“There are lots of happy memories, and some sad ones, but above all I count the last 25 years as a privilege.” That is how presenter and broadcaster Wesley Smith remembers a quarter of a century on the airwaves.

The popular “face of Oxfordshire” will celebrate 25 years in the business this month, and will mark the occasion with An Audience With Wesley Smith evening, at the Cornerstone Arts Centre, in Didcot, in aid of the Samaritans.

His working life began as a 22-year-old rookie broadcast journalist at Central Television in Birmingham, where he trained alongside ITV reporter Robert Moore, and This Morning and GMTV’s Ross Kelly.

But the 47-year-old said his passion for news and broadcasting began long before he took on his first role.

He said: “I’d always known I wanted to be in broadcasting. I think I must have been about five when I decided what I wanted to do.

“As a teenager I used to make my own videos.

“Some of them were featured on a popular 80s programme called Game for Laugh, which a few people may remember.

“We made a soap opera called County Hospital, and friends and family played the parts.”

Audience members at the evening can expect a few amusing tales from over the years, including the time he appeared on the front page of the Oxford Mail – for all the wrong reasons.

He had been chosen from the team at Birmingham to front the launch night of ITV’s Central South programme, which was first broadcast from Abingdon on January 9, 1989.

He said: “Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong.

“I remember I was interviewing Eddie ‘the Eagle’ Edwards and we had to interview him three times because nothing else was ready to go.

“We were working with all this new technology, none of which worked.

“Of course, this was a great story for the Oxford Mail, and we appeared on the front page the following day in story about how disastrous it had been.

“But after the initial disaster, the show went from strength to strength.”

Mr Smith worked for the company up until last year, when he was made redundant as anchor of Thames Valley Tonight after the television company merged three regional news bulletins.

When viewers got wind of the fact their favourite presenter had gone, the Oxford Mail was inundated with protest letters.

A campaign launched by the Oxford Mail in a bid to get ITV to reinstate Mr Smith was supported by almost 3,000 people.

Mr Smith said: “It was quite emotional for me when people showed that level of support, that they bothered and made the effort.

“It kind of validated everything that we’d been trying to do with the show, to become part of the community.”

Alongside a host of TV appearances, media training courses and charity work, Mr Smith can be heard on BBC Oxford every Saturday.

He said: “It’s been a huge privilege to be able to do this for the past 25 years. Doing this line of work you get access to people and places you never normally would do and it’s been a huge amount of fun.

“There are lots of happy memories, and some sad ones, but above all I count the last 25 years as a privilege.”

An Audience With Wesley Smith is on Saturday October 2, from 7.30pm, at Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot. Tickets cost £15 (concessions £13.50, members £12.50).

awilliams@oxfordmail.co.uk