Jonathan Hancock's morning show

On the wall nearest to the door there is an unlit blue warning light. A sign next to it says 'RATS.'

Rather than being a visual alarm against encroaching rodents, this is instead an acronym it stands for Royal Alert Transmission System and is used only when a member of the Royal Family dies.

It was last lit on the early hours of a hot, sad August morning three years ago when the news came through from Paris of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

On his second day in his new job presenting the Radio Oxford breakfast programme, this is the sort of big breaking story that Jonathan Hancock could probably do without, though there is little doubt that he'd be capable of coping.

This morning, though, things are of a more prosaic nature. There are coffee-spill removers to be removed (or toilet rolls, to you and me) from the mixing desk prior to photographs being taken of the New Man at Work. The desk itself is quite old-fashioned, but the computer equipment on top of it is strictly state-of-the-art. A working hybrid of the old and new to serve the listeners of Oxfordshire.

The big Dalet computer operates a playout system that runs the taped inserts and the jingles. Jonathan can arrive at work in the morning before the sparrows have thought about getting up he clocks on at 5am and the computer will, effectively, switch on BBC Radio Oxford.

Between the hours of five and seven, he will play some soft music to ease his listeners into their day some sweet Motown soul, perhaps, or a little touch of something gentle in the morning. "Nothing too thrashy," he says, with conviction.

Jonathan Hancock is 28 and, like many in his trade, served his apprenticeship on hospital radio in his native North East.

While at Christ Church he read English and met his wife Lucy at BBC Radio Oxford. A couple of weeks ago, the couple had their first child, Noah.

He's just taken over the dawn chorus slot from Dan Chisholm, who has occupied the chair for the past 20 months. Some shoes are easier to fill than others, but two days into the job, Master Hancock displays few signs of nerves or foreboding.

He chats away about the weather, communes via another computer with his producer, Mike O'Connor, and handles items as diverse as the county's pig farmers mounting a billboard protest against the Government and of strange happenings in Thame with aplomb.

Shortly before 9am, Jonathan's colleague Bill Heine arrives in the studio.

Jonathan introduces Bill, who asks the audience to ring in with their views on the latest sad chapter in Ulster's history for his phone-in show later in the day.

Then the two have a brief head-to-head about how junk food may cause asthma in children. Princess Margaret's 70th birthday is next on the agenda and then Jonathan tells Heine to "smile for the photographer I'll make you famous".

Heine, clearly already famous enough, declines and departs with a grin. Jonathan slides the sound control out and in on the desk while he goes live to chat to one of the station's amateur Weather Wardens. Some banter is exchanged about red skies at night "Shepherd's house on fire," quips the DJ.

After a brief travel slot, Jonathan introduces an item about ghostly dogs in Thame featuring a chap who used to work on Psychic News. Hancock doesn't miss a beat. "Why do psychics need newspapers?" he asks.

As the hands of the studio clock creep up to nine, he tells his producer: "That was fine a bit like a swan on the water frantic underneath..." He grins. You watch him work and you can't help thinking that it can't be as easy as he makes it seem.

"I don't think about it much, now," he says. "It's like driving and with the computers now, it's a lot easier than what went before."

It's just gone 9.20. "I'll work until about 12 on stuff for tomorrow," he reveals. "But I'll be in bed by nine tonight."

The better to prepare for another morning in the new job, greeting the county, as the county greets the new day.