I did my first programme in December 1983 and I think it was the morning of New Years Eve.
Was that nerve wracking?
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Yeah, I think it probably was.
I practice and practiced and practiced, and built a radio station in my bedroom.
But doing it on the radio for real, yeah I was a bit nervous.
But frankly, its not as awful as you might imagine.
For a first attempt I thought it was alright.
They must have thought it was alright, because they kept asking me to do it.
Radio was always your ambition, then?
Television was never any kind of ambition.
Television was not something that was accessible when I was 14 or 15.
It was just something that happened in the corner of the lounge.
It was just on.
These days television is seen as a genuine career option for kids.
Television comes to you now.
It didnt use to when I was a kid.
Radio really was in my city.
I could go in on a Saturday and get handout photos and stickers.
It was much more tangible.
It was a station I could write to and go and see.
That ethos of people being able to approach a media outlet has underpinned what youve done since.
Interaction always seems to be at the heart of it.
Is that deliberate, and important to you?
It is coincidental that theyve run hand in hand.
Childrens BBC was an interactive way of doing television.
It was a completely new way of doing television.
It wasnt my idea, I wasnt the first person to do it.
They were much older, they were uncles and aunts.
By the time Phillip and I came along, perhaps it was more older brothers and sisters.
The relationship was different, it was interactive.
Radio is an interactive medium and continues to be so.
Television has just adapted.
Technologys made it more accessible.
you might interact with your television now because you might press the red button.
But you like the interactivity?
Interactivity is brilliant, because thats what I do.
I like to talk to people on the radio, or chat to them on the news.
People are what makes broadcasting interesting.
You only have to watch a man like Bruce Forsyth work with people: hes a genius.
Its the people on theGeneration Gamethat made it entertaining and funny.
Not necessarily what they were allowed to do.
Its the people who make a news story interesting, or a radio programme interesting.
If you want to be a successful broadcaster, youre a communicator.
You have to be able to interact with people, because they want to interact with their media.
So what got you the broadcasting bug?
There doesnt seem to be anyone in your family whos in the business?
And your Dad was a teacher?
He was, hes retired now.
Hes well out of it as far as hes concerned!
No, there was no broadcasting bug in my family.
I was a performer at school.
I was in the school play and extrovert and all of that kind of stuff.
Which is probably to mask an interior shyness, like most people will tell you.
I just thought it was quite an interesting thing to do.
I was fascinated by it.
You are aware that theres an audience there, but it is essentially a solitary thing to do.
Because although you are interacting, it is not on a one-to-one basis.
You cannot see the audience if your joke falls flat.
If the cameramen dont laugh you know it was rubbish, on the radio you dont.
You dont get struck down with that stagefright that you get standing in front of 10,000 people.
Its a way of performing, but its a safe way of performing.
Was it Debbie Flint, who hosted Childrens BBC for a few weeks herself, who was the link?
Bless her, she said one day youd be quite good on this.
Id never heard of it really, I think I was doing an afternoon radio programme at the time.
So I watched it and videoed it.
What did you think of the Broom Cupboard?
I watched it on the television and thought thats like being a disc jockey in front of a camera.
Its not like presenting a programme.
Its doing what I do on the radio, but on the telly.
And I went and did an audition that wasnt very good, Im imagine.
I was a bit like a frightened rabbit in headlamps.
But the basics of it are the same.
So I could hit the counts.
And they said yeah, brilliant.
I went to the bar, and he said would you like to do three weeks on BBC 2.
And I went yeah alright then.
And thats how I got into telly.
You have to jump through a few more hoops these days.
Were you aware of there being much competition for the Broom Cupboard back then?
Youd assume that they auditioned a good few people?
Im not sure they did, to be honest.
I dont know how many people they auditioned, they might have done.
I dont think people saw Childrens BBC as the career option that it clearly is now.
I fell into it by accident, and it still wasnt a media career option.
Nine year olds now want to grow up to be famous, or to be on Big Brother.
Or to be a singing star onX-Factor.
When I was doing kids telly, kids didnt really want to be television presenters.
They wanted to be whatever they wanted to be.
So you got the odd letter, but nowhere near the amount I suspect they get now.
I dont know how many applications to be Phillip Schofield that they got.
They wouldnt have got one from me had my friend at the BBC not tipped me off.
These days every local radio disc jockey fancies themselves as a potential kids presenter, I should imagine.
Probably send tapes off.
And you send your showreel off, and they give you the list of people to send it too.
Which is fine, good luck to them.
But it just wasnt like that.
Because its not about reading the autocue.
Its not about interviewing the Prime Minister.
Its not about falling into a formula of a show that you have to adapt to.
But it was about you: Phillip, me, Simon Parkin, Andi Peters or Toby.
We were the people who had to fill the three minutes.
So Id watch, and Id watch and learn.
And Ive been doing it throughout my career.
If you want to be good at what you do, you watch people who are good at it.
And thats what we did.
Youve said in the past in interviews that you fell between two different departments in the BBC.
Did that work in your favour, that perhaps Childrens BBC wasnt thought of as seriously at the time?
It wasnt that it wasnt thought of seriously.
Childrens BBC was, and I think still is, run by a department called Presentation.
Childrens BBC presenters dont work for the childrens department that makes the programmes.
We did our own stuff.
And so we did our own stuff, yknow.
We did Edd The Duck stuff, we did nailbiting stuff, and we did kids pictures.
Little campaigns, and we did the Willy Fog day.
We were going to ask you about that!
I mean that tied in with a programme, Willy Fogg day.
It was all programme-related, but it wasnt just us saying well this is Childrens BBC.
When I was on, there was Childrens ITV, and we didnt even watch it.
We didnt watch it!
These days, every programme controller of every childrens channel knows exactly what each other are doing.
They watch each other, they compete with them, they try and outschedule them with their shows.
We didnt even watch ITV!
We didnt watch our main rival!
So did you watch yourself?
We watched ourselves when we came back from the office.
And then we went for a pint.
ITV is not one ship like the BBC was.
We were just very quietly confident I think, and just got on with it and did our thing.
Genesis is a lovely, flattering phrase.
Youve given me the benefit of sitting down and sweating all night about this that or the other.
Or he handed me something, and I would have said ah, thank you Wilson.
Because his name was Mark Wilson.
And from that a character is born.
Somebody sent me Bobby The Banana, I think.
I didnt go and buy a Bobby The Banana.
And we realised that you could operate a banana on two levels.
As soon as somebody sees that theres a Bobby The Banana, then you get sent other stuff.
We got Chris The Carrot I think.
Children realised that if you show stuffed fruit on the telly, theyll send you more!
Suddenly we have a bloody Broom Cupboard full of the stuff, because somebody once sent me a banana.
But when he first appeared, he didnt quack, and he didnt have green hair.
When he first appeared, I think he was in pin-stripe blue dungarees.
And she took the green mohican from one of her teddies, and stuck it on the duck.
I bet you wish youd kept merchandising rights…
I wasnt allowed to.
Was that something you deliberately chose to do?
I suppose when I started it must have been empty, because I had less stuff.
If you do a job for two and a half years, you change things.
We put the window up for a while and kids used to send us views.
We put a big wooden window frame on the wall.
Its kind of a work in progress, the Broom Cupboard, and it isnt the same now.
There was an awful lot of stuff in there because we had an awful lot of stuff sent it.
And a lot of it stayed there all day.
The Broom Cupboard was the continuity announcers room, it wasnt the special studio for Childrens BBC.
But the place was full of our crap most of the day it was actually quite funny!
I think they liked it though.
The announcers quite liked it it brought a sense of fun to the place.
Nicholas Witchell had to read the news there too one day…?
That was the day of the storm, the hurricane.
I didnt see it.
I slept through that hurricane.
But yes he did.
Its probably on YouTube somewhere…!
Can I talk to you about the Gunge Tank.
The original Gunge Tank was on the original Comic Relief.
That it wasnt gungey enough, a load of old foam and nonsense.
It wasnt as messy as it should have been.
They made it unpleasant the second year!
I was chucked in by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie I think.
It was good fun.
The second time I came second, but they invited me to go in anyway.
So both Phillip and I went in on the second night.
I was covered in crap by Noel Edmonds onHouse Partyor something once as well.You touched onWilly Fogbefore.
And this is the kind of stuff we made up.
Would the childrens department have declared that the final episode should be NationalWilly Fogday?
No they probably wouldnt.
There had been a singalong beforehand, and Phillip had done a similar thing withThe Mysterious Cities Of Gold.
But he just sang along.
This is where you think, that was a good idea, how can we take it further?
Willy Foghas been going on for bloody ages, that was the thing.
We had these cartoons on Childrens BBC that seemed to go on for decades.
Willy Fogg finally got around the world!
Well have a celebration, dress up as Willy Fog, get Union Jack waistcoats or whatever we did.
Well sing along to the theme tune.
So we had to get a VHS of it up, and had to listen to it.
These days you could Google it, and the lyrics would just appear.
But we didnt have that.
We werent foolish enough to say wed pay for the postage, thered have been hell to pay.
We sat back and waited for a couple of hundred to arrive.
We thought nobodys going to be that bothered over a photocopied song sheet with my scruffy handwriting.
And the second day about two sacks arrived, and the third day twelve sacks arrived.
And the fourth day another twelve sacks arrived.
And the fifth day, the corridor outside the Childrens BBC office was getting full.
Doreen and Jane who were the secretaries were beginning to sweat a bit.
We handed over responsibility for our content to another department for the first time.
How much mail did you usually get?
We used to get about half a sack one of those Post Office mailbags every day.
Youd get stuff, birthday cards, bits and pieces, letters for the Broom Cupboard, pictures.
But it was fantastic, bloody hell!
People are watching, and seem to like what were doing!
Its very nice of them remember, but I couldnt remember what day it was!
We used to have that there are subtitles on Ceefax page 888.
And he was saying that did you do it like this?
And he did some scissor action.
And I said no, thats wrong.
I can still remember it.
A bit visual for a telephone conversation.
But it made me think that we used to sign the fact that there were subtitles.
I said to my producer one day how do the deaf kids know that there are subtitles?
Because there was nothing on the screen to tell them.
Good point, he said.
Lets learn how to tell them.
It was one of those things like saying goodbye to Northern Ireland at five past five.
Which was quite the most bizarre thing.
If they gotNeighboursearlier theyd have the same out time as the rest of the nation.
You backtime from the 6 oclock news.
The 6 oclock news had to go out at 6 oclock, otherwise peoples nads were on the line.
So you backtimeNeighboursto figure out what my out time would be at 5.35, depending on the duration ofNeighbours.
What Northern Ireland used to do was put their regional news before the 6 oclock news andNeighboursafterwards.
Their regional news was longer thanNeighbours.
They did it the other way round.
What the hell happened in Northern Ireland when I said goodbye I hadnt a clue!
Obviously something exciting is going to happen in the Broom Cupboard now, and Northern Irelands gone!
When Phillip was on, there were all kinds of different programmes on at half five.
I think when I started there were bits and pieces on then.
Neighbours was something that was on after the birthdays in the mornings.
But it was doing astonishingly well, so Michael Grade put it on at half five as well.
And it was 12, 13 million people who were watching!
They dont now, but it was massive.
If Ant and Dec got 13 million viewers, theyd be dancing in the aisles.
And their shows probably better than the Broom Cupboard, but the audience has diversified over the years.
Youre talking about a time when there were only four channels.
Doesnt work like that now.
Big shows have much smaller audiences.
Did you sit and watch the programmes with us?
It certainly looked like that.
Yeah, we did.
Youve got to prepare for your next link, and youve got to know where youre going.
But again youre getting down to the technicalities of it.
Then all the links in the afternoon would be about ten seconds.
And the bulk of the time was shoved to the end of the afternoon where all the audience was.
So youd get three and a half minutes of me and Edd at half past five.
So during the afternoon, essentially we would say that was really good wasnt it?
They were really snappy links throughout the afternoon.
So we were watching the programmes.
Youd go oh bloomin eck, I dont know whats going to happen to Mr Bronson then.
I watched them because I liked them, but it was sort of my job to watch them.
And you were like okay, seat of the pants time here!
Sitting through the programmes, were there one or two that must have made your eyes bleed?
I suppose you remember the things you like.
I remember lovingFantastic Max.
The baby with the nappy and the safety pin.
I likedJohnny Briggs, I likedByker Grove, I likedBlue Peter.Newsround.
Some of the little tiny kids stuff wasnt to my taste, but it was still very well made.
What about The Tribes Of Toff featuring you in their song, John Kettley Is A Weatherman.
Did they have to come and get your permission?
No, of course not!
You sing about anything you like.
If you want to sing a protest song, you dont go and get permission from the politicians involved.
You just do it.
The Tribe Of Toffs sent a cassette to the Childrens BBC office.
The reason they got a record deal and a video made was because of Childrens BBC.
They sent us a cassette of the song.
I played it to Paul Smith, who was the producer or senior producer at the time.
And this is what the difference between Childrens BBC then and now is.
Paul said thats really funny, thats brilliant.
Lets get them in.
And they came in and they did a session for us in the studio ITV couldnt have done this.
It was great, very exciting!
When it came to your last day in the Broom Cupboard, what are your memories?
They gave you a fake out time?
They might have done because yes!
theyd got a cake planned.
I counted out, thinking Id finished.
They wanted to check that they had time to give me a cake and say goodbye.
It was a very small team that worked very closely together.
Doreen, who was an institution at Childrens BBC, has only just recently retired.
I think I probably was ready to move on.
Id made the decision to go.
And I think its time for me to go and do something else.
I have very very fond memories of my time at Childrens BBC.
I have nothing but good memories of it.
And thats just thank so much, its fantastic.
I love the fact that youre still talking about it, however many years later it is now.
People are writing books about it, theres crap on the Internet about it.
But it applies to kids telly.
I dont know if itll apply now.
Because theres so much of it.
You dont have that intensity and that one-on-one that you had.
It isnt the kind of club.
Kids only, Andy, you me and Edd having a laugh.
I dont know these days.
I dont think they connect.
You went from Childrens TV on the BBC to a form of childrens television on ITV withMotormouth.
Youve talked a bit about the different ways that the two organisations worked.
What was the experience of going from one to the other like?
You had to say coming up after the break on one, which Id never had to say before!
The difference between ITV and the BBC, I couldnt make a direct comparison.
Because I wasnt doing the same job.
I was doing a Saturday morning show, I went from continuity to doing a programme.
I went via a travel show on BBC 2, so in a sense it wasnt the same.
If Id gone to do continuity on ITV I would have probably found it very frustrating.
It wasnt quiteGoing Live, it was a lot more structured thanGoing Live, because it had to be.
It had to try and be something different.
Motormouth couldnt compete withGoing Live, becauseGoing LivewasGoing Live.
There was no vacancy atGoing Livebecause Phiilip was still there.
So I went where the job was and went to ITV.
It was brilliant fun.
We were in Kent.
But the BBC had a lot of people who were making programmes in London.
That might be the BBCs failing for being so London-centric.
But they had an awful lot of guests: pop bands and stuff are all London-based.
Ant and Dec moved their Saturday morning show to London, and that was probably one of the reasons.
But people came and the show went well.
Bad Influencecame along as well.
Now its videogames all over the television.
Back then it wasGamesmasterorBad Influence there just wasnt much of it about.
And they were the edgy gamers one, and we were the safe kids version.
But we were also, to be fair, not just about computer games.
It was about technology and computers.
I had to go to Leeds to make that, because it was made by Yorkshire Television!
How did your week pan out, then?
It was bonkers for Mrs Crane, she saw very little of me at the time.
It was tough for her, but that was the way that the profession was.
I had two programmes on ITV at the same time, which hadnt happened at the BBC.
These days you see presenters doing all kinds of programmes for lots of different broadcasters.
They switch about and work, and might be on the television two or three times a week.
Again, thats presenter loyalty, Phillip was a BBC presenter.
When he went to ITV at the end of hisGoing Liverun, it was a big deal!
Phil was a BBC face!
These days they switch channels all over the place.
Its a different marketplace.AfterBad InfluenceandWhats Up Doc, you moved away from childrens television.
Was that for geographic and family reasons, or a desire to move on?
A bit of both really.
During that period Saturday mornings moved from Kent to Glasgow, which meantWhats Up Docmoved to Scottish Television.
And to some extent as well, you come to the end of your natural life in a genre.
But you have a lifespan as a kids presenter.
My audience had grown up.
There were new people coming through.
I thought I was a young presenter compared toBlue Peterpresenters when I was a kid.
These days Id be quite old.
Theyre starting Saturday mornings at the age I was getting my nappies changed!
And what did you do afterwards?
We all have periods where youre working, but not many people know where you are.
I did a lot of radio in the north west, Century, Jazz FM, Smooth.
I went back to my first love, which was radio.
I was doing a bit for The Family Channel, I did Challenge TV for a while.
You do lots of what there is.
And then suddenly someone rings you up and says would you like to read the news?
I must be a proper grown up now!
Chris Tarrant, people will say to him,Tiswas, andWho Wants To Be A Millionaire.
And hes worked extensively throughout his career.
But some people will remember different shows.
Phillip Schofield it might be the Broom Cupboard andGoing LiveandThis Morning.
It might beDancing On Ice.
You just cant tell, you dont know in this business.
Its why it scares you, and its why its exciting.
There also comes a point where it becomes a job.
Its a means to an end more now.
When I was younger, it was my life.
I slept it, ate it, breathed it.
Now I go in, do my job and come home.
Ive got a wife and family and other things I do.
As long as Im paying the bills and enjoying what Im doing, Im very lucky.
I enjoy my life, my work, my Radio Manchester show.
I enjoy doing the news in Manchester.
Something might happen, I might do this for the rest of my career.
But Ive got my kids and my wife and my house, and Im happy and Im content.
Do you have any regrets?
No, not at all.
It hasnt held me back in the programming that Ive ended up doing.
That was never chosen, I didnt choose my path, the path chose me.
People offer me things.
I was on the radio, suddenly somebody says kids telly, kids telly led to Saturday morning.
Thats how it goes.
Ive had a brilliant time.
Im in a new phase now, Im doing news.
But its all down to the Broom Cupboard.
The Broom Cupboard makes you famous.
You cant trade on that forever.
You have to have some ability.
But a bit of notoriety carries you through.
Look at Noel Edmonds.
Noel Edmonds was my Saturday morning presenter, and for many it was Chris Tarrant.
John Craven was my news presenter, now he doesCountry File.
Andy Crane is one of the many faces in the new book Celebrate The 80s, availablehere.
