Brookside - Groundbreaking Soap - Real Houses, Soap Bubbles And Lots More!

The Collins family faced the trauma of Paul's redundancy and a downwardly mobile route to Brookside Close; Jimmy Corkhill was up to no good; Barry Grant wanted dosh and fell into bad ways; Pat, Sandra and Kate faced a mentally disturbed gunman; Sheila Grant faced a late-in-life pregnancy and endless problems from her kids and hubby; Marie Jackson took her "FREE GEORGE JACKSON" campaign to Downing Street; Harry Cross and Ralph Hardwick bickered at the bungalow; and nice yuppie Heather Haversham had a hell of a time...

"From the outset one of my main aims was to reflect Britain in the 1980s..." - Phil Redmond, 1987.

In 1981, Phil Redmond, frustrated that his ideas were failing to reach their potential because of decisions made by others, formed his own TV company - Mersey Television - and put forward the idea to the soon-to-be happening Channel 4 that the company might like a twice weekly soap. The idea was accepted. The soap was originally to be called Meadowcroft, but was later renamed Brookside.

From the "Sun", February 2, 1982. Actually the provisional title for this show, which turned out to be "Brookside", was "Meadowcroft", not "Meadowcraft" and the creator was Phil Redmond not Redmund! Still, "Coronation Street" producer Bill Podmore's confident attitude is worth noting: "I enjoy competition... especially when we are going to win."
 
Phil Redmond was determined that Brookside would be a show reflecting life in the 1980s, and the technology and setting was also cutting edge. Redmond bought some houses which were still in the process of being built to form the setting for his show and made full use of the lighter, smaller cameras available in the early '80s to film in them. The use of real houses was an absolute first for soap - truly revolutionary.

Most of the houses would provide homes for his characters, others would house the various departments needed to produce a popular drama - technical, wardrobe, canteen, etc. 

The trouble was, the houses used for other things were empty as far as the plot was concerned in the early years - which rather dented the 'reality' of the show. Why had some houses simply remained unsold?

The first episode was shown on Channel 4's opening night in November 1982.

TV Times, 1988 - "South" was a Brookside "soap bubble", shown as part of the schools series "The English Programme". What was a soap bubble? A short series of programmes featuring characters from Brookside in a different scenario. The first, Damon & Debbie, was shown in 1987.

Brookside was so non-cosy, it shocked many viewers. And left wing. I was left wing (nowadays I don't trust any politicians), but none of the people round my way went on and on about being poor or social issues as much as the folk in Brookside. In fact, many got rather upwardly mobile as the decade went on.

But Brookside gave UK soap a much-needed boot up the backside, and the effects can still be felt to this day. If only the soaps hadn't become so sensationalised in more recent years, Brookside included! But nowadays everybody's obsessed with serial killers and explosions. 

Without Brookside, I'm sure BBC bosses would not have turned their attentions to producing their own all-year-round soap - and then EastEnders would never have been created!

 Brookside ended in 2003.

We'll be returning to the Close soon.

Annabelle Collins with husband Paul. Love his '80s jumper! The Collinses faced many traumas: son Gordon was UK soap's first regular gay character; daughter Lucy dallied with bad lad Barry; and whilst Annabelle initially wanted to be friends with her lower class neighbours in the Close and Paul despised them, the trend was reversed in later years, with Paul becoming more of a "people person" and Annabelle succumbing to snobbish impulses. When Paul, training for a charity fun run with "commoner" Matty Nolan, allowed Matty to use the Collinses' shower, Annabelle was disgusted!

The Golden Girls - Thank You For Being A Friend...

Starring Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, Betty White and Estelle Getty, American comedy series The Golden Girls began in 1985, and made its way to our Channel 4 in 1986. The creator was Susan Harris, who had previously given us Soap, the hilarious spoof soap opera, and its excellent spin-off, Benson. 

The initial idea came from an NBC skit in August 1984 of that brand new cop show, Miami Vice. The skit was called Miami Nice and centred on some, well, let's be PC and say "mature" people living in Miami. From that tiny acorn grew the mighty oak tree of a sitcom called The Golden Girls. The show, it was said, broke new ground, portraying older women as something other than housewives, battleaxes or husband poisoners. There is a Feminist subtext to much of what has been said about the show, which always portrays women as being 'done down'.

The show was also highly topical - featuring story-lines on such "taboo" subjects as HIV, homosexuality and sperm banks. 

Susan Harris commented in the late 1980s: "At 82, Cary Grant could still have been a romantic lead, but a woman over 50 was cast as an axe-murderer. I had to write Golden Girls. It shows women can be attractive and have romances after 50."

Hmmm... a romantic lead at 82? An axe murderer? Easily disproven. Once again, Feminist posturing here, but the show's strength is that it took ordinary-looking people (apart from Blanche, of course, who was devastatingly gorgeous. I hope the cheque's in the post, Blanche) and showed that life doesn't have to stop at fifty.

The Golden Girls was the story of Southern belle Blanche Devereux, who let rooms in her home to three other women - grief counsellor Rose Nylund, school teacher Dorothy Zbornak and Dorothy's mother, Sophia Petrillo - previously of the Shady Pines Retirement Home.  

According to the background story, Sophia had spent a year at Shady Pines before the series began, it had suffered a fire in 1985, and she had arrived to set up home with Dorothy, Blanche and Rose at the time of the pilot episode. Although Shady Pines was never seen on screen, it was mentioned in most episodes and Sophia never let her daughter forget that she had "put her away" there.

The four main characters had widely contrasting personalities: Blanche "liked the men" and was as vain as could be; Rose was loving, dim-witted and occasionally prissy; Dorothy, a not-so-gay divorcee (and not quite free of her ex-husband, Stan), was champion of the witty (but crushing) remark; Sophia was sharp tongued and wasn't above robbing her daughter's handbag. Not a very likeable bunch? Wrong - excellent writing and absolutely brilliant acting turned these creations into four of the best loved TV characters ever. For a start, the girls cared about each other, and underneath the surface bitchery warm friendships flourished - in fact, here we had an alternative family set up.

 TV Times, 1988.

Sophia and Dorothy, mother and daughter, cared deeply for each other, but their relationship was spiky. Sophia called Dorothy "Pussycat", and once told her she had given her the nickname because she loved pussycats. And also because Dorothy was the only one of her children who could catch mice. Sophia sometimes despaired of Dorothy's dateless state, and Blanche often made fun of her, but ultimately Dorothy was the only Golden Girl who found a new life partner, marriage and happiness.
 
Sharp wit, health and social issues, cheesecake and, above all, the friendship between the four main characters powered the story-lines.

 The girls have a night in with the TV in 1987. It was in 1987 that they nearly went their separate ways, seeking group therapy as they were getting on each others' nerves so much. It was Sophia, famous for her tall tales of herself in years gone by (beginning each tale with something along the lines of "Picture it, Sicily, 1922...") who came to the rescue with some up-to-date pearls of wisdom:

Sophia: Picture it. Miami, 1987. A house. The only one in the neighbourhood without a pool. But I digress. Four women, friends. They laugh, they cry, they eat. They love, they hate, they eat. They dream, they hope, they eat. Every time you turn around they eat.   

Rose: Sophia, are those four women us? 

Sophia: Look in the mirror, blubber butt. The point I'm trying to make is what's going on here is living. Just because you have some rough times doesn't mean you throw in the towel. You go on living. And eating. 

Rose: I'll get the cheesecake. 

Blanche: I'll get the whipped cream. 

Dorothy: I'll get the chocolate syrup. 

As it turned out, Blanche was going to fetch the whipped cream from her bedroom, so this culinary treat did not appeal to the others, but, whilst on the surface Blanche was sometimes selfish and always sex hungry, the character had hidden depths. She deeply mourned her husband, George, who had been killed in an accident in the early 1980s, and whilst she genuinely adored sex, she was also searching for another George amongst her many gentlemen friends. Sadly, she never found one.

 The show became a comedy legend and is often repeated to this day. It was originally broadcast on Friday evenings when I was usually out, but I caught one or two episodes and became so hooked I finally rented a video recorder!

Rose, of course, hailed from a certain small town in Minnesota and her stories of that place, often beginning with the words "Back in St Olaf..." usually bored or puzzled the others rigid whilst becoming a favourite feature of the show for viewers (any one for herring juggling?). Here's my favourite St Olaf story, as told by Rose, with interruptions from Dorothy, in 1989:

Rose: Gunilla Olfstatter was a nurse at Cedars of St. Olaf Hospital. One night she was taking care of Sven Bjornsen, and he asked her if she would get him some more mouth moisteners and then kill him. Gunilla brought the mouth moisteners right away, but the killing thing, it seemed to go against everything she'd been taught!

Dorothy: You're doing beautifully, Rose. 

Rose: He begged and he begged and by her coffee break she couldn't stand it anymore, so she pulled the plug and he died. Well, she was wracked with guilt that night. Not only had she parked her car in a doctor's spot, but she was never sure whether Sven's pleading was the pain talking or the medication talking or the guy in the next bed talking. You see, the guy in the next bed was Ingmar Von Bergman, St. Olaf's meanest ventriloquist. 

Dorothy: Rose, we are going somewhere with this, aren't we? I mean, if not, I'm gonna cut out your tongue. 

Rose: Yes! Sven came back to haunt Gunilla. Since then, every Tuesday night at ten - nine Central -  

[Dorothy bangs on the table with frustration] 

Rose: ...she hears noises. Some say it's the wind, but some say it's Sven's voice whispering back from the other side, saying: "Turn around, quick! His lips are moving!"

Max Headroom

Super weird TV presenter Max Headroom... Now what was all that about? I found the lowdown on Mr Headroom in a magazine article from May 1985...

"When we suggested a computer instead of a human being as a TV presenter, Channel 4 were DELIGHTED. A computer! No hangovers, no union disputes, no gossip column stories... and NO SALARY! It seemed so perfect. Nobody could have foreseen the trouble we'd have with him..."

Peter Wagg is the producer of the "Max Headroom Show" (Saturdays, 6.00pm) - Channel 4's newest pop video programme, a collection of 'the best of the new and the old' videos, linked by a bizarre stuttering character who's apparently part machine, part human being. Is he really a computer copy of a human brain? Is he a man with make-up? Is he just a puppet tarted up with a bit of computer graphics?

"Max is all those things," says Peter Wagg darkly, "and more..."

In fact his creators refuse to divulge how he works. "A trade secret," they say. "He's a series of techniques joined together."

They claim instead that Max was first created from the brain of super-sleuth journalist Eddison Carter and rescued from the corrupt Network 23. He was simply glad to be alive and of some small use to his rescuers. But Max has taken to media stardom like a duck to water, and Peter Wagg is afraid that it has turned his head...

"He really is very difficult. All we want him to do is be jolly on the telly and introduce the videos. But he's rather political and keeps getting digs in that aren't in the script. And he's so VAIN."

But intial reaction to the "Max Headroom Show" has proved too favourable for his creators to pull the plug on him now and, if Max gets his way, his show will soon be shown all over the world.

"It's world domination or nothing now," says Peter Wagg, sadly. "I'm afraid we've created a monster."

PERSONAL FILE ON MAX HEADROOM

Name: Maximum Headroom 2.3m

Born: In Finchley, North London.

Starsign: Vegetarian.

What would you do if you weren't a TV presenter? Kill myself.

First record ever bought: "Digital Watch Tunes Volume 2", by Bronco

Are you going out with anyone? Come come now. We hardly know each other! Just get on and do the interview. 'They' want me to say that I'm happily married and in love with my wife. Hah!

Have you ever had a supernatural experience? I ate a Big Mac once without taking it out of the box...

Best thing about being a celebrity: Being invited on the "Terry Wogan Show".

Worst thing about being a celebrity: Meeting Terry Wogan.

What's in your pockets? My pockets? No they're definitely not 'in'.

Treasure Hunt

Skyrunning with Anneka Rice. Destination: a ship at sea? The top of a lighthouse? The narrow deck of a submarine freshly risen from the deep blue ocean? No problem for Anneka and her team or pilot Keith Thompson.

The intrepid Anneka with her intrepid sound and camera men, Graham Berry and Frank Meyburgh.

1982 brought us Channel 4, a new telly channel with lots of fresh goodies - including Treasure Hunt - the first series was filmed in '82 and the first programme on-screen in late December, with the rest being screened in early 1983.

The idea for Treasure Hunt came from France - the creative genius in this case was one Jacques Antoine. In 1980, he came up with the idea for a brand new series called La Chasse au trésor and filmed a pilot episode - which was not intended for broadcast. Much work on the concept was still needed - in the pilot episode there was just a single contestant and no helicopter, plus other differences to the format that would later captivate TV audiences. Refined and honed, La Chasse au trésor was first broadcast on 15 March 1981, and refined and honed further for its second season in 1982. Over here in the UK, with Channel 4 cranking up for its November 1982 debut, it wasn't long before the idea was spotted...

Of course, there were some differences between the French and British versions of the show, but basically all Treasure Hunt devotees owe Jacques Antoine a big "Thank You" for coming up with the basic idea in the first place.

Anneka Rice, she of the colourful lycra outfits, was quite sedate for the first Channel 4 series or so, as she sped around the British Isles - and occasionally further afield - in a helicopter, looking for clues so that studio bound contestants could win a cash prize. But it didn't take long for her lively personality to assert itself and soon she was shrieking her head off, chattering away ten-to-the-dozen via a radio link with former news reader Kenneth Kendall and the contestants in the studio or, face-to-face, with the general public, helicopter pilot Captain Keith Thompson, and camera and sound men Graham Berry and Frank Meyburgh.

She livened things up no end - a great 'people person' and just what the show needed.

Members of the "Treasure Hunt" team, including Anneka, Graham and Frank and pilot Captain Keith Thompson (far left).

In series one, clue and course setter Ann Meo popped in at the beginning of each show and exchanged some faintly astringent banter with Kenneth. Ann would later set questions for Blockbusters. In series two, Annette Lynton ("Nettie" to Kenneth) joined the show as on-screen adjudicator, plotting the helicopter's course on a large map and keeping contestants informed of the time remaining to complete the course. 

TV-am weather girl Wincey Willis arrived as adjudicator for the 1985 series and remained until the show ended. The show's final season in 1989 saw professional tennis player Annabel Croft taking over Anneka's role as "skyrunner" for some more highly enjoyable outings.


 Kenneth Kendall with two contestants and a floor manager at the Limehouse TV studios. The programme was made by Chatsworth Television.

Treasure Hunt is a show I remember very fondly.

Some fascinating facts about the series from the 1988 Look-In annual...

Each new series involves no less than 13 months of hectic organisation, and the process begins in November when ideas for new locations are considered. Local maps are checked, guide books are read and tourist offices are contacted about any special events which may be happening during filming. The following month, a list of 15 proposed locations is completed after confirmation that general flying conditions in each area are satisfactory.

In January, two of the team set out for an eight-week tour of the locations to see if they look good, to assess the interest of clue sites, and to establish a good route. Approaches are made to secure landing permissions, and the co-operation of site owners.Channel 4 broadcasts an announcement inviting hopeful contestants to write in, then application forms are sent out, and replies considered, in February.

In March, the best 15 courses are worked out and presented to the producer and director, and then the final 13 chosen. From the thousands who write in, 250 pairs of applicants are invited to attend an interview session.

By April, the task of obtaining permissions from all involved at locations is still under way. Captain Keith Thompson, the chief pilot, contacts local airfields to get the go-ahead for landing and flight paths from local air traffic controllers. Contestants’ interviews are held in various parts of the country.

The final selection of contestants is completed in May; one pair per programme plus one stand-by couple in case the first can’t take part. The producer, director, researcher and clue writer are flown to each location by Keith Thompson for a 10-day period to carefully test each idea. A communications expert organises the rental of special telephone lines from British Telecom and talks to the Independent Broadcasting Authority about the use of local broadcast frequencies. Both are crucial factors to the programme; without them Kenneth Kendall and company back in the TV studio would have no contact with the crew out on location.

During May and early June, dates and locations are confirmed with everyone involved, from the police and the Civil Aviation Authority to property owners. Work begins on clues and Chris Gage, the director, organises the Ordnance Survey maps to be used in the studio. Camera scripts are prepared.

The middle of June is crunch time: it’s when each series is recorded over five intense and hectic weeks during which the location crew work and live closely together. With the filming completed, the painstaking task of editing begins in August. And ends in November! By December, everyone breathes a sigh of relief when the finished programmes are presented to Channel 4 for transmission.

Although bad weather is a constant hazard, only rarely has a shoot had to be postponed. Such a time was when a sudden, heavy fog descended on the helicopter after a tricky landing made by Captain Keith Thompson in a car park. Anneka had to run into a nearby factory in search of a clue when Keith decided that further filming should be abandoned. Two days later, filming was resumed in bright sunshine, and as Anneka ran out of the factory she said: “My goodness, it’s cleared up a bit while I’ve been in there!”

Anneka has to be prepared for literally anything on the programme. “Malcolm [producer Malcolm “The Captain” Heyworth] often rings me up and makes a casual suggestion that I could learn some new energetic pastime which might be called for in one of the programmes,” she grins. “Last time it was scuba diving. I spent many weeks at the bottom of my local baths with tanks on my back for two hours at a stretch until I mastered it.”

The whereabouts of the “Treasure Hunt” clues are shrouded in such secrecy that Anneka is confined to her hotel until the day of the shoot. The only advance information she has then is the starting point of her take-off!

Anneka has nothing but admiration for Graham Berry and Frank Meyburgh, who never leave her side during recordings. “They have to stay with me every step of the way,” she says, “and theirs is a more strenuous job than mine because they have to carry all their equipment, whether it’s up a mountain or to a rock out to sea."

 
 The Treasure Hunt book, 1986. From Anneka's introduction: 

People seem to watch Treasure Hunt for different reasons. For some, it is the excitement of solving the clues before the contestants;  for others it is the glorious countryside, and the stunning aerial photography. For us the Treasure Hunt team, the most important part of the programme is you, the audience.

I am constantly amazed and touched by your letters - I've never worked on a series that inspires so much loyalty among its viewers: I recognise some of the names and handwriting from our first series. As long as you  keep watching, we'll keep rnning. Who knows, in 2010 Graham, Frankie and I may be charging around in motorised bathchairs.

Kate & Allie

American newspaper ad for a brand new comedy series - Kate & Allie, 1984.

Created by Sherry Coben, Kate & Allie was a groundbreaking and tremendously likeable American sitcom, which debuted in the States in 1984 and in England (on Channel 4) in 1986. The show told the story of two women who had first met as kids.

Baby boomers Kate McArdle (Susan Saint James) and Allie Lowell (Jane Curtin) were high school friends, but later drifted apart. Let loose upon the "Peace and Love" scene of the 1960s, Kate became a free wheeling, peace loving, protest marcher - and married an actor. Meanwhile, Allie became a neat suburban housewife - she married a doctor.

In 1984, now both divorced, Kate and Allie merged their two families - comprising Kate's teenage daughter, Emma (Ari Meyers), Allie's teenage daughter, Jennie (Allison Smith), and her younger son, Chip (Frederick Koehler).

Kate's apartment in Greenwich Village, New York, was now home to everybody, and we had an interesting alternative family set-up.

Creator Sherry Coben had been inspired by a high school reunion she had attended, where she observed a couple of unhappy divorcees who found comfort in sharing with each other. One of the most groundbreaking things about Kate & Allie was that the show never became some trendy, issue-led thing, Feminist ideology brainwashing or 'hey - this is hip and happening - let's do it!' garbage - as some previous shows had done. 

The show was character-led, it was based on changing social trends - the rising divorce rate in particular - but not chattering classes' nonsense. The characters were beautifully defined. Perhaps there was one episode towards the end of the run which didn't sit quite right, and an established character was briefly mutated into somebody quite different to suit Feminist ideology, but that's still excellent going for those times.

Allie was tightly buttoned and conservative, but underneath she was insecure and lacking in self respect. Her husband's affair and subsequent remarriage had severely shaken her.

Kate was laid back and happy-go-lucky, able to cope (well, usually!) with Allie's well-ordered suburban ways and occasional hysterical outbursts.

All was not portrayed as eternally peaceful in this alternative family, but Kate and Allie's friendship won through.

Could there be life after marriage for Allie, seen here with her ex-husband, Dr Charles Lowell (Paul Hecht)? She had still to meet Claire (Wendie Malick), the woman Charles had left her for, and when she finally did, the news that Charles and Claire had made love in Allie's marital bed, before the marriage had broken up, on Allie's designer sheets with the motif of little windmills, stunned her. Charles, meanwhile, was unhappy when Claire presented him with a new baby son, Stewart. Wasn't he too old for this? Didn't he deserve some peace and a nicely paced life which suited his age?

A landmark episode in this groundbreaking series, Kate and Allie face a huge rent increase when the landlady discovers that her one family apartment is now occupied by two families. Our heroines seek to wriggle off the hook by claiming to be a lesbian couple, winning the landlady's sympathy as she is herself gay. But the truth finally outs in a thought provoking scene which poses the question: just what constitutes a family? Is it only Mr and Mrs Average and 2.4 kids? The answer is - of course not!

Peace, love and protest were Kate's scene as a student in the 1960s. In the 1980s (just look at those shoulder pads!), she tried to rally her fellow customers at the local bank to protest at the establishment's attitude towards its customers, but was quickly removed by security guards!

Whilst Kate worked for a travel agent, Allie was at first housewife homebody, though later returned to college to get a degree. Kate commented that Allie had saved Emma (and herself!) from being latchkey kids. 

Later still, Allie and Kate pooled their resources to start a successful catering business.

Note the strange design of the matching wallpaper and curtains. Dot. line. Squiggle. Dot. Was it some kind of code, I used to wonder?

Also note that Allie has shoulder pads in her dressing gown!

Emma decides to make divorce the subject of her "Our Changing World" high school project, and finds the best subject material is to be found at home.

Kate found romance with Ted Bartelo (Gregory Salata), a plumber who was afraid of spiders. The two fell deeply in love, but split up repeatedly, realising that they both wanted different things out of life - Ted a family, Kate a continuation of her career. Finally, Ted found somebody who wanted the same things as him. Kate was devastated.

Kate and Allie was well written, and imaginative: one episode began as reality, before becoming Allie's imagination - something we only began to suspect as the plot became more and more bizarre; another saw Chip returning to the about-to-be-demolished apartment in the early 21st Century with his son and reminiscing about his childhood there in the 1980s; a further stand-out-in-my-mind episode centred on Chip - and soon his entire alternative family - befriending Louis, a young homeless man with learning difficulties.

Louis (Michael Countryman) found friendship and sewing lessons at Kate and Allie's apartment. The character was rehoused in supported living accommodation and developed romantic feelings towards Kate, before finding happiness elsewhere.

Something amiss... Jennie, Kate and Emma wonder what Chip has been up to...

So does Allie... surely he couldn't possibly have been using the oven door as a trampoline?! When the door comes off in her hand, Allie believes it...

Kate & Allie ran until 1989 - by which time Allie had remarried. Her new husband was a man called Bob Barsky (Sam Freed) who spent each week working away as a TV sportscaster, returning home only at weekends.

So, Kate moved into Allie's marital home to keep her company.

It wasn't the same. Perhaps it was the absence of the "Dot. Line. Squiggle" wallpaper at the new place, perhaps all the angles had been covered, but it soon became clear that Kate & Allie had run its course. The original premise of two divorced women merging their households had been groundbreaking; the set-up of the final series - divorced woman living with married friend and her often absent husband - was different, but not fascinating.

However, the show at its best was, in my very humble opinion, excellent and even towards the end, with the "Dot.Line.Squiggle" wallpaper sadly absent, there was some highly imaginative writing and the characters remained as likeable as ever.

Fondly remembered!

1983: The Mini-Pops - Controversy On Channel 4...

For many years, little girls across the land had sought to ape their elders' fashions.

My late grandmother, born in 1910, often told me of the uproar which ensued when she sneaked off and got her hair cut in a then-fashionable "bob" when she was seven years old. The bob went on to become one of the defining hair styles of the 1920s. But little girls circa 1918 were definitely not supposed to have this "grown-up" style.

"I just wanted to be in the fashion," Gran told me. "But my parents were outraged!"

To be in fashion was a much more accepted business for little girls in the 1980s.

Raiding Mum's dressing table for make-up had long been a favourite pursuit of little Karen or little Sharon, and in 1982/1983 a lot of girls were also taking their fashion cues from the TV series Fame, with leg warmers and Fame sweat shirts.

Other fashion "musts" for the teenies back then included pixie boots, donkey jackets, hair gel, ra ra skirts, and deely boppers. Both of my little sisters (one born in 1971, the other in 1974) were heavily into these things in 1982 and 1983.

The Mini-Pops, which debuted on Channel 4 on 8 February 1983, sought to bring to the small screen the little'uns' passion for fashion and for aping their elders. The idea was that kids, boys as well as girls, should dress up as pop stars and give their own renditions of pop hits.

What lots of little kids did at home, singing along to Toyah or Bucks Fizz or dad's old Rolling Stones LP, they could now do in a studio - and share their fun via the telly screen with the whole country.

And for the Mini-Pops kids there were clothes which echoed those of their pop heroes and heroines.

And there was make up, too, lashings of it, without having to make a raid on Mum's and risk a clip round the ear hole.

What's more, the parents who took their pride and joys along to the Mini-Pops auditions in the summer of 1982 seemed more than happy at the prospect of them becoming miniature Bananaramas or whoever.

Bliss!

Or was it?

Middle Britain threw up its hands in horror at the little girl who sang Sheena Easton's 1980 hit 9 to 5 in night attire (Sheena had at least worn a boiler suit) - "Night time is the right time, we make love..."

Disgusting! The girl in question later said that she had no idea what it meant (as an aside, I think "making love" once had a much more innocent meaning: one made love with words and poetry, but long before the 1980s it had been designated as "nookie" only).

In fact, middle Britain threw up its hands in horror at the whole spectacle of these little kids wearing glitzy and sometimes skimpy mini-versions of their pop idols' garb.

And as for the lip gloss and the eyeliner and some of the dance moves...

Disgusting to the absolute max.

And surely the show would attract every Tom, Dick and Pervy in the country? It would kill of the children's childhoods prematurely. They'd all need psychiatric help by the time they were teens...

It's wrong to generalise, and perhaps it wasn't only middle Britain that was outraged by the show, but the attitude of the working class tabloid the Daily Mirror to the first Mini-Pops show on 8 February 1983 was rather different...

There is a chance tonight to spot the stars of tomorrow. Twenty youngsters were chosen from 800 hopefuls for a place on the new series MINI POPS (Channel 4, 6pm).

Over the next six weeks they get the chance to dress up as their pop idols and sing their hit songs.

Mike Mansfield, who produced the show, says he was "amazed" at their talent. "A few of them could become very big names," he predicts.

Some of the youngsters have already hit the charts with a Mini-Pops album.

The series was filmed at record speed. Mansfield explained: "The children are available only during school holidays. We ended up making the entire series in one week."

He believes the show will appeal to all ages.

Mansfield says: "Adults will watch because they love kids. And the kids will watch because lots of them rehearse in their bedrooms with a hairbrush for a mike while singing along to a hit record."

From the Daily Mirror TV listings, February 8, 1983:

Mini-Pops: New light entertainment series in which the entertainers are all kids aged between seven and ten. They're our future stars.

All good, innocent fun, you see?

But elsewhere, well...

From the Observer, 27 February, 1983:

Is it merely priggish to feel queasy at the sight of primary school minxes with rouged cheeks, eye make-up and full-gloss lipstick belting out songs like torch singers and waggling those places where they will eventually have places? The final act of last week's show featured a chubby blonde totlette, thigh-high to a paedophile, in a ra-ra skirt and high heels; her black knickers were extensively flashed as she bounced around singing the words "See that guy all dressed in green/He's not a man, he's a loving machine." Kiddiporn, a shop-window full of junior jailbait? And does the show thrust premature sexual awareness onto its wide-eyed performers?

One phone caller to Channel 4's Right To Reply show raged:

"Mini Pops should be called Mini Whores. Are you people out of your mind?"

A bit strong, wasn't it? After all many female (and, indeed, some male) pop stars of the 1980s put their make up on with a trowel and wore tarty garb, it was the norm, and surely these were just little children pretending to be them?

What does come across, from looking into the subject, is the innocent intentions of the show's producers and the enthusiasm of the kids involved.

But worthy folk worried about the "sexualisation" of children performing on the show.

And perverts tuning in.

And so, the show ended.

What did I think?

Did I believe that the show was going to attract evil perverts?

Did I believe that it was robbing the kiddies of their childhoods?

Did I believe that it was simply fun?

Did I think that it was.... um... well... just a teensy bit common?

Well, this is where this blog post gets really embarrassing.

I never watched it.

I always watched Crossroads instead.

Channel 4

The notion of a second commercial TV channel had been around for at least a couple of decades. Finally, the Broadcasting Act 1980 set the wheels in motion to make that notion a reality.

Looking tremendously cutting edge, Channel Four debuted on 2 November 1982 and it was a huge national event. We only had three telly channels back then, and BBC 2 was rarely watched in households round my way - we thought its content was far too highbrow about 99.9% of the time.

We feared Channel Four might be the same, but "gave it a go" anyway...

When I saw the colourful shapes whirling across the screen, I yelped: "Oh no - not another Rubik's puzzle!" I was just getting over being defeated by the Cube and bitten by the Snake...

Thankfully, the shapes simply assembled themselves as Channel Four's logo. I breathed a sigh of relief - although I still thought that it had strong Rubikian (?!) influences!

The logo was designed in 1982 by the Robinson Lambie-Nairn company.

Appraised of the facts about the new channel-to-be, Lambie-Nairn decided to play on the fact that Channel 4 would be buying all its programmes in, so would be a kind of patchwork.

The idea they came up with was to try and illustrate the various elements which would make up Channel 4 coming together.

With the logo created, Lambie Nairn used a computer to animate the outlines of the blocks to the final freeze. The movements were then hand coloured and shot, but it didn't work - what was lacking was shadow and lighting.

Lambie-Nairn went to Bo Gehring Aviation in Los Angeles, USA. The company specialised in computer animation and Lambie-Nairn ordered differing sequences of the same basic symbol to be made entirely on computer. At that time, nobody provided that service in the UK.

The result, of course, was the familiar Channel 4 logo seen on the opening night and for years afterwards - a very cutting edge design and animating technique in 1982.

But would Channel 4 be a cutting edge TV station?

From the Daily Mirror, 4/9/1982.

Will ITV's Channel Four be a big turn-off?

You will soon be able to switch on to a brand new TV channel.

ITV's Channel Four goes on the air early in November.

But whether viewers will like what they see is another matter. The new channel is aiming to be experimental in content with a large output of educational and minority programmes.

In fact more like BBC-2 than ITV.

And in some quarters of the ITV companies fears are growing that this could be the recipe for a ratings disaster. For a start there'll be hardly any sport. What little there is will come mainly from America - basketball and grid-iron football, for instance.

Then each weekday night at the peak viewing time of seven, the channel plans an hour-long news programme.

Here's a run-down of what you will (or may not want to) be watching when Channel 4 flickers into life on Tuesday, November 2 at 4.45 pm.

COMEDY: From Australia, Paul Hogan. Top comedian Down Under and highly thought of by Channel 4 bosses who have bought twenty-six of his shows.

"The Optimist", a silent comedy starring up-and-coming English actor Enn Reitel and filmed in Hollywood.

And Peter Bowles stars in "The Irish RM", a six-parter based on the classic comedy stories of an Irish magistrate and set in the 1890s.

SOAP OPERA: "Brookside", an up-market "Coronation Street" set on an estate where most people own their own homes.

LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT: The Brazilian-made "Fantastico", reputedly one of the world's most spectacular song and dance shows, will run for twenty weeks at least.

NOSTALGIA: Hit American series of the Sixties such as "I Love Lucy", "The Munsters" and "Get Smart".

BLOCKBUSTER: "Nicholas Nickleby". The hit stage production of the Charles Dickens classic by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

FILMS: The silent version of "Napoleon", with a music track added, runs for six hours. Otherwise you'll be seeing golden oldies such as the 1930s gangster film "Scarface"; Eddie Cantor movies including "Whoopee".

Midnight movies on Friday and Saturday nights will run up to 2am, with a hint there will be some X-rated films.

DRAMA: Two plays ready for screening have down beat themes. "The Disappearance of Harry" stars Annette Crosbie as the wife of a man who leaves for work one morning and never returns. "Angel" is the story of a young saxophone player facing violence and death.

Channel 4's chief executive, Jeremy Isaacs, says: "it will be responsive to its audience's changing needs, lively, concerned, useful - and fun."

The target figure is a nightly audience of five million.

Will Channel 4 ever manage to attract that many viewers? Wait and see.

And so we waited. And we saw.

On 2 November 1982, after a welcome from presenter Paul Coia and a look at goodies to come, we settled back for the first of Channel Four's programmes - and it was "anyone for anagrams?" with Countdown.

You can see Richard Whiteley above and Carol Vorderman below as they appeared in the very first show.

Early Channel 4 was short of adverts, due to an industrial dispute: should actors appearing in ads on channels like TV-am (which was due to start in February 1983) and Channel 4, both envisaged as attracting lower audiences than the main ITV regional channels, be paid less? It took some time to sort that one out, so, in the early days of Channel 4, we got to know pictures with captions like "Brookside follows shortly" very well indeed!

The "Sun", January 20, 1983: TV critic Margaret Forwood comments on the lack of adverts and adds a few of her thoughts on Channel Four in general...


From the "Sun", February 2, 1982. Actually the provisional title for this show, which turned out to be "Brookside", was "Meadowcroft", not "Meadowcraft" and the creator was Phil Redmond not Redmund! Still, "Coronation Street" producer Bill Podmore's confident attitude is worth noting: "I enjoy competition... especially when we are going to win."

I remember watching the very first episode of Brookside and loving the electronic theme tune. But I wasn't too sure about the characters or setting. Would it take off? It all seemed a bit too real...

We couldn't have guessed on the first night, but with its gritty plots and set of real houses, Brookside would drag soap away from the cosy story lines, tight perms and brightly lit studio sets of Crossroads and Coronation Street, both fixtures on ITV since the 1960s, into the 1980s.

The characters - the moved-up-in the world Grant family, moved-down-in the world Collins family, and young urban professionals Roger and Heather Huntington, were uncompromisingly non-cosy. The language used in the early episodes was considered a little too real and had to be toned-down, but early Brookside, thought by many to be far too subversive to be a soap opera, was great. Well, OK, maybe this anti-Thatcher dog was a bit too darned shaggy. As a poor, working class geezer, I don't recall real life in the 1980s being anywhere near as grim as in Brookside, but for those of us who detested Thatcher at the time it was sheer bloody brilliance.

Gordon Collins, played by Mark Burgess, was the first regular gay character in English TV soaps; Tracy Corkhill (Justine Kerrigan) got into trouble with telephone chatlines, parents, teachers, you name it; Annabelle Collins (Doreen Sloane) faced a move down in status from the leafy Wirral to rough and tumble Brookside; but for working class mum Sheila Grant, played by Sue Johnston, the Close marked a move up in the world from a grotty council estate.

I believe that Brookside was, at least partly, responsible for some new (to most of us) slang words over the next few years. Before the 1980s, I recall nobody in my area calling Christmas "Chrimbo" and electricity "'leccy", but, post November 1982, both gradually seeped into usage.

They seemed to originate from Brookside "Scouse speak".

Sainsbury's, of course, became "Sainsboe's"!

Brookside was soon more commonly known as "Brookie", and Coronation Street became "Corrie", which, again, I don't recall before the 1980s. Soaps simply weren't trendy enough before the 80s to bother with zippy abbreviations. Brookside influenced other soaps and helped to blast away soap's fuddy-duddy image - making it respectable for youngsters to tune in.

But I digress. Back to what I viewed on that first night on Channel Four...

I remember being depressed by the opening night film - Walter - about a man with "learning disabilities" (the modern day PC phrase - not in use round my way, nor I believe anywhere else, in 1982!) who was subjected to various horrible experiences after his mother died.

Five Go Mad In Dorset was a Comic Strip Presents production, and a merciless mickey take of the Enid Blyton Famous Five books.

The show had a "surprise guest star" - Ronald Allen, David Hunter of Crossroads fame - appearing as Uncle Quentin. Dear Uncle told the children: "I'm a screaming homosexual, you little prigs!"

It was difficult not to see Ronald Allen as his Crossroads character, I don't think I'd ever seen the actor appearing in any other show before, and to hear "David Hunter" coming out with those words left me absolutely breathless with laughter.

At the end of my first taste of Channel Four programmes, I decided that it was different. Definitely different. And worth another look...

See a 1988 article on Channel Four favourite Treasure Hunt here.
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