10/11/2011 The One Show

Hello and welcome to the One Show with Alex Jones. And Joe Crowley

who is giving me a hand because our Matt's in Edinburgh getting ready

to start his rickshaw ride all the way to London for Children In Need.

He's arrived there safely and he'll be watching so good luck from all

of us here. Absolutely! Now, joining us tonight is a man who's

used to behaving badly. He won't mind picking a pocket or two for

his latest role. It's Neil Morrissey! Nice to see you. You too.

Looking lovely in pastel blending in with our sofa. I didn't realise

I would blend in so well. Good. Also Larry Lamb is here and with

Armistice Day tomorrow and Remembrance Day at the weekend, he

wants to honour the military heroes in your family. Send us a picture,

tell us about them and we'll show some later in the show. Neil, the

papers are doom and gloom with financial headlines. What do you

make all of this -- make of all of this, some say we are staring into

the abyss? I really don't quite understand the nuts-and-bolts of

how it all works, apart from the fact that spaghetti bolognese has

gone through the roof price-wise and the running of Italy. I don't

understand it fully, so I'm interested to see what happens.

are in the right place, we'll have the expert here. It's the day David

Cameron said we have to keep the British safe to take it through the

storm, meaning preparing for all eventualities. If anyone at the BBC

can make head or tail of this crisis, it has to be Robert Peston.

But before we speak to him, we've been on the streets of Bolton to

see what questions you've got for him. Mr Preston, we don't have the

euro, we deal in pounds in this country. Why should we be affected

by what's happening in Europe? got a state pension and I've got a

private pension. I'm just worried about the euro crisis that you read

about every day in the paper. Will it affect my private pension

because that's the only income I've got. I'm a first-time buyer looking

to buy a property. Should I wait until next year or shall I start

looking now to buy? I've seen everything about the euro crisis, I

don't know what's going on. We just want answers. My husband and I have

a holiday book ford May in Greece and we are very concerned about it.

Will Zante still be there? Lots of questions there, Robert. Seems to

me lots of people have a sense there's a problem and don't know

exactly what it is. Yes. Can you break it down for us. What is the

crisis and how did we get to this situation? Look, in the boom years

before the crash of 2007 to 2008, lots of us, businesses, banks

borrowed way too much and so did countries. Like Italy. The way I

think of it is like this. Imagine that you've got a mortgage of

�100,000, but you've got a weird repayment system and you've got to

pay back a colossal �30,000 next year. But you haven't got the money

in savings and you haven't the faintest idea who will lend it to

you. In a way, that's the problem facing Italy because it's got to

pay back 300 billion euros next year. In normal circumstances, it

could borrow that from the well healed investors of the world, but

now they're reluctant to lend to Italy. Now, the eurozone's got a

bail out fund, but there's not enough money in the Kitty. There's

not 300 billion euros in that Kitty to lend to Italy. So somehow, the

money's got to be found and if it isn't found, you can't pay your

debts, what happens. When Italy sat down with the bank manager and said,

we want to borrow 300 billion, didn't someone say, well, how are

you going to make these repayments back? I mean, how well do they look

into these things, if you allow someone to go into thatch debt,

surely you are going to want asset value, they could say OK we'll have

Italy then? You know, you've hit the nail on the hetd which is that

in the boom years, frankly investors, banks, perhaps in a way

all of us took leave of our senses -- the nail on the head. Debt

became something that you just had to have and you always thought you

could get more when the latest batch of debt became due and it was

what was wrong with the system. What about house prices then, the

lady there said she's a first f time buyer, wants to buy a house.

Are the price goesing to go up or down? The economic recovery in the

UK is slow. In there is a crisis, that would damage the ability of

banks to lend. There's no great reason to rush into the housing

market right now. I mean, I've always taken the view, you buy a

house if you are lucky enough to be able to borrow the right amount of

money and it's something you want to have at that time, not as an

investment. No need to rush in. Where do we stand from a pension

point of view? Look, if you are receiving a pension, my view is,

you are going to be all right. There would have to be absolute

Amageddon in the eurozone for pension companies to stop paying

what people are currently receiving. My own view is, there's only one

country that can solve this problem, it's Germany, the deepest pockets

of the eurozone. It's likely, not with any great enthusiasm, to ride

to the rescue of Italy and the rest of the eurozone. It may be a

painful way of getting there. won't improve their sense of humour

will it?! That's almost certainly right. Obviously, if you are saving

for a pension, you may have to put away a bit more because of what is

going on and it's not great for the value of your pension. Thank you

very much. Things are a little clearer now. It's a story we'll be

following for the One Show so let us know what you think.

With Armistice Day tomorrow and Remembrance Sunday upon us, we'll

chat to Larry Lamb about the military heros in your Pamly.

Larry's been to France to hear a touching story about a British

airman's been honoured there since 1944. This is the Swiss Normand

district deep in rural Normandy in France. In this quiet corner of a

foreign field, lies a remarkable war grave commemorating a Second

World War airman who's celebrated as a local hero. Every year, the

residents of the village here gather together to remember his

sacrifice. The person they're commemorating isn't from the

village or even from this country. In fact, the grave belongs to an

RAF pilot from Staffordshire named Earnest George Boucher. Boucher was

killed during the Battle of Normandy, one of the most deadly,

decisive conflicts of the second World War.

Airman Jack Hodges and Frank Wheeler served alongside Boucher

flying raitdz over France. For years, they have regularly returned

to remember their fallen comrade -- flying raids. He was a quiet chap

in actual fact. But he was well liked. He was quite a popular man

amongst everybody. Yes, he was fun. How do you think he'd feel about

being remembered in this way? think he'd laugh his head off.

Really?! Yes, I'm sure he would. On June 6th, 1944, D-Day, the

allies landed in Normandy to fight the occupying German troops in fans.

Over the next two months, they moved south. In August 1944, the

fight reached the head in the skies above the area. British typhoon

fighter planes were sent to make sure that the Germans couldn't

regroup. They were trying to escape to the

north, 3,000 vehicles of various sorts, tanks, cars, gun carriers et

cetera, finished off in six days by typhoons. It was the decisive

victory. The tank divisions were decimated, the Germans wuth drew

and the way was pave ford the allies to liberate Paris --

withdrew. The heavy German defeat came at the cost of 50,000 allied

lives, including pilot officer Boucher. His typhoon was shot down

on 5th August by German cannons. He bailed out but didn't survive.

In a wheel barrow. His mother dressed the coffin and draped it.

The flag was needed to disguise the identity of the body. The German

occupying forces were still in the village at the time. The Germans

tanks and armoured cars were under the trees of the orchards. When

they saw us with the French flag, all these people, they stood up to

attention and saluted. extraordinary. It was quite

exciting, I must say. Ten days after pilot officer

Boucher's crash, the area was liberated. The villages continued

to tend the grave and asked pilot officer Boucher's family if the

body could remain in the village where they could look after it.

They still remember him with an annual memorial organised by the

Mayor. He represents much more than a single pilot. All the men who

died during this battle and during the war, everybody remembers that

this casualty means freedom. Almost all of the fallen in France were

relocated to 600 specially built cemeteries after the war. It's a

mark of profound respect that the industrialage fought so hard to

keep his body where they could honour it. -- village fought so

hard to keep his body where they could honour it. It's remarkable

one of our chaps being brought here, it brought us all together. Let's

hope we live long enough to keep coming back. I find it extremely

moving the way the villagers remember the sacrifice of this one

man and how he's come to symbolise all those who died in World War II.

-- World War II. A lovely film. Particularly is here

with us. Watching that, I was struck by how difficulties for

families whose wartime ancestors are buried abroad. Is there any

help for them? Yes, well the problem is, a decision was made by

the government to bury everybody where they fell and you can, if you

are the wife or the widow or the widower of a serving person who

died in those wars get a bursary from the Royal British Legion to

help you to get you to visit the grave. There is help available.

Financial assistance? Yes, there is financial assistance for you and

for a carer if you need it, so provision has been made. The next

few days we'll see lots of memorial services happening up and down the

country and one certain artist has been doing his bit, hasn't he?

this artist, Ted Harrison, he's been putting together over the

course of 11 months, up in the Shetlands this extraordinary piece

of work that's all based on a picture of three children. It's

about pointing out the fact that children are affected and used in

wars all over the world and this thing, this extraordinary piece of

work is 28-30 feet across and the idea was that it's all put together

in 28 sections up there in the Shetland Islands where he's got

space and peace and brought down to London, assembled there, this

morning at 5 o'clock, and you can go and see this. You can climb up

into the whiskering gallery. That is in St Paul's cathedral isn't it?

Yes, 5,000 poppys to show you that extraordinary, extraordinary art

work. Amazing what he did. photos are coming in thick and fast.

Got time for one there? I've got one here, an extraordinary man

called Aladdin Delay. He's handsome. He won his wings at the end of the

First World War, in July I think it was. It was July 1918 and he was

shot down in Bewley two months after he got his wings. That was

sent in by Jan Cook and it's her mum's cousin, this man. A great

photo. We'll have some more later, Larry. Brilliant.

Continuing our series of films, we ask the sons and daughters of

famous parents to tell us what it was like growing up with them.

Tonight we find out about the lady who created unkl Bulgaria,

Tobermory, Orinoco and Madame Cholet. Any idea who we are talking

about? The Wombles. My mother had her eureka moment on Wimbledon

Common on Boxing Day. We were making too much noise for our

grandparents and my sister ran up to my mum and said, isn't it great

on Womble don and my mum said, that's it. This is where she wrote

many of her Wombles books. We started coming to Orkney for summer

holidays in the 1960s when I was six and we came here every year.

Mum loved the sheer beauty of it all that she and dad ended up

living here and she swam every day every summer until her health

failed, she loved it so much. I remember the move very clearly, a

Womble-like plane. My dad wanted to live here but mum didn't. She was

afraid of being cut off. Funnily enough, he ended up hating the

place and she adored every bit of it. Later in life, they divorced.

Island life suited her. It's a small community, only three miles

long and one mile wide and there are fewer than 2,000 people so she

knew everybody. This is our house. Very quiet here.

The door will almost certainly be unlocked because nothing is ever

unlocked here. This is my mother's writing room, the parlour where she

wrote all her books. This is the typewriter she wrote them on,

including the Wonlbls. Here we have the rest of my family -- Wombles.

Uncle Bulgaria, my grandmother, and Orinoco is based on me, the laziest

and fattest which my wife reckons is fitting. There was lots of

publicity when the Wombles came out, the film and the pop songs of

course. We were involved in a stunt in one film with them. She never

missed England at all and certainly never doubted she'd made the right

move. I hope that working here, perhaps I shall be able to produce

a few more Womble books and we mustn't take it all too seriously

which will make people laugh. That's what I want to do, literally

go on make people laugh -- making people laugh. The Wombles hardly

changed mum at all. She got wrapped up in island life, loved it all and

much to my amusement, she became the station mistress. It is the

most eccentric of railway lines, there are two coaches on the

Northern Line operating on the island. Trains are always part of

the life mum and I shared together. As a child, she'd take me to her

Central Office of information outside Waterloo where she was a

journalist and I used to watch the massive steam engines going in and

out to Bournemouth and Exeter and places. It was very exciting and I

became an enthusiast. Even before the Wombles she had a lot of

success and wrote a TV series about an old branch line in Kent that

would be closed. I maizingly, she dedicated it to Marcus, the Boy on

the train, it's a hell of a thing to have as a souvenir. I had no

idea at the time that that is what I'd do, run steam trains around

Britain. The boy on the train, the boy on his own trains, and mum

really loved that. Mum was an ardent rider. She was so

excited when she was appointed an MBE and we went with her to get it

at Buckingham Palace and hear it is. You can see, when she and the Queen

were chatting, they were very animate and clearly the Queen knew

a lot about the Wombles and mum said afterwards she was clearly a

fan, asking questions about Uncle Bulgaria. Everyone else seemed to

get a few second on the chat and mum was so chuffed that the Queen

loved it. Mum wanted to make people laugh ultimately and I think she

did. She's still making people laugh and will go on making people

laugh. Thanks to Elisabeth's son for making that film for us.

Now Neil, fresh from rehearsals of Oliver. Yes. You are playing Fagin,

how is it all going? Brilliantly. It's a whole new cast. It's the

production that was in London and when I get the opportunity to watch

sit back and watch the work other people have done, it's magic.

Playing Fagin is I think one of THE best parts ever in a British

musical and he's a fantastic part to play. He's a scene-stealer.

real character. I can see you revel in that completely. It's brilliant

fun. I get all my scenes with the boys as well and they're all great.

The only problem is I've got three different Olivers and three

different Dodgers because the kids of the age group are not allowed to

work and can't do consecutive shows so they're different Olivers so.

When I run through picket pocket, I do it three times with different

sets of boy, hence why the thighs are burning. That will keep you on

your toes. 11 venues, Leeds, Bristol, you are starting in

Cardiff. Are you ready for months of living out of a suitcase?

won't be that much because I don't like doing hotels or guest houses

and there will be six weeks Cardiff, six weeks Manchester and four weeks

Birmingham so I pack the car up with my own pots and pans and

knives... Really, a travelling home? And we take the house down

there, the dog, the beloved, we all go fpltz Fagin is a great character

to play, but he will require a lot of transforming, because he's quite

a dark character? Yes, slightly bent and ratty. Do you enjoy the

transformation process? Every actor loves it. The whole idea of being

the ka immediate-on is fantastic. The process will take an hour-and-

a-half every night because I have a bald wig and a wig. There he is! --

chameleon. It's a seven piece beard and there is so much stuff going on.

You made a documentary about your time in care as a child. That

sparked it as a ten-year-old when you were caught stealing. There are

some Oliver Twist echoes here aren't there? There are. We have

talked about it with the kids because they're normal kid and

trying to instil in them what the attitude would have been towards

them and the stigmas would be attached to street children in the

Dickensian era. Dickens himself was a great social reformer so the

whole idea of putting this as a serialised as most of his books

were, in serialised newspapers to give people an idea of what was

going on in the streets of London, it's been useful. I want to no know

about your singing. Sometimes you see musicals and people have a good

voice when they're singing and then when they are acting. I have had

three number ones. Give us a blast. I've been rehearsing all day though.

I know what you feel like! Like being behind a piano, dance, monkey,

dance! Oliver starts in Cardiff from 10th December, I might hop

down and see you actually. Eight days until Children In Need when

Matt will hopefully finish his rickshaw challenge. Big challenge

it is too. Tomorrow we'll join him live as he finishes the first stage

of his journey from Edinburgh to London. If you can, please donate

by texting the word Matt to 70705. Messages cost �5 plus your network

charge and �5 does go to Children In Need. If Matt ever needed a

reminder of why all the pedalling will be worth it, here is Jono

Lancaster on a charity that's very close to his heart. How would you

feel if everywhere you went, people just stared at you. All of the

time? This has been a reality for me if all my life. But I'm not

alone. Half a million people in the UK have some facial disfigurement

of some kind. 15-year-old Lucas was born with a syndrome which affects

him in a number of ways. One of which is a formation of the bone

structure in his face. When was the first time you realised that you

looked different to everybody else? Probably the first day that I went

to primary school. There was one girl who asked me, what's wrong

with your face. Did you have any friend at primary school? I did

have some, but they, some of them, sort of turned on me, they just

suddenly became bullies as well. It was probably about a week after

joining school, he came home with broken glasses, they'd been knocked

off. He'd tell us that he'd been caught in the corridor and

surrounded by older children who wanted to know what was wrong with

him. I was punched, kicked, spat on, taunted with nasty names. How bad

did it get? There was one time when I was nine and I had years of it

and I just felt so distressed and upset about it that I just left and

I never really went back. The bullying affected Lucas so

badly that he was at home for the next nine months. His only friend

was his brother Morgan, who was seven at the time. That's a feeling

I can identify with, being cut off. Due to my condition, the way I look,

I do stand out from the crowd and, you know, there's been times when I

have been an easy target for bullies that's left me feeling

isolated and almost like it's me against the world. As I've got

older, I've learned to be proud of the way I look and I love looking

the way I do and I love being me. It took me 20 years to be confident

in myself. But Lucas was only at the start of that journey when his

family contacted Changing Faces, a charity that offers counselling and

support to help adults and children come to terms with face and body

disfigurement. They treated the whole thing as a

family problem, as a family event. They supported Lucas and they

supported us. Changing Faces persuaded Lucas and

his family that with their help it was possible to make a fresh start

at a new school which had a zero tolerance to bullying.

The figures show that something like nine out of ten people that

contact our service are being bullied and of them, about a fifth

are not being schooled in school. It's really important that we get

in early to help the school to help the individual and to help the

family. The work of the school, alongside the charities and

councils has certainly paid off. So you are feeling a lot more

confident in yourself? Definitely now I'm at a school that has zero

tolerance and I have a great group of friends who're supportive of me

and I've got a great social life. Over the recent few months or even

the past year, have you noticed a change in Lucas? He's become a lot

more confident. If somebody was to ask you if you could change your

appearance, what would you say to them? No, I'm fine with the way

that I look because that's mostly down the changing face who is've

really helped me through all the bullying. Thanks to your donations

for Children In Need, projects like these can offer counselling and

support to make life better for children like Lucas. That's why

Mike's riding a lick Shaw 480 miles from Edinburgh to London in just

eight days -- Matt. -- rickshaw. Please do give what you can.

Matt will be starting at 6am tomorrow morning outside Edinburgh

Castle then making his way over the Moorfoot Hills through Innerleithen

and then arriving in Hawick. Matt wants you to support him, give him

a flap jack or something. These times on the map are only a rough

guide, as we have no ideas what challenges he'll face on the way.

For up-to-the-minute GPS detail of where he is, you can go to

www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey. Earlier, we asked for photos of the military

heros in your family and Larry Lamb has picked a few to honour this

evening. What have you got for us? It's extraordinary. The e-mails

have been coming in thick and fast. Look, these are three here that

really sort of struck me as being ones that stand out. This is a

picture of great grandad John Samuel Davids from South Wales who

fought with the Royal Artillery, the 77th heavy artillery I believe.

He was capture bid the Japanese and killed while being transported

aboard the PoW ship. Danny Davies sent that in. Here, we have John

Henry Venables, a leading stoker on HMS Indomitable and he was killed

as part of HMS Pedestal to relieve the blockade of Malta. It was

bombed twice and survived until health service scrapped. I think we

are going to have to leave it there because we are running out of time.

Thanks so much. That's all for tonight. Neil will be touring the