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Business News Obituaries
Stoke radio veteran dies
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 14 February 2011
A local radio veteran in the Potteries, former BBC Radio Stoke presenter Sam Plank, real name Terry Hilton, has died after losing his second battle with cancer.
Hilton was 40 when he gave up his job at the local council to become a full time DJ on BBC Radio Stoke, having originally taken over a weekend show from a certain Bruno Brookes, who was then heading to Radio 1. From 1988 he was a key presenter on the BBC local station, which broadcasts to North Staffordshire and South Cheshire.
In 2001 he and his second wife Verity Hilton, who frequently worked with Plank on his radio projects, moved to BBC Stoke’s commercial rival Signal Radio, where he presented shows on the oldies station Signal 2. With an entrepreneurial spirit, Plank left Signal in 2008 to help launch a new digital station in the area called Focal Radio, though the company created to operate the station soon hit hard times and, despite Plank himself reportedly loaning the company money, the station went off air in May 2009.
More recently Plank presented shows on a local community station called Moorlands Radio, most recently in December. He overcame a battle with throat cancer in 2008, but was told a secondary cancer had returned last September.
Paying tribute to her late husband, Hilton told the BBC: “I am so proud of the way Sam has had the courage to battle this illness, never moaning or complaining or asking ‘why me?’ – even though many of us around him asked that question. It has been a tribute to the man he is that so many people of all walks of life have called to see him or spoken to him over the past few days and weeks”.
