Without missing a day of work, David Lopes went from being a full-time radio announcer to official retirement and back as a part-time employee at the company where he has spent almost the last 40 years of his life.

It leaked out during a recent talk segment after he returned from a two-month vacation that the veteran announcer was retiring, callers began paying tributes to him for his long service.

He assured his listeners nothing would probably change. It hasn't!

Coming up to his 40th year with the Bermuda Broadcasting Company in May, Mr. Lopes is still there on his 6-10 a.m. slot, doing what he has always done ... waking up Bermudians and getting them started in their day. He is the company's longest serving continuous employee, an achievement in itself considering they didn't want to hire him in the first place.

"I was told I talked like I had a hot potato in my mouth and that I would never make it as a radio announcer, so I had to prove those people who were telling me that wrong," he recalls of the early rejection. He persevered and grabbed his early chances with both hands.

"It wasn't easy, I would take a newspaper and stand in front of the mirror and read it everyday to get that monotone out of my voice. I had to work for it.

"I would go to work for nothing on a Sunday afternoon just to get that opportunity to get hired and to get on radio. Today it just baffles me that young people are not interested in getting into this type of work.

"It's an easy way of making a living, I think. It's hard work but not manual, hard work."

Mr. Lopes started full time at the station on May 16, 1962, less than a year out of high school.

"I worked in real estate for a little bit and then I went and worked at the Bank of Butterfield as a teller for a short time, but trying all the while to get into ZBM and being turned down for one reason or another," he recalled.

"Then Gordon Robinson, who was Station Manager at the time, and Pat Dunch, who was Programme Director, decided to give me a chance. I started the day after Willie Smith, who everybody knew as 'Wakey-Wakey Smith' - a legend in his time - finished up.

"When you started out you had to do the graveyard shift and just fill in. You didn't get a show with your name on it. In February, 1963 the guy who was doing the morning show on ZBM 2 (Jim Richards from Canada) became ill and I was the one who filled in for him for about three weeks."

It was the opportunity for Lopes to break into his own and the rest, as they say, is history.

"Not only did he become ill but he wanted out of early mornings, a change of shift, so they moved him to afternoons.

"In those days they brought in a lot of Canadians and these guys were simply looking for experience. In those days you didn't specialise in anything, the announcer read the news, the sports and it was a good way to get experience."

Mr. Lopes remembers the likes of Bruce Morrow and Dave Buddington who also spent time at ZBM before he started working there and then moved on to bigger stations in the United States.

"Even one of our own people, Nel Bassett, left Bermuda and went to the States and did very well for herself," said Mr. Lopes. "I was asked how come I never went abroad, but my family and my ties are all right here and it's difficult for me to leave. So I decided to just stay where I was and do the best I could with the opportunity I had.

"Quinton Edness was there in the early years and helped me quite a lot, and also Ron Evans who has been with just about every radio station in Bermuda, even with VSB when they started in 1981."

Faces have come and gone, DJs have come and gone - from Elroy RC Smith to Chuck Welch to Lady T and Glenn Caines, all of whom now reside in the United States.

"Chuck used to follow me, as a matter of fact, coming on at 10 o'clock," Mr. Lopes recalls. "I'm a radio announcer, I don't consider myself a DJ. I do a lot more than just play music.

"I even worked in sales for a little while and did sports for a bit, so you got to work in all these different areas. Today, if you're a news person, you're a news person and that's all you do."

Even today Mr. Lopes still reads the sports himself, rather than using the taped version.

"In the early years Pat Dunch would take me every morning after I finished my shift and we would tape the commercials for the next day," Mr. Lopes recalled.

"He would make me read my commercials to him and then he would help me with how to read a commercial. At the time I didn't appreciate what he was doing but I have looked at it many times since and I appreciate the fact he took the time to help me like that."

Mr. Lopes also remembers working closely with veteran Canadian news anchor Wilf Davidson in those days doing voice-overs for commercials.

"We called it 'television tape run' and in those days I had the opportunity to do a tape run two or three times a week with Wilfe Davidson and I don't think there is anybody who has been in broadcasting in Bermuda who knew The Queen's English like Wilf Davidson," said the announcer. "He never made a mistake and of course you wanted to be as good as he was. If you made a mistake he was very helpful."

There were vinyl discs, LPs and 45s back in the day, which have made way for eight track tapes, cassettes and now CDs.

"Today, of course, there is nothing to play those on, everything is compact discs," he says without a hint of regret.

"Technology has really boomed in the last 50 years, I think the last 50 years are the most exciting years in history. Just about all the modern conveniences that we enjoy today seem to have been invented or discovered in the last 50 years, so we are living in really important times. CDs are a lot easier to work with and the sound is much better and they don't damage as easy as the 45s."

It was last September or October that Mr. Lopes considered taking early retirement from the company, a retirement that took effect on New Year's Day.

"I decided it was be in my best interest to take early retirement," he disclosed.

"I was due to retire in October 2002 but I made some inquiries and one thing I have to say is the Bermuda Broadcasting has a very good pension scheme and I'm really glad I took advantage of that when I was able to at age 25. I'm sure people will say 'how come you retired and you're still working', but there are different ways of looking at retirement. You can retire and go sit in a chair and wait to die, I suppose. But that certainly is not my nature, so I have the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of my pension scheme and I also can go back to work part-time for Bermuda Broadcasting."

He has also retained his morning shift on AM 1340 so nothing has changed.

"There are three reasons for that, the company and community wanted me back which was the primary reason," he disclosed. "Secondary is because the two months I was off in November and December the one thing I missed was the music. My Country music show is the only one in town and I missed the music.

"How much longer will I do it? I don't know. Those two months that I was off showed me there is another side of life which I truly enjoyed, being able to go for an early morning walk and start my day with Mass every morning and working with my animals and the farm all day long...I really relish that. But I can still do my air shift and do all those things too for another little while. I wouldn't put a day or month or year on it. The secret about retirement is you don't want to go too early but you don't want to go too late either."

He added: "Everest (DeCosta) and I have spent a lifetime at Bermuda Broadcasting and I think in the future you are going to find that you're not going to have the guy next door working on the radio doing the morning show who you can call for a request or because you lost your dog.

"I get along with everybody in this community, people call out to me and I feel like I know everybody and I guess they feel they know me, I've been there so long.

"But I feel in the future - how far I don't know - radio programming is going to be beamed in via satellite. This Bob Leonard Show on FM89 is fairly popular even though it's a competitor of mine, but Bob Leonard doesn't know when it's raining in Bermuda.

"He doesn't know when it's a storm and the buses aren't running. It's so important to have a locally focussed programme, especially in the morning. I can make a comment about something and when I go for a walk people would hang out of their cars and shout something because they can relate to what I said. With satellite it won't be the same."

Mr. Lopes started playing country music on his all night show in 1962 to cater to the thousands of Americans living on the Bases at the time.

"I happened to find a stack of Country 45s that were popular songs that we never played so I started to play them and they just lapped that up," he explained. "I wasn't even interested in Country Music at that time."

Several years ago he also introduced daily talk show which has proven to be quite popular.

"About ten years ago we had a meeting in Rick Richardson's office about doing something to revitalise radio, it was lagging a little bit, and I came up with the idea 'let's have a daily talk show'," he recalled. "There was a weekly talk show at the time but nothing everyday. In most markets in the world today, news and talk are the biggest mediums. We started off by doing three days a week and now it's every day and almost all day."

Mr. Lopes started calling himself "Bright Eyes, Curly Hair, Skinny Legs and All" from the song Skinny Legs and All as well as "That Bye up on the Hill".

He is still bright and alive at 6 a.m. - actually his days begin at 4.30 and he has already delivered milk to Dunkley's by the time listeners hear his voice. The hair, by his admission, is thinning and of the legs...

"I've always been thin and I think it's so unfortunate that young children have a problem with being overweight or underweight and they are teased," he says sadly. I wouldn't wear short sleeve shirts years ago because my arms were so thin when I was a child."

On property in Devonshire that has been in his family since his father purchased it in 1949 and which contains a few homes, Mr. Lopes has room to indulge in the other things dear to his heart. He raises various types of birds in his aviary, has five miniature horses, a pony, L/A Erma Time, which he races at Vesey Street, a couple of geese, cows and a small plot of land for farming. He has three grandchildren, Tyler, Brandon and Brianna, and Tyler has inherited his love of animals and is already competing in harness racing.

"I was involved at Shelly Bay and had a horse racing there called Dean Bumpas and my parents didn't know anything about it," he says with some guilt. "He was being looked after by Wesley Trott from Bailey's Bay.

"That's another nickname that I have, people still call me Dean Bumpas today."

Mr. Lopes was previously involved at National Sports Club and Hotels Football Club, both of which have folded. "One of the saddest things that has happened in Bermuda in recent years was the demise of Nationals," he says with much regret.

"Now another big part of my life is harness racing," he says. "Then I also got involved with the mini horses and got a breeding programme going. I've got five of them right now."

Having animals to care for doesn't allow Mr. Lopes to travel as most Bermudians love to do, much to his wife Ellen's regret.

"I'm not a big traveller, I'm a home boy, I like to be around here, around my animals, working in my farm," he explains.

"The big thing now is my grandchildren, and I want to see them mature and do well. Tyler is very much his grandfather's boy and is very involved in harness racing and also rides.

"The other one (Brandon) is his daddy's (Robert) boy, he likes the construction machinery and the little girl, only seven months, is probably going to be a ballerina like her mommy was.

"My other son, Scott, is also in construction, he's the one who put up the twin towers on Middle Road. I'm proud of both of them."