Being a deejay was never really in my game plan, but when I was asked to launch BBC 6 Music and present the breakfast show, I thought I'd give it a go. The intention was to provide radio for the discerning music fan. There would be a more alternative playlist, an element of free choice for presenters, as well as access to the BBC's extraordinary archive of live and session performances recorded over the previous five decades.

I had the unique opportunity to play an eclectic range of artists, both new and old, unfettered by the formulaic constraints of a strictly chart-based playlist. It was like being let loose in a sweet shop. Having grown up listening to the gloriously slipshod and innovative John Peel, the idea of having that kind of show on during the day was what I had been waiting for as a listener. Now I was getting the chance to present one!

One of the beauties of 6 Music from my point of view was how casual the approach to putting a show together was. The play­list would be culled from an assortment of contemporary indie and alternative artists, as well as a wide selection of classic tracks. At home the night before a show I would scan my CD racks and see where the mood took me.

I was allowed a generous three free choices per hour of the show. These could be artists as diverse as Jimmy Smith, Serious Drinking, Pete Yorn, Billy Stewart, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Pharcyde, the Merseybeats, They Might Be Giants and Morgan Heritage. But I'd always fill my BBC programme box with enough music to fill up three shows just in case I changed my mind. With the advent of new technology I could eventually choose anything from two weeks of stored music when I started taking my PowerBook in to work.

We also played two brand new artists on the show every day. Even three years after leaving 6 Music, bands still come up and thank me for giving them their first national airplay. I once bumped into one of my main competitors from commercial breakfast radio on a train. As we chatted, I bemoaned the fact that we only got nine free choices per show. He looked at me somewhat crestfallen and said "I get one … a week."

It was almost like until 6 Music came along the BBC were saying. "I'm terribly sorry but if you like alternative music then you'll just have to wait until 7pm. We've got Westlife and Girls Aloud singles to play!"

The station provided unique daytime programming for a huge section of licence payers who had previously been disenfranchised. I loved the variety. I loved hearing new stuff and old stuff that was new to me. It was one of the best jobs I ever had, playing new sounds for a bright and interested audience. My attitude to the job was always: "If they don't like what's on now, there's something good on in a minute."

The listeners were a vociferous bunch and were always venting their feelings or asking for willfully obscure tracks via email and text. One particularly bilious section would always moan whenever we played hip-hop, saying that they "didn't want to listen to 1xtra". So we'd always come out of the track and dedicate it to them and their "homies".

One morning we were chatting about really long album tracks, which led to a text vote for whether or not to play Curtain Call by the Damned, in its full 18 minutes of overwrought, gothic glory. Hundreds of people voted yes. Of course, by the tenth minute of the song, most of them had changed their mind and were literally begging me to take it off, but there you go, democracy sucks.

One of the most positive and surprising reactions we got from the listeners was when one morning we had been told to play the new U2 single at 8pm. When we asked why we had to do this, our beaming controller said: "Because every radio station is!" Which wasn't really a reason. We started to play it and it was pretty much business as usual with the lads. Chiming electric guitars and Bono upset about something.

After a minute I took it off, saying: "Right, I imagine it carries on like that, but if you want to hear the rest of it tune in to Terry Wogan. I work for you lot, not U2's record company, and I'm sure that Bono would fully support me in my stance against external oppression … these are the Futureheads."

I braced myself for the deluge of emails. After just two pissy emails from U2 fans, dozens said well done, because in their words "that's what 6 Music is supposed to be about."

As I listen to 6 Music today, I keep hearing tracks and thinking, where else would I hear this kind of radio during the day? The tragic answer to that question is nowhere. The end of 6 Music at this moment in the BBC's history is not only an act of cultural vandalism, it's also an affront to the memory of John Peel and a slap in the face to thousands of licence-payers.