Longtime CBC Radio One co-host Jeff Weaver says it was the untimely death of his friend of colleague David Grierson that made him rethink where his life was going.

“He died at 49 years old; I’m 47,” Weaver told the Victoria Times-Colonist newspaper, pointing at the empty chair in the sound booth facing him.

“You become so close; you share the morning across the glass. He’s a good friend. So yes, his death has something to do with it. I want to be out living when I’m 50.”

Weaver has been a co-host, rarely a host, nearly all his career at CBC Radio.

“I don’t like being the centre of attention,” says Weaver, putting to rest any question that his departure has anything to do with always being a co-host, never a host at Victoria’s CBC station on Pandora Avenue. “I could have been host, but I like being second-in-command; it’s my role to make the host sound better. And it’s less pressure.”

CBC Radio’s program manager in Victoria, Peter Hutchinson, calls Weaver a “station builder.”

“From a beginning which was little more than a construction site and some brave hopes, he has been instrumental in building a thriving and popular CBC Radio station in Victoria,” he wrote in an email to B.C. staff. “He is a modest man but our listeners have been flooding us with calls and emails affirming how proud Jeff should be of his story telling gifts and warm on-air personality.”

Jeff, his wife Colleen and their two Siamese cats left the Island this morning after his last show and are now en route to settle in his hometown in southern Ontario.

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	Personalities, Vancouver Island