Paul Golder writes for the Brentwood Gazette

Easter is usually a quiet time for us at Phoenix as many of our usual on-air guests disappear for the Easter holidays, but the opposite is true for our Friday Night Extra show, hosted by Patrick Sherring.

Patrick has been on air with us on Friday evenings since September 2011 and rarely misses a show. He’s well known in our community as C of E Rector of Ingatestone and Fryerning,
Chair of Churches Together and a Governor of Ingatestone & Fryerning C of E Junior School as well as being a regular columnist on the Brentwood Gazette!

Every Easter Patrick presents a Good Friday special packed full of guests and this year’s show was no exception.

Tim Lee from Brentwood Churches Together spoke about the celebrations for Good Friday held in Brentwood town centre, with over 400 people and a dramatized re-enactment of the first Good Friday. He also talked about the service he had taken at Mountnessing school about an empty Easter egg.

Brentwood School chaplain Revd Dr Adrian McConnaughie explained about the services for Easter that were held before the pupils broke up for Easter and his time in Ypres the previous week.

Year 6 pupil Alfie sang live and talked about Easter at Ingatestone Junior School, singer Marina Bottali-Price sang three songs live in the studio and talked about her faith, and regular helper Jonty was there too.

Hard to believe you can pack so much into a two hour show! If you missed the show you can hear it again at phoenixfm.com.

* Lots more guests coming up on air in the next seven days including Matthew Sweetapple from charity Step2It, Anne and Frank Woods chatting about the Billericay Streetlife Strollers and solicitor Sandy Brown from Shenfield’s Rainer Hughes talking about parenting and divorce.

* We’ve also got live music lined up from Nicola Collis, Jessie Dipper and Marc Hepburn.