radio, it’s a network for the community coming together. It gives a voice to the community, and in Bradford that’s so many different types of people.

I grew up in Bradford 7, in Lidget Green in a migrant Gujarati Kenyan community amongst Polish, Ukrainian, Italian, Afro-Caribbean, different Pakistani, Indian and Sikh communities. It was the 1970s and I felt it was a halcyon period to grow up.

The music scene in Bradford, has always been generous about the spread of people here. Coming from migrant parents, I also think about my friends who have come from migrant parents and the different cultures that we all come from, and how mixed the music scene has been in Bradford. It’s aways been DIY in Bradford. Like when they were doing club nights back in the day, they weren’t thinking I need to make a buck out of it, it was just: “This is the music I want people to listen to”.

There’s a tapestry of people from different cultures, not necessarily doing traditional music but the musical landscape in Bradford is phenomenal. It doesn’t need bureaucracy to work, but it’s got a lot of passion because Bradford’s got soul.

I’m a presenter here at BCB. If there’s any diverse place in the world it’s Bradford, so BCB has afforded me the opportunity to be exposed to all these different types of people, festivals and events. It’s pretty amazing.

There’s a big sense of community. As you walk around the station you see young people, very old people, different races, different cultures – everyone blends together like we are one family. And from that we get to know what is happening in different parts of the community, in the Bradford District as a whole.

BCB works on the back of a huge army of volunteers of all different shapes, sizes, ages and ethnicities – and I’m one of those! Over a hundred, I think, are involved in all aspects of broadcasting. Almost all the programmes are presented by volunteers. You could make a case for most of them being culture related.

It makes perfect sense that Bradford is City of Culture, because it’s already a city of amazing and diverse cultures and 2025 is going to enable that quite a lot more.