MOST listeners tuning into a new radio show fronted by Anna Cannings are unaware of her hidden handicap.

For the 19-year-old has been blind since birth and types out her scripts using a Braille typewriter.

The gifted teenager refuses to let her

condition, micro-anopthalmia, hinder her.

Anna was a radio fan as a child but little did she know that ten years on people would be listening to her on the airwaves.

Her show, the Worthing Love Zone, is currently being broadcast on 106.8 Worthing Radio.

Anna, of Stedham, near Midhurst, learned Braille and touch-typing with the help of a specially-trained support teacher and gained nine GCSEs.

Her radio career started at the age of nine when she did a Royal National Institute for the Blind video which centred on the progress of blind people in mainstream education.

Anna, who lives with her parents Liz and Bernard, said: "I had always listened to radio and I suppose it was a way of communicating as I am blind.

"I have always enjoyed the radio and thought it would be good fun to do as it

is all about communicating with people."

She has also recently recorded a few pieces for the Radio 4 show In Touch.

She has been presenting the Love Zone for the last three weeks on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights between 11pm and 1am.

Anna, whose radio idol is Chris Evans, also does a quiz show for the station on Sunday afternoons.

Anna, who has two older sisters, Lisa and Emma, also runs a production company in Midhurst called Sound of the Future, which provides a commercial production service for local businesses.

Worthing Radio, a trial station, is on-air until Sunday.

It could return in April 2000 before applying to the Radio Authority for a permanent licence.

Bob James, programme controller at Worthing Radio, said: "Anna is a one-off with a cutting edge and a voice that is adding a touch of cheeky class to the Worthing airwaves."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.