Broadcasting to the Hospitals of Maidstone started in 1963, when a young man named Graham Norman started the service by compiling tapes of patients requests, collected from Maidstone's 'Oakwood' Hospital. Gradually more people got to hear about Graham's good deeds and decided to join him to form the MAIDSTONE HOSPITAL BROADCASTING SERVICE, or M.H.B.S for short.

In September of 1963, members were kindly given a gatehouse belonging to the 'Oakwood Hospital'. This gesture gave the team an ideal chance to convert an old, disused stable into a well used broadcasting studio, which became the home of HRM for the next 23 years.

After two years of broadcasting regular programmes to the 'Oakwood Hospital', the 'West Kent Hospital' started to receive the service in 1965, and the 'Linton Hospital ' two years after that in 1967. Also in 1967 M.H.B.S had a name change becoming 'Hospital Radio Maidstone' after being awarded charitable status. Broadcasting live to the patients became a reality in December 1967 via a land line from the Post Office. (BT).

With all the sunshine some rain has to fall, and in 1968 the rain certainly did fall. Twice! First, a storm caused the roof of the Gatehouse Studios to come crashing down, flooding the record library. The second time was when the hired landline was struck by lightning, forcing H.R.M off-air. Things were not all bad as it gave the members a great opportunity for fund raising: Activities ranging from jumble sales to fudge making, earned plenty of money. In no time at all, with a few improvements to the studios, H.R.M was back in business.

In 1973 a second on-air studio was completed and opened by the Mayor of Maidstone, Kenneth Graham. Even more excitement was in the air in 1977, when H.R.M obtained a donation from the Silver Jubilee Fund, and a third studio was built.

It seemed things could only get better, but the future of Hospital Radio Maidstone at the Oakwood site looked in doubt when the Health Authority revealed plans to close it. H.R.M then learned it was safe at least for another two years.

Another fund raising mountain was conquered when a staggering £15,000 was raised to replace out dated studio equipment and in 1987 BBC Radio Kent's Barbara Sturgeon opened H.R.M's new studios.This enabled the station to split into two different services, Channel One "Classic Hit's" (the pop service) and Channel Three "Dedi-Line" for patients Easy Listening requests from around the wards of Maidstone's Hospitals.

The Eighties ended on yet another high note when H.R.M entered the British Telecom Broadcasting Awards and won the title of "Best Regional Service in the South East", a great achievement by any standards and one to be proud of.

There was another fund raising frenzy. This time a move was in store. H.R.M moved lock stock and barrel to a modern site within a new wing of the service block at the Maidstone General Hospital. We moved from the Gatehouse to the new studios over just one weekend and not a single hour's broadcasting was lost!

During the Nineties, H.R.M. proved its professional standard of broadcasting by introducing "Maidstone Festival Radio" to the citizens of Maidstone during the annual festival month of July. This is rounded off each year by the River Festival at which H.R.M. presents local bands from its very own sound stage.

More awards followed from the Hospital Broadcasting Association including Highly Commended for Best Outside Broadcast, Best Presenter, Best Station in 2000. In 2001, we scooped Gold, Silver, Bronze and Fifth Place in the Best UK Presenter category - against some 400 other hospital radio stations.

The turn of the century saw H.R.M. as one of the best Hospital Radio Services in the country and before long, you've guessed it, another move was under way. The hospital urgently needed the large area we occupied in the Admin Block and helped to move us to slightly smaller, but very well equipped studios in the service area.

Year 2000 H.R.M modernised and upgraded equipment in Studio One (H.R.M Choice) formerly (Dedi-Line).

Available to the Presenter:- Two CD Players, Two MiniDisc Players, One Cassette Player, Two Record Decks, Computer Play out System, And a TV for Teletext etc. which can also be used as cctv for the studio complex.

In March 2001 we were modernising and upgrading Studio Three (H.R.M Energy) formerly Classic Hits.