A North Berwick radio legend has returned to the studio after illness forced him to put down his mic more than a decade ago.

Jay Crawford, who was one of the original DJs on Radio Forth, lit up the airwaves for generations of local radio listeners for nearly 50 years.

But disaster struck in 2010, when Jay lost all the hearing in his right ear after a deep vein thrombosis clot exploded his eardrum.

It also left him suffering acute tinnitus and severe balance problems, which spelled the end of his radio career – or so he thought.

But a decade later, Jay has been the driving force behind Edge Radio, an online and DAB radio station delivering upbeat music to listeners throughout Edinburgh and the Lothians.

Jay said: “It’s nice to be involved again.

“I had a blood clot in 2010 and it left me completely deaf in my right ear, with balance problems.

“Gradually, as your body adapts, you learn to live with it but I was absolutely gutted as only two years earlier I had just won a fellowship from The Radio Academy.

“Two years later, it all seemed like it was over.

“Luckily [founders] Mark Martin and Matt Shiels came to visit me asking for some advice and we decided we would work together.”

Jay was born in his gran’s house on Forth Street, attending North Berwick High School and describing the town as “a wonderful place to grow up”.

He joined Edge Radio in an advisory capacity, helping to make sure the station had everything in place for its launch, until the itch to get back into the industry was too great and he decided to buy the station.

Jay says he hopes Edge Radio can bring back the real meaning of local radio, something he feels has been lost through the over-commercialisation of stations throughout Scotland.

He said: “Over the last year, what we have seen is a huge increase in downloads of the app and online listening, and all the time we have been working together to get the DAB licence up and running.

“What we really want to do is showcase Edinburgh and showcase Scotland.

“We have those local connections with commercial radio across the UK now because so many stations were bought up by one or two very large groups.”

Jay championed his team at the station, which blends knowledge with youthful exuberance to provide a show that delivers a new type of listening experience.

He said: “Having experience is very important, but we’ve also got some young presenters that are reasonably new to radio and cutting their teeth by being part of the team.

“That experience is great to have and gives us a lot of strengths but it’s also about having that depth when you look at the young team that are coming through.”

Jay said he also hoped that Edge Radio would deliver a better listening experience by providing more music every hour than any other local station, removing the ads that feature in commercial stations.

He said: “We really want to play more music than any other radio station that anyone can pick up at the moment.

“We are playing 17 or 18 songs an hour, whereas the likes of Forth One are playing 10 to 12 songs an hour.”

He added: “It’s about building relationships with those brands that come on board with us, and ensuring it works for them.”

Jay said Edge Radio was the place to go to find the music that would make listeners nostalgic in years to come.

He said: “I think that, when you want to be in the summer of 2022, you should be listening to a station like Edge, because that’s going to give you the songs that will remind you of this year when you hear them in years to come.

“Music for me is the most emotional part of life, and I’m really enjoying being part of something that makes me feel younger – if you want to stay young, listen to Edge Radio.”