Exeter alumna (French 1987) Alison Chapman (née Wadey: known professionally as Ali Booker).
Alumna wins prestigious broadcasting awards for The Cancer Diaries
University of Exeter alumna (French 1987) Alison Chapman (née Wadey: known professionally as Ali Booker) capped off a long career in radio broadcasting with the receipt of two prestigious broadcasting awards in Spring 2010 for Ali Booker’s Cancer Diaries. We are pleased to announce that Ali’s diaries have also won the 2010 Silver World Medal at the New York Radio Festival World’s Best Radio Programs awards.
Ali, who was diagnosed with inoperable cancer in 2006, won the silver commendation for best community programming in the Sony Radio Awards and the gold award for the special programme of the year at the annual Arqiva commercial radio awards for her long-running series on Jack FM in Oxford. Ali was able to collect the Sony award in person at the ceremony in May but sadly passed away on 1 July just weeks after the Arqiva award ceremony in June.
The Cancer Diaries received national acclaim, most recently in the Sunday Times Culture magazine article on diarists by Paul Donovan. You can read more about this, and hear the audio diaries, via Ali’s blog, where you can also see a video of the Arqiva awards presentation.
Following her death on 1 July, hundreds of tributes have been paid to Ali on numerous websites.
Ali was the daughter of Exeter alumnus Cliff Wadey (English 1956), Chairman of Convocation 1990-96. A ceremony celebrating Ali’s life will be held on the afternoon of 30 July at the Civic Hall in Wantage. For more details, please contact Cliff Wadey on 01460 67166.
Date: 23 July 2010
