Stu Hardy from the The Comfy Chair Saturdays from 4pm – 6pm

Picture the vibrant green landscape of the Northern Rivers, zoom in on Eureka – a very
small community in the hinterland behind Byron Bay – a house sitting on top of a hill,
someone sitting on the back porch in a comfy chair, looking out over a well-cared for
lush garden and off in the distance the Nightcap Ranges. Did you pick up on the clue as
to which presenter is featured this month? Yes, the ‘comfy chair’ was the clue, and this
was how Stu described his surroundings when I caught up with him on the phone
recently.

Stu moved to the Northern Rivers from Sydney in 2000. I asked if he remembered the first
time that he tuned in to Bay FM. He remembered it vividly, driving around checking out the
landscape and just happened to dial in at 99.9 – Robbie McGready was on air with his long
running program Musical Kaleidoscope. His next Bay FM ‘moment’ was listening to Chop
Suey on Friday night. That was it for him, he became a regular Bay FM listener just from
tuning in to two programs.

In 2013, Rudiger Wasser (DJ Aqua) was offering a Radio Skills course at the Byron
Community College. Stu signed up before the ink was dry on the brochure. Rudiger
encouraged him to put in for a show at Bay FM. He did and was given a time slot straight
away. The show was called Word Up. Each week Stu picked a word and then all the songs he
played in that show had to have that word or be about that word. His first word was Whistle
and every song, true to his plan, had whistling in it.

This great story takes a disastrous turn at this point. Two days after presenting his first show,
he fell off a ladder and sustained significant injuries including to his head. Initially, he had to
recover language and learn to speak again. While he was in hospital and in the many months
he spent recovering from his fall, he was ‘thinking about’ his radio show, Word Up. To this
day, he attributes his recovery and his return to health to his love of doing community radio
and in particular his show, Word Up. It engaged his mind in a creative way and gave him
focus and a goal. When Stu finally recovered sufficiently, he went back on air at Bay FM and
went on to present 280 Word Up programs.

Then as destiny would have it, in 2018 Rudiger was ready to step back from Bay FM and
pursue his photography, so he asked Stu if he wanted to take over The Bay Lounge,
Rudiger’s long running cruizy electronica show. So, Stu stepped in to that time slot, where he
still is today.

He did take a short break a few years back and found that he missed doing a radio show too
much. And here he is now – having done his 300 th Comfy Chair show on 14 March 2026.
Stu says he has always loved sharing music and in the 80s & 90s, he was one of those guys
who was making mixed cassette tapes for his friends. Now he shares his music mixes with
the Bay FM listening audience.

Wondering where he got the idea for his show name? He said it sort of evolved from The Bay
Lounge – to a lounge chair – to a comfy chair. And being a Monty Python fan, he locked the
show name in from the MP sketch on the Spanish Inquisition, where they say, “get the comfy
chair, get the comfy chair”.

Check out Bay FM’s loungey-electra show The Comfy Chair every SATURDAY 4-6PM
(and don’t miss the Monty Python intro).

PS The photo below is more of Stu’s generosity. While gardening one day at his home in
Eureka, he thought of Bay FM and how welcoming it would be to have a couple of pot plants
at the front door to the station. Gotta love this guy ❣️

Stu has been cleaning the Bay FM studios fortnightly since 2017, arriving at the station long before the breakfast presenter.

On 14 March 2026, Stu presented his 300 th Comfy Chair program ❣️

Published July 17 2026