Great Cubes Of Our Time - Rubik's And The Pye Tube Cube...

Fabulous 1983 ad from Readers' Digest. The Pye Tube Cube was released in late 1982. This dinky clock radio, cassette, TV combo quickly found a home in my bedroom after I bought one from my Auntie Audrey's mail order catalogue in 1983. And, of course, it wasn't the only cube making waves in the 1980s. There was Rubik's Cube - taking over the world in 1981 after its arrival in 1980. My Tube Cube was white. You can see it in the photograph of my bedroom below from 1986. It was my main telly until 1987 when I invested in a rented colour set (flatter, squarer, tube) and a rented VCR - my very first VCR! But I kept my Tube Cube until the early 1990s when I flogged it. Fond memories.

The Tube Cube was first advertised on TV on the opening programme of TV-am in 1983.


My bedroom in spring, 1986. I had originally thought this picture dated from 1985, but the Smash Hits Pop Charts recorder on the wall revealed my folly.

Roland Rat, Kevin The Gerbil And The Rat Fans - "Yeeaaah!"

Born in a sewer at King's Cross (some say that he was actually created, voiced and operated by one David Claridge, so believe what you will), Roland was the rat who helped to save the good ship TV-am in 1983.

He's seen here on both sides of his picture disc Rat Rapping - "High class music for discerning rodents". He was a class act (still is, check him out on Facebook!) and the ultimate '80s superstar.

I was keen on Kevin the gerbil too. Loved that pink bucket! And then there was the delectable Glenis the guinea pig and the leek-loving Errol the hamster.

Inspired '80s TV fun!

The very lovely Kevin the gerbil - pictured here with his pride and joy pink bucket - got a taste of the limelight in 1984 with the release of his own single - Summer Holiday. Kevin was, and still is, Roland's Number 1 fan. He hails from Leeds and, despite a tendency to panic, and sometimes even faint, under pressure, is a valued pal of the great rat.

 Kevin the gerbil strikes a pose in the wonderfully posey mid-1980s.

Roland was also a badge star - here he doesn't drop litter and advertises his own spaghetti shapes in 1987.

Love this - Kevin the gerbil money box.
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Roland Rat really was the ultimate '80s superstar. I found all this in a 1984 mail order catalogue - Roland Rat and Kevin the gerbil jigsaws, a stencilling kit, Roland, Errol the hamster and Kevin the gerbil toys and your very own RATMOBILE!

I must say, however, that the idea that the "big bad 1980s" was the first decade to target kids as consumers is nonsense. When I was little, the big thing was "The Magic Roundabout" - and the memory of the amount of merchandising available still boggles my mind today!

Article Updated 25/8/12

Wincey Willis

One of my favourite TV celebrities of the 1980s, Wincey (real name Winsome) emerged into the limelight as TV-am weather girl in May 1983, helping to bring warmth and popular appeal to the channel after its starchy start. She had been spotted doing regional forecasts on Tyne Tees Television.

 Wincey had begun her career as a TV weather girl in July 1981. On a visit to Tyne Tees Television, it was suggested that she audition. Wincey protested that she knew nothing about the weather, but was assured that all the details would come from the Newcastle Weather Centre. It was the day before the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer,  and at the audition Wincey was suddenly told that there was no forecast available - an old ploy to see how the person auditioning would cope under pressure. Wincey had been doing mock forecasts for the Royal Wedding street parties that were to be held throughout the Tyne Tees region, and said that, despite the lack of information at her disposal, she knew it was going to be a fine day because her mother's knee hadn't been aching all week! She got the job, and in 1983 came her TV-am role.

Wincey used her fame to promote her passionate interest in animals and nature. 

Before fame, in 1980/81, whilst working on local radio, she had been asked to present a piece about terrapins on regional Tyne Tees Saturday morning children's show Saturday Shake-Up. This was spotted by Granada producer Muriel Young, who asked Wincey to contribute to three programmes of a 1981 children's series called Graham's Ark. In 1982, Wincey got her own series for pre-school children, Wincey's Pets.

TV Times, 4 June, 1982: Wincey's Pets makes its debut.

Having gained national fame at TV-am, Wincey wrote the books It's Raining Cats And Dogs (1986) and Green Days (1990). In 1986, she devised The Weather Game, a board game manufactured by Waddingtons. She also presented other TV-am features, Wincey's Pets, Wincey's Wall and Caring Christmas, before finally leaving the station in 1987.

In the meantime, Wincey had joined innovative '80s series Treasure Hunt as adjudicator, taking her place alongside Kenneth Kendall and Anneka Rice, and remained there until the final series in 1989, when Anneka was replaced by tennis player Annabel Croft.

Wincey also had the great honour of a mention in a sketch on the wonderful Victoria Wood As Seen On TV series, when a character took out a copy of the (entirely fictional) Wincey Willis Book Of Wholemeal Pasta from the local library!

TV Times, May/June 1982: The wonder woman of animal farm. Wincey is pictured in the days before her glorious mullet with Molly the cockatoo. Here's an extract from the article: 

Rags, a large Airedale crossbreed dog was abandoned by his owners in a state of collapse; Suzie, a Papillon, was a wandering bitch with a very matted coat, Black Puss was a farmyard cat about to be drowned; Tucker the kitten was found thrown away in a dustbin inside a plastic bag; Leo and Lucy were stray cats; and Tiddles lived on his wits in a deserted cottage. These are some of the domestic pets belonging to Wincey Willis, presenter of the series Wincey's Pets and weather forecaster for Tyne Tees Television.

Her collection of 80 animals, many of which have hard luck stories behind them, lives with her and her husband Malcolm in a small cottage standing among fields in the heart of the countryside outside Darlington. The back room has been turned into a home for terrapins, tortoises, cockatoos and other animals that need to be kept warm. In the garden is an aviary with Wincey's collection of exotic birds and a 'hospital' for wild birds recovering from injuries. A bounding gypsy goat leaps in and out of the trees and the whole is presided over by a strutting cockerel.

Wincey, a bubbling blonde with close-cropped hair and cornflower eyes, has always loved animals. 'As a child I never wanted toys - just more pets,' she says. 'I would make model zoos out of cardboard boxes. If a bird fell from a tree or a hedgehog turned up half drowned in a drain, I would always bring it home and my dad would help me look after it and get it well again.'

Over the years, Wincey has built up a reputation as someone who can never say 'no' to an animal in trouble. Strangers turn up at her door with stray pets, fledglings that have fallen out of trees and birds of prey with broken wings. Wincey has made herself an expert on all types of wildlife and her phone is always buzzing with calls from vets, asking her the right mix for hedgehog milk or the correct diet for a song thrush. Her farming neighbours think she is crazy, but they respect her views. Before they plough or harvest, they invite her to inspect their fields so that she can remove any animals or birds to safety before the machines move in.

'To look after wild animals properly and bring them back to fitness so they can be released you have to know what they normally eat and what conditions are like for them in the wild. Trying to simulate their natural diet and living conditions isn't always easy. We had a baby swift once that needed hundreds of tiny flies a day.'

Husband Malcolm, who helps Wincey with her animals, remembers the stay of the swift very well. He was sent into the garden to swat thousands of flies and Wincey boiled them up into a kind of soup. 'But it was worth it,' she says. 'I will never forget the day we let it fly away. It was sheer magic to see it soaring off into the sky'....

Writing about herself in recent years, Wincey says:

You will probably remember me as the mulleted beauty from TV-am with a penchant for bad '80s knitwear...

It all seemed such a good idea at the time - remember, mullets weren't called mullets in the 1980s and seemed very glamorous! Wincey won the honour of the "Head Of The Year" award for her hairdo in 1986.

 It's Raining Cats & Dogs, 1986, This is a lovely read - a twelve month insight into some of Wincey's activities, with an introduction by Gerald Durrell . 

Wincey is still broadcasting and lecturing on media and wildlife conservation, and recently returned to daily weather forecasts on an internet based community news station for West Oxfordshire.

UPDATED 10/6/12

Some 1980s Television Sets...

Let's take a look at some 1980s televisions. Forget those silly programmes you've watched which infer that we were all watching funky, late '60s designed space-age tellies in the '70s and early '80s. I've never clapped eyes on one and I was born in 1965. For yonks, most people watched bog-standard tellies with plastic wood effect surrounds or, when it came to portables, white plastic surrounds were popular. The tellies above were featured in the Brian Mills spring and summer 1983 catalogue. It was during the 1980s that remote control tellies became prevalent, but the prices listed above were certainly not cheap in those days.

And what's all that What Is Teletext? stuff at the top of the catalogue page? Surely Teletext had been around for years? Well, yes, it had, but it had never really caught on. Cost again, I suppose. According to 40 Years of British Television, by Jane Harbord and Jeff Wright (Boxtree, 1995), only six per cent of UK homes were receiving Teletext in 1984. Hence all the exciting catalogue hype.

I was less of a technophobe than I am now (well, there wasn't half as much technology about back then!), but decided there was nothing on Teletext I couldn't get from the daily paper, ordinary TV broadcasts, or the radio. However, taking a close look at the catalogue page above, I see that Teletext listed materials needed for each day's activities in Play School - which, on the two days featured, included "materials for doctors and nurses game" and pipe cleaners. Fascinating. I don't think you could get that information elsewhere.

So, obviously Teletext did have its uses. I stand corrected. Youthful arrogance, that's all it was.

From the Brian Mills Spring & Summer 1983 mail order catalogue.

The Pye Tube Cube radio/black and white TV/cassette/digital clock combination - an exciting new piece of technology, launched circa 1982. These were great - CONSUME, CONSUME! Nah, t'weren't like that in early 1983 when I bought mine. The big booming bit of the '80s was yet to arrive. The simple fact was that my seriously old telly (I was still a black and white guy in the early 1980s) had a horizontal hold so "gone" people on screen looked like eggs on legs, and the wood effect plastic surround was peeling off.

So, I put it out of its misery and bought a Tube Cube (again black and white) from my aunt's mail order catalogue, paying for it in minute weekly amounts.

Captures from an advertisement for the Tube Cube featured on TV-am's first broadcast in 1983.

"Wake up to what Pye is doing. The Tube Cube - your next clock radio, cassette recorder and breakfast TV all in one."

I got on very well with mine and had it until the early '90s - when I sold it.


The 1983 Tube Cube ad.

A Teeny TV That Suits Your Pocket

Britain launches an £80 mini-marvel

Daily Mirror, September 17 1983.

A tiny TV with a big future went on show for the first time yesterday.

It's the size of a paperback book - and at £79.95 its price will also fit most people's pockets.

What's more the TV is British - the invention of electronics wizard, Sir Clive Sinclair. It has a revolutionary flat screen and measures only 5 1/2 in long, 3 1/2 in high and 1 1/4 in deep. It will run for 15 hours on a special £3 battery.

The set, which is black-and-white, has only two controls and will automatically adjust to any TV system in the world except the French.

Multi-millionaire Sir Clive told a London news conference: "This represents a number of firsts. It is a major breakthrough."

He said the launch was partly held up by a strike at the Dundee factory where the TV tubes are made.

This allowed Japanese rivals to win the race to the shops with their own mini-sets - but at far higher prices.

Sir Clive said that his set would be the best, the brightest, the easiest to use and the cheapest.

"We had the flat tube long before anyone else in the world and the only way the Japanese can match our price is by selling at a loss," he said.

Sir Clive, who is already working on a colour version, hopes to sell up to a million of the new sets each year.

1984: here's that "Wake Up To What Pye Is Doing" slogan again - this time being used to plug a 22" Teletext TV which apparently put manual tuning "firmly in the past":

Teletext information is received as clearly as it can be. You see your favourite programmes spot on the signal every time...
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André Previn plugging the Ferguson TX "Best picture of all time" in the Janet Frazer mail order catalogue, autumn and winter 1984/5.

Nice Pye Red Box portable - went very well with black ash furniture! It was first on sale c. 1984.

A mid-1980s black ash telly cabinet. Ooh, lovely! Note the snazzy colourful 1980s specs, too!

The Tatung Designer series, 1986. In the mid-1980s, we began to move away from wood surround effect TVs or the white plastic surround portables. These portables are colour sets, some with that marvel of 1980s TV technology, the FST (flattest squarest tube). Remote control 21 inch models would set you back £379.90 and the 20 inch standard TT £279.90.

There was a choice of five designer colours - electric blue, jade green, laser red, artic white and ebony black. Black became a highly popular colour for TV surrounds in the late 1980s, a trend which lasted throughout the 1990s.

The 22 inch Teletext TV costs £429.90, the 26 inch Teletext £549.90 and the 20 inch Teletext £389.90.

A range of tellies featured in the Argos spring and summer 1985 catalogue.

Great ad from the mid-1980s featuring the voice of Ian Dury...

... and based on Alexei Sayle's 1984 hit 'Ullo John Gotta New Motor?

'Ullo, Tosh, Gotta Toshiba? They ain't 'arf built well! It was the FST - flattest, squarest tube - sharper picture, know wot I mean, it was the dog's... er, pyjamas! See the ad below.

From the spring/summer 1986 Argos catalogue.

1987 - the Sony Watchman - two or four inch pocket TVs.

Argos, autumn and winter 1987. TVs with black plastic casings - like the Pye and Phillips models featured, were becoming popular. Black was the colour most associated with sets in the late '80s and throughout the '90s.

1983: TV-am and Breakfast Time - Breakfast TV Arrives...

Breakfast TV arrived in 1983: on the BBC we had Selina Scott, Frank Bough (in some lovely jumpers) and Francis the weatherman. The style was sofa-based and relaxed.

TV-am, ITV's breakfast time service, was also sofa based but a little more formal as Angela Rippon, Anna Ford, David Frost, Robert Kee and Michael Parkinson, "The Famous Five", set out with their "mission to explain". The mission never really got off the ground, and it wasn't long before "The Famous Five" had been replaced by Anne "don't call me Annie!" Diamond, former sports presenter Nick Owen, weather girl Wincey Willis and Roland Rat - "Yeeaaarrrgggh!".

Here, we take a look back at some of the highs and lows of breakfast TV in the 1980s, beginning with a couple of newspaper articles from 1982, when TV-am was in its planning stages...

Esther Rantzen joined the TV-am enterprise, but dropped out before it reached the screen. Although it was, apparently, "an absurd financial sacrifice" - Daily Mirror, 9/3/1982. TV-am's loss was That's Life's gain as the BBC show continued with its original leading lady at the helm.

From the Sunday People, 6/6/1982...

David Frost means to give us a laugh along with the snap, crackle and pop of his new breakfast TV station.

"I'd like to make the presentation humorous wherever possible," he told me. "People don't like to be hectored in the morning."

And another thing. He wants to scotch the notion that presenters Anna Ford, Angela Rippon, Michael Parkinson, Peter Jay and Frost himself will be flirting with each other on the programme, as some stories have suggested.

"I was giving a talk and saying that the chemistry between the presenters should be allowed to work so they could laugh, disagree and ad-lib with one another," he explained.

"But I never said anything about sexual chemistry.

"Anyway, sometimes it will be Anna and Angela on the show together!"

He laughs a lot old Frostie, which is hardly surprising because the emergence of his new company is certain to put money in the bank, apart from being "the most amazing venture I've ever been involved with."

Frost hopes that "Good Morning Britain", as it will be called, will start early in February.

"It's so marvellous to start something brand new," he said, "where no one says, 'Well this is how we used to do it.'

"The main thing is that it adds up to more than 21 hours of original TV a week - more than any other company. We're not buying big American series."

Apart from the news we hope to include our own items for the shopper. Arts and religion on Sunday."

And good news for parents - "We hope to perform a public service for them by allowing them to lie in while we entertain the children at the weekend.

"We also hope to do a lot of sport - particularly overnight sport from America and Australia."

There's more to read if you click on the picture of the article above. I rather enjoyed David's final comment - speaking about possible problems with early rising for the new venture, and his TV-am colleague, Michael Parkinson, he said:

"Parky says he's going to save time by going to bed dressed."

Sensible man!



From the Daily Mirror, 7/1/1983:

Rise and shine! Here's Diana Moran, the keep-fit instructor who will be putting viewers through their paces early each morning when BBC Breakfast TV starts on January 17.

Diana, who has hopped over to the Beeb from HTV, practices what she preaches. She is in her forties, but regular excercises keep her figure in splendid shape.

Her husband John, a wine merchant director in Bristol, said proudly yesterday: "She certainly doesn't look more than thirty. But the fact is, she has one son who will be 22 next week and another of 19."

An HTV spokesman said sadly: "She must be one of the most beautiful women in Britain and we are sorry to lose her.

"But obviously the BBC breakfast job was an offer she couldn't refuse."

TV-am soon came up with "Mad Lizzie" Webb, a rival for the Green Goddess.
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BATTLE STATIONS!

From the Sunday Mirror, 9/1/1983

In eight days’ time, the BBC fire the first shot in the snap, crackle and pop battle of breakfast TV.

The commercial channel joins the fray on February 1.

The Beeb’s fight for breakfast audiences will be spearheaded by Frank Bough and Selina Scott, who has joined them from ITV.

In the BBC’s five days of broadcasting (ITV will be on the air every morning), they promise regular spots on astrology, cooking, gardening, health, reviews of the morning papers and “tasty bits of gossip”.

The attention to detail is shown best in their approach to gardening.

In Plymouth, the climate normally puts plant growth three weeks ahead of other parts of the country.

So, a special garden has been created there to give viewers time to plan their own strategy.

Jolly music, a logo of the rising sun, followed quickly by the genial face of Frank Bough announcing: “A very good morning to you,” will greet viewers at 6.30am.

But programme editor, Ron Neil, has given strict instructions that viewers must be treated gently at such a delicate hour. No boisterous rise and shine or exhortations to get up and going.

The two and a half hour programme will have no special item lasting longer than three minutes in case the bleary-eyed feel they’re getting a lecture with their cornflakes.

There will be no pinstripe suits for the men, who include David Icke on sport and Francis Wilson with the weather.

Pullovers, shirts and ties are more the order of the day.

Selina Scott has been “advised” to go for open neck blouses and a generally casual air.

Glamorous dresses and heavy jewellery are out.

The same goes for newsreader Debbie Rix, who will be giving news bulletins on the hour.

Viewers will also be shown how to keep fit by a lady named Diana Moran who will be dressed in green and nicknamed The Green Goddess!

All this has been noted by commercial TV-am where personalities are clearly going to be trump card. Their main star, David Frost, promises that we are all going to be riveted spell bound to our chairs, toast in hand and marmalade dripping down our cuffs, watching famous people reacting with one another like mad.

Backing him up will be Angela Rippon and Michael Parkinson.

Frost calls it “sexual chemistry”.

TV-am’s Anna Ford is complimentary about the Beeb’s approach.

“There are many things about the BBC that I admire,” she says.

“And they have the weight of the BBC machine behind their show. A lot of experience. But the trouble with experience is that it can turn into a rut if you’re not careful.

“Just look at our breakfasts compared to theirs. The guests on our show will get Bucks Fizz, kedgeree and proper ham and eggs.

“My memory of BBC breakfasts is that you’re landed with a pale half-cooked greasy sausage and thick, lukewarm tea!”

“What we’re doing is totally new,” trumpets Anna. “We’re out on our own.”

It won’t just be the breakfasts that surprise the interviewees when they arrive at TV-am’s headquarters in Camden, London. The entire place - which still resembles a building site at this late hour - has the air of a Hollywood film set.

There is a Chinese pagoda that doubles as a bar. A staircase designed after one leading to an Egyptian tomb.

Live trees will soon sprout from giant tubs in the foyer.

All this cuts no ice with Frank Bough who is more used to the BBC’s changeless corridors.

Frank’s team has a two week start on Anna’s - the BBC show goes on the air in just eight days time.

But with typical BBC meticulousness, since last Monday they have staged “real time pilots” every morning - meaning that the team have to turn up on time and go through the programme as if it were actually being transmitted.

The early hour will not deter MPs from plonking themselves in front of the camera. Ron Neil polled every MP about their willingness to appear and got a 95% response.

“Only three MPs said they would not wish to be disturbed at such an hour.”

They say that curiosity killed the cat. Both the BBC and ITV are praying that curiosity will be the making of them - that viewers who switch on to see what breakfast TV is all about will be hooked.

Meanwhile, just in case anyone at TV-am - where 70% of the staff are women and the average age is 29 - is under the illusion that Frank Bough, having achieved all he has in television, might be getting a little soft in his early middle age, here’s a warning from the man himself.

“When I first got this job,” he says, “one or two people said, ‘Frank, you’ll waltz it.’

“That’s not how I feel at all. It’s a challenge to me, a new adventure. I’ll be giving it every ounce of energy I have.

“For me, it’s like starting again.”

WHAT YOU’LL BE WATCHING

NAME OF SHOW: Breakfast Time

COMPANY: BBC

STARTING DATE: Monday, January 17 1983

RUNNING TIME: Two and a half hours (6.30am - 9 am Monday to Friday)

HIGHLIGHTS: Full news bulletins on the hour, summaries every fifteen minutes. Regional news and traffic every fifteen minutes. Guest newspaper reviewers. Resident doctor dealing with an ailment-a-day plus phone-in. Keep-fit with Diana Moran (nicknamed the Green Goddess because she will be dressed in green). Gossip column. Astrologer. Big U.S. coverage.

NAME OF SHOW: Good Morning Britain (preceded by Daybreak)

COMPANY: TV-am (commercial)

STARTING DATE: Tuesday February 1 1983

RUNNING TIME: Three and a quarter hours (6 am - 9.15 am)

HIGHLIGHTS: Four summaries of morning papers. 20 minutes of weather reports. Arts reviews and previews. Travel guide. Keep fit. Cooking with the stars. Fashion and make-up spot. Special weekend programmes - Michael Parkinson hosting sport and leisure show (Saturday), “Rub-a-dub-Tub” children’s show (Sunday). 17 commercial breaks.

This screen capture shows the scene on BBC1 before Breakfast Time went on air for the very first time on 17 January, 1983.

ITV - the scene before TV-am's first broadcast on 1 February, 1983.

Unsettled times at fledgling breakfast television station TV-am. The "Mission To Explain" was aborted, Anne Diamond and Nick Owen took over the sofa, wine flew, and Wincey Willis, "Mad Lizzie" Webb and Roland Rat turned up.

Daily Mirror, 2/6/1983...

BBC news girl Anne Diamond is joining TV-am's troubled breakfast show "Good Morning Britain".

Anne quit "Nationwide" last week claiming they hadn't given her enough to do. She will take over from TV-am's Lynda Berry - who is going on holiday - and join Nick Owen.

Editor Greg Dyke said: "She has got lots of fun and sparkle about her in addition to a good track record as a journalist."

He revealed that they have until December to prove the show is a success.

But Anne isn't worried.

"I do not think it's too much of a gamble to leave the safety of the BBC for TV-am," she said. "I'm sure we've all got a great future."

Daily Mirror, 16/6/1983

Anna Ford took her revenge on the man who sacked her from TV-am by soaking him with wine at a posh party.

She spotted her former boss Jonathan Aitken among the scores of guests, calmly walked up to him and threw her glass of white wine in his face.

"It was a good shot - I hit him four square," 39-year-old Anna said yesterday. "And if I had been a man I would have punched him on the nose."

Mr Aitken, a Tory MP, retorted: "It was a surprise attack, but being the father of three young children I am quite used to dealing with nursery tantrums."

Back to Anna: "I am glad I did it and before Jonathan Aitken criticises my behaviour he should consider his own. He has treated me monsterously and ruined my life."

Mr Aitken and his cousin Timothy fired Anna and Angela Rippon in April. Anna was dismissed for breach of contract after publicly supporting sacked Peter Jay, the breakfast station's original boss.

Her revenge attack came at a post-election party at Lady Melchett's Chelsea home.

Amongst the guests were former Premier James Callaghan, Lord Hailsham, interviewer Sir Robin Day and senior diplomats and their wives. Mr Aitken said: "I was chatting to a former American diplomat and Lady Reay. The next thing I know, a glass of wine hit me in the face.

"Everybody was surprised, to say the least."

He said Anna "scuttled away" without saying a word. "Not true," replied Anna, saying she and her husband Marc Boxer simply decided to leave.

Still the war of words went on. Mr Aitken said Anna was probably upset at the good ratings new presenter Anne Diamond is winning for TV-am.

"Nonsense," replied Anna. And she said she had received "not a penny" of her reported £60,000 golden handshake, now the subject of a legal wrangle.

Any regrets about her attack?

"It was white wine," said Anna. "Now I wish it had been red."

From humble beginnings as TV-am weather girl to the dizzy heights of Treasure Hunt (all right, I know she never actually set foot in Keith's helicopter!), we liked Wincey.

Where has she gone? And was she really called Wincey?

Lizzie ready to exercise. I loved the fashions of the 1980s, the colours worn by women AND men. With the fitness craze raging, workout gear was also trendy and of its time...

Lizzie kept smiling as she showed us the route to fitness.

There was a vogue in the mid-to-late 1980s for women to wear stockbroker/skinhead red braces with their workout gear, as demonstrated by Lizzie here.

TV-am workout woman "Mad Lizzie" Webb was flying high in 1987, with the release of two workout videos. In a late 1980s interview, she recalled how she first came to TV-am...

"I'll never forget my first morning on TV-am in May 1983: I'd never done any television before. I'd taught in stage schools, and was at the Italia Conti school when Lena Zavaroni and Bonnie Langford were there - but I had no intention at that time of being on TV myself.

"Then Greg Dyke was brought in to save TV-am from closure, and he wanted a dance teacher to combat the BBC's Green Goddess, Diana Moran. His assistant mentioned she went to a class given by 'a mad girl called Lizzie'. He started calling me Mad Lizzie before we even met.

"The assistant rang me, but I said I was already happy with what I was doing. Then she rang again and said: 'He's pleading with me so at least meet him'. I agreed - and a week later I was on the air, live.

"We'd had no rehearsals. The stage manager was waving his hands about and I hadn't a clue what the signals meant. Then Nick Owen said: 'We have Mad Lizzie, doing some excercises,' and I was on.

"I stood in front of the sofa with Nick sitting right by me - he was in camera shot and desperately trying to edge out. I shook from head to toe. I could see my fingers shaking. That was four and a half years ago and I can still remember that feeling of not knowing what I was about.

"It was a magic moment, and unforgettable because the feelings inside me were so strong, but I couldn't show them. The slot only lasted about three minutes, but to me it seemed to go on and on. Afterwards, there was a great feeling of relief - and then I just collapsed in a heap."

I remember Lizzie being relentlessly bright eyed and bushy tailed at obscene hours of the morning as I readied myself for work. But I liked her. She seemed genuinely enthusiastic, friendly and jolly.

I particularly remember her catchphrase: "shake it out!"

But at that time of the morning I preferred to slouch.

Still, Lizzie was one of a number of factors in the fitness-mad 80s that set me thinking and, finally, ambling off to the gym. I'm thankful, because although in my early 40s, I still workout a little and feel pretty darned fit!

A 1988 magazine profile of Mr Mallett.

Before 1983, there was no television early in the morning. As kids in the 1970s, we used to make our own amusement. Times was 'ard.

I remember getting stuck in my wardrobe early one morning during the summer holidays, c. 1973...

I'd been pretending that the wardrobe was a Tardis, had gone inside, made a weird, wheezing groaning noise in imitation of the materialisation sound, and, on trying to step out on to the lush and probably hostile surface of the planet Zarkoff (or some such), found that the door was stuck and I was trapped. My terrified cries finally brought my parents from their bed.

1980s children were spared such traumas, and 1980s parents could snooze peacefully. Well, they could from 1983 onwards. Children could sit, square eyed, lost in the colourful world of TV-am's children's fare.

Rub-a-Dub-Tub, Roland Rat and The Wide Awake Club were amongst the pioneering shows in this brave new world of breakfast telly, and a much-loved hero of mid-to-late 80s children was one Timmy Mallett, who presented The Wide Awake Club and, in the school holidays from October 1985 onwards, Wacaday.

Wacaday featured pop (and other) guests, the lovely Michaela Strachan as a presenter (for a while, anyway), features from around the world, games, and several odds and ends like "Drop Your Toast".

"Drop Your Toast?!" I hear you cry. "Whatever's that?!" It was all quite simple. In this slot viewers' names would be read out in the hope that the shock would make them drop their toast!

In the summer of 1986, a word association game called Mallett's Mallet was added to the proceedings. It included the large pink and yellow mallet in the photograph - contestants going off the rails would be hit with it!

In 1990, a smaller mallet called Pinky Punky made his debut. Apparently he often wanted to go to the toilet.

Yes, really.

Inspired lunacy, great entertainment for kids of all ages and no need to go anywhere near the wardrobe.

Relive it all here.

Joan Collins And Her UK Dynasty Debut - TV In '83...

It's New Year's Eve. New Year's Eve 1982, that is, and the telly pages of the Daily Mirror are looking forward to 1983.

So, what had we in store?

Well, firstly, there was Joanie. Our very own Joan Collins, that is. Joan had already made her debut in America on the glitzy soap Dynasty, but we'd yet to see her Alexis exploits here in blighty. New Year's Day 1983 would change all that. And the Daily Mirror on 31 December 1982 was heralding the fact:

Joan Collins was driving through Hollywood. She stopped her car at lights, and was spotted by two young girls.

"We hate you! You're a bitch," they screamed at her.

Joan says: "I was quite taken aback, then I suddenly realised it wasn't me they hated, but Alexis. And I understood just how they felt."

Alexis is the new character Joan plays in the American soap opera DYNASTY.

She takes her bow as a surprise witness for the prosecution in the trial of her ex-husband, oil tycoon Blake Carrington, who is accused of the murder of his son's ex-lover.

I watched Joan working on the TV set in Hollywood. Then, over lunch, she told me: "Alexis is a scheming, sexy, ruthless woman. The part seems to get bigger and juicer all the time.

"Viewers want to be taken out of themselves. They want to watch extremely rich people living the high life, full of emotional problems.

"I think that's why this show is doing so well. instead of cops and robbers and beating people up, the accent is on intrigue and sex.

"It's very glossy and no expense is spared. Each show, which takes us just six days to shoot, costs half a million dollars.

"A lot of money is spent in front of the cameras. We have fresh flowers on the screen - no imitation ones and fresh flowers in Hollywood cost a fortune. I also wear some very expensive gowns."

[Andy's note: Of course it was the Dynasty dress budget and outrageous costumes which set actresses in rival American soaps Dallas and Knots Landing screaming for parity!]

Joan won't talk about what she earns. But her TV contract is said to be worth £250,000.

She says: "When you're used to earning three million dollars a film, I suppose it's difficult to accept a quarter of a million dollars a film.

"I would hate to get into that situation. I think it's obscene, I really do. Some actors do get paid far too much."

Popular ITV quiz show Family Fortunes, which began in 1980, was returning on New Year's Eve 1982 for a fourth series

Presenter Bob Monkhouse said:

"So much money was invested in the first series we had to be sure the idea was a good one. But I stand by my prediction that it can only survive five years, then we'll have to think of something else."

Hmm!

1982 was the last year the UK had to make do without breakfast television, and on New Year's Eve '82, we got our first broadcast from the TV-am studios, home of the ITV breakfast service - and Joan Collins was on the billing:

FROST WARMS UP FOR BREAKFAST TV

David Frost is using a New Year's Eve party to warm up for Breakfast TV.

Tonight he hosts THE END OF THE YEAR SHOW (Channel 4, 11.00) which comes live from TV-AM's new studios in Camden Town.

This is the first time that they have been used and are scheduled to be fully operational by February.

David, who is one of the main forces behind TV-AM, says: "I thought it would be a good idea to have a practice run in the studios before we start our breakfast programmes.

"We have marvellous facilities here and I've always wanted to do an irreverent look at the year.

"We will be looking for the silliest statement, the saddest story, the funniest misprint, the most welcome comeback, the biggest scandal and the worst example of sheer incompetence.

"It will be a ninety minute frolic with such star guests as Joan Collins, Jonathan Dimbleby, Joanna Lumley, Susan George, John Wells, Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Instant Sunshine and many others. Richard Harris sings a great finale. It should be great fun."

Of course, the early days of TV-am have been called a real life soap opera - maybe not quite Dynasty, but definitely very intriguing!