Birthday Club BC of Anglia Television - 1980 to 2002 - 22 Glorious Years... And A Reunion With Auntie Helen McDermott...

A signed... er.. pawed photo of BC in his late 1980s glory days.

Still staggering - even in black and white - a BC signed pic from 1982.

Happy, happy days of the 1980s! Uncle Michael Speake with BC and Auntie Helen McDermott in the Anglia TV studios in Norwich. BC is undergoing a bit of a spruce-up c.1982/1983 as he had got a bit grubby. Image was very important in those days. Auntie Helen's mascara suffers as a result. 

Uncle Michael, of course, became BC's official biographer in 1986 with the publication of 'BC and the Magic Book'. For some reason the book did not make the top of the year's best seller list, and some of us suspected jealousy and foul play within the ranks of those compiling the list. 

1985, and BC brings a touch of that certain sartorial something to the Birthday Club studio. Not for nothing are the 1980s remembered as the 'Style Decade'.

Boxing Day, 1988, and BC, seen here with a very bright and breezy Uncle Patrick Anthony, is seriously in need of an Alka-Seltzer.

How sad it was that June day in 2002 when it was announced that BC of Anglia Television's Birthday Club was to be retired in July, after twenty-two glorious years with the company. Since his arrival in 1980, he had become a legend in his own tea time. But a discreet online announcement on 22 June 2002 brought an end to those halcyon days:

Anglia spokesman Tom Walshe told the Eastern Daily Press newspaper: 'Anglia has decided that BC will be retired from next month owing to daytime schedule changes. The changes are in line with recently announced plans to give more prominence to regional programmes at peak times, and the time currently devoted to BC's Birthday Club will be allocated to extra regional news.

'BC has had a marvellous run on Anglia for 22 years, and we appreciate that many viewers will be sorry to see him go. But nothing is forever in television.'

Mr Walshe went on: 'Children's ITV has undergone many changes over the past two decades, and it has become increasingly difficult to accommodate BC within the schedule. Requests for birthday greetings have also fallen off markedly in recent times.'

'We can assure all his fans that BC will be given an honourable retirement and we know his memory will live on in the hearts and minds of parents and children all over the East of England.'

Stunned silence reigned across the East of England. Then, of course, came the hot tears, the denial, the relief grief.

A few years later, dear Auntie Helen, Helen McDermott, one of the station's presenters who had had the honour of working with BC right from the start, indeed had helped to draw him to the station in 1980, promising him perks like a limitless supply of lollipops and plenty of presenters to harass assist, sought him out and brought him briefly back to our screens. BC, it turned out, was still living in Norwich. He was living in a secret location because he didn't want to be mobbed. This was very wise. Me and my cousin Brian had been desperate to mob this celebrity of celebrities since 1985, when he was at the peak of his fame. And our desire had in no way lessened over the years.

Auntie Helen takes a puppet replica of BC out to meet a young fan in the 1980s. The real BC, of course, was usually studio-bound because of the ever-present threat of being mobbed - although he did have his own vehicle to attend some public events - BC4U.

BC had put on a bit of weight and Auntie Helen commented on his changed appearance - had he had a facelift, perhaps? But he still had the old magic. 

The reunion ended slightly acrimoniously as Auntie Helen discovered the somewhat fickle nature of our hero. Seems he was not oblivious to the charms of younger TV presenters. But that's what stardom does to people. Or leopards. Or bears. Or whatever he is.

My BC. I made this and based him on the BC who was so familiar to us in the 1980s, using a c.1983 screen capture for the model. From around the late 1980s, BC underwent several cosmetic changes - but denies surgery. If you would like to know how I made him then you are almost as sad as I am. My reasons were simple. I wanted my own BC that I could mob at home.

Anyway, enjoy our original tribute to this star of stars here.

Anglia Television: BC Of Birthday Club

B.C. - Terror of Anglia Television's Birthday Club in the 1980s...

You had to keep your wits about you with BC on the scene...

B.C. will be well known to younger viewers of ITV regional station Anglia in the 1980s. The puppet was introduced early in the decade to "help" the on-screen continuity person read out young viewers' birthday cards in the popular daily "Birthday Club" sessions, and inspired by the long-running ITV regional puppet character Gus Honeybun - a rabbit.

Helen McDermott worked with Gus at Westward.  

As the 1980s began, Helen was just months into a new role as a continuity announcer with Anglia Television. She put forward the idea to the Powers That Be of the time that an Anglia version of Mr Honeybun would be ideal for that channel's birthday club slots. Anglia was initially unimpressed with the idea, but Helen persevered. It would be good, she said, to have something in the Birthday Club feature that would amuse children who were not waiting for a birthday mention. Eventually, Anglia agreed. Interviewed years later, Helen recalled that the original puppet was then made by somebody called "Vera, from down the road." B.C. made his debut in late 1980.

B.C. - allowed to stay up to welcome in the New Year of 1985.

B.C. looked rather like a leopard, although many thought his ears were more bear-like! Before his launch, there was a competition to name the character. The winning entrant came up with "B.C." (for "Big Cat" and also "Birthday Club") and the little git proceeded to wreak absolute havoc in the years that followed.

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An angelic wave for a young viewer from BC - but Helen isn't convinced...

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B.C. liked lollipops, and was absolutely charming to the presenter-on-duty. Helen McDermott, the woman who brought him about, was a favourite presenter of mine. She was highly competent at serious reporting/presenting, but also evidently possessed of a sense of humour. She often appeared to be about to get her own back on B.C. as the screen faded to black after a Birthday Club session.

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All the daytime presenters, including Katie Glass, Patrick Anthony, Caroline Oldrey and Michael Speake, did battle with B.C. in the '80s. In 1986, Michael Speake wrote a book about the character, B.C. And The Magic Book.

The Anglia TV presenters were very much part of our lives, almost like family. "Ooh, Michael's still got that cold," we'd say, or, "What's Patrick cooking tonight?" B.C. was a personality in his own right (as far as I was concerned), a somewhat anarchic addition to the team. But what made him tick? What (or who) was his motivating force?

David Clayton was a presenter at Anglia throughout 1982, and recalls:

"The continuity studio was by necessity small and had the usual collection of discarded announcer presents and letters, the odd pile of face powder compacts, hairbrushes and B.C., the birthday club puppet. My debut as an announcer was with my hand up B.C. operating it for the on-duty day announcer. If you did an evening shift you came in to relieve the day announcer so he or she could get some lunch and a break. You also became the unofficial puppeteer around tea-time for the children's birthday club.

"I think I was B.C. first to Katie Glass and had to crouch down at her side out of shot and try and make B.C. animated and cheeky. Michael Speake used to be quite ruthless with the puppet but Katie was the most frightening to work with. One of B.C.'s features was that one of your hands held a stick coming out of the base of him, the other hand was inside one of his paws. If you were announcing with Katie doing the puppet she had the habit of making B.C. grab your tie just at the last second and yanking downwards with some degree of violence.

"This then made your tie knot extremely small and tight to the point it was virtually impossible to undo it. So for the entire programme you had just linked to, you were struggling to actually undo and re-tie your tie. Short of cutting it off with scissors it was touch and go whether you could make yourself presentable for the next link. Sadly there wasn't an equivalent female garment with which to exact your revenge when roles were reversed."

David also recalls the deelyboppers craze of 1982, and taking a pair in for B.C. to wear on-screen. B.C. was very active that day, lots of head waggling, and one of the boppers fell off. David almost said: "Oh, B.C., you've lost one of your balls!" but managed to substitute the word "baubles" at the last minute! True professionalism!

If anybody has any Birthday Club footage, I would love to see it. It's time to start a B.C. archive! You can E-mail me at: actual80s@btinternet.com

I must confess, I was about sixteen when B.C. made his debut and his target audience was tiny tots and primary school children. But I thought he was great.

Why?

"You were, and are, naturally childish," says my loving wife.

Not at all. B.C. was... er... well... he was... um... cult... yes, that's it, he was cult!!

That makes him respectable.

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The celebrity at home in 1986. The former co-presenter of Birthday Club celebrates his own birthday on April 1st. In 1986, B.C. was living in this desirable residence at the bottom of Uncle Michael's garden. Where is he now?

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Helen in more recent years. That's not the REAL B.C. with her, just a puppet.

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Courtesy of YouTube - inspired 1980s lunacy with BC and his companions.