Sir Terry Wogan Remembered: Fifty Years at the BBC

Sir Terry Wogan was the ultimate broadcaster.

The voice that helped Britain wake up and face the day,

and the man who raised millions for charity

as the host of Children In Need.

What a night!

So, from all of us, thank you.

His was an extraordinary career,

touching the lives of those who watched him,

listened to him and worked with him.

And this week at Westminster Abbey, his friends, colleagues and family

came together to celebrate the man they loved.

The service took place exactly 50 years to the day

after he presented his first programme for the BBC,

a step on the way to becoming

one of the greatest broadcasters in British history.

He assumed an intelligence on the part of the audience.

There was no talking down.

He kind of talked up to the audience.

Would it be a human thing to say, "I made a mess of that"?

The public might warm to you more than they do.

I think he had the perfect balance of heart, soul, compassion,

but also with a sprinkle of laughter

and a sense of humour on top of that.

He was so authentic.

It wasn't like he was turning into, sort of, TV or radio Terry,

he was just being him and that's why people liked him.

That's why people watched him on TV, that's why people listened to him.

They felt like they were his friend.

He had time on the radio for his listeners,

he had time on the radio for himself

and he had time in life for everyone. That was the thing for me.

You never felt like he particularly adapted to trends

or what someone else wanted him to be.

He was just always his own man

and that's always a very attractive quality in someone.

Terry, you're smashing it tonight, do you know that?

-Absolutely smashing it.

-Which is popular talk for ruining it, is it?

LAUGHTER

I didn't set out to be famous.

I mean, I didn't mind.

If being famous was there on offer, great.

OK.

'I don't really have enormous drive.

'I've never knocked on anybody's door and asked them for a job.

'What I've had is a kind of blessed life.'

Warm, witty, wise and wry,

Sir Terry Wogan was the most popular man on television

at the same time as being the most popular voice on radio.

I think I know that.

For 50 years at the BBC, he delighted his audiences,

but did it all with an effortlessness and self-deprecation

that belied his innate talent

and created a broadcasting legacy

that would be felt for generations to come.

When you set off, you tap your leg quite hard and say, "Walkies!"

I think he's relaxed the art or form or craft of broadcasting.

To be honest, I feel a bit of a sissy saying...

No, no, you're not a sissy, you're a dog trainer.

Why can't you just say, "Walk, blast you"?

Done live, unscripted, but also in a trustworthy way,

and I think he affected the whole BBC.

I think Terry Wogan and the BBC go together.

-Say, "Walkies!" Don't pull.

-Walkies!

He was incredibly at home in front of a microphone or a camera.

It was something very intimate and very genuine.

You know, you can't bottle that.

You can't train for it, you can't do anything.

You either have it or you don't and he had it like nobody else.

You can get power crazed in this place.

It only came home to me really when I got to Radio 2 and I met him

and I thought, "Oh, you are the same person that you are on the air.

"You're funny and kind and very, very personable."

That was Terry. And I thought,

that's the kind of broadcaster you want to be.

See, now, wouldn't that make anybody want to watch it?

Terry's attitude and part of the reason

for his success in Britain was his Irishness.

I think that he was a very Irish man who became a very English man.

That love of the sense of the absurd,

the George Bernard Shaw thing.

Even Beckett would have been, I think, happy on occasion

with some of the whimsy

and the sparse whimsy that Terry would come out with.

He may have been a giant of British broadcasting,

but Terry Wogan's Irish roots were key to the man he became.

He comes from a country where storytelling and singing

is very much part of life

and was, in that older Ireland,

very much part of day-to-day life and how people communicated.

And that's what made him such a great radio broadcaster,

because he was a raconteur.

He told stories. He told them very well.

He was very loquacious.

He comes from a country where the national hobby is talking.

My mother always remembers me doing commentaries along with the radio.

And I was always obsessed with the radio.

Despite these early signs of his future career,

Terry's first job was in a bank.

However, after four years,

he answered a newspaper advert for announcers on Irish radio.

And, extraordinarily enough, with the little qualifications I had,

I was called for an audition,

did the audition

and, blow me down, they offered me a job.

And that was the beginning.

Stand by, cameras one and two.

Radio led to the newly formed Irish Television Service

and he quickly became a national celebrity.

There was something about him.

He was just a great broadcaster.

And it was something he was, whether intentionally or not,

but it turned out he was born to do it.

Now one of the most eligible men in Ireland,

Terry met the love of his life, Helen Joyce,

one of the country's top models.

On a wet Saturday in April 1965,

hundreds of fans thronged the streets around the church in Dublin

as the golden couple tied the knot.

If he and Helen came into a room,

it was really sort of like a royal arrival.

Everybody stopped and there was a certain amount

of ducking of heads because... Not because of anything they were doing,

just because there was this natural aura as they came in.

They had never had any home-grown stars in Ireland.

Suddenly, the television came

and you were a major star in this little island.

Then I thought, "Well, I'm a big fish in a small pond and I'd like...

"There are things I can do..." I thought I could do in Britain

that I could not see myself doing in Ireland.

I think some people are too big for an island this size,

and he was one of those people.

Terry swiftly found work on BBC radio

and 50 years ago this week began presenting on the Light Programme.

I think Terry was blessed

with four prongs of attack with which to seduce us. He was given

everything he needed - the wit, the smile, the voice

and the twinkle in his eye.

# This is Radio 2. #

However, it wasn't until 1972

that he would take over the show

that would turn him into a household name.

And a very good morning to you.

The time on Radio 2, 17 minutes past eight.

I started listening to Terry Wogan at breakfast

when I was six years old.

And I remember we had this Dormobile that I was driven to school in.

My dad drove every morning and it was on Radio 2.

So I heard Terry every morning.

You're welcome to the Thursday thrash.

Thursday the 8th November.

Good morning, Terence.

I really vividly remember him playing Money, Money, Money by Abba

when I was about seven or eight years old.

# Money, money, money Must be funny... #

It's 18 minutes to ten o'clock and after ten,

the old broadcaster takes over...

That voice was so embedded in all of us.

It's like an instant familiarity with childhood, with comforting.

That's what I think when I think of Terry,

I think of comfort because he just had such a soothing way about him.

Resurfacing work is starting today on the A423M.

The message is, "Please, just be patient."

And listen to Radio 2. You'll find it'll calm your nerves.

I always used to think, with his voice,

that you didn't really need to hear what he was saying.

It was just the music of his voice.

Would you talk amongst yourselves, listeners, for just a moment?

And I'll see if I can get this on the other turntable.

That's the only one that's working at the moment.

I would often be in the shower and it would be on

and I couldn't hear him, but you'd hear...

HE MUTTERS

TERRY MUTTERS

And it was, kind of, relaxing and reassuring.

His voice, a very reassuring voice.

We've had our technical problems this morning

but I hope they didn't come between you and your breakfast.

I don't know if he was the voice of the nuclear warning,

but I feel, if he had been, it would have been a sort of silver lining...

to a mushroom cloud.

# Terry Wogan... #

When I started at Radio 2,

they had this big lavish dinner and I got sat very near Terry.

He said, "Listen, I'm not going to give you much advice

"but the one piece of advice I would give you is,

"never be afraid of the silence."

Ie, breathe. Let it breathe.

For most broadcasters, that breath would feel like an eternity,

but with Terry, you were just waiting for him to talk again.

Now, that's more like it, you see.

Audiences loved him.

And when Terry started singing along

to unlikely chart hit The Floral Dance on his radio show,

it proved so popular that he released his own version.

# ..Big bass drum... #

That is another amazing moment

where Terry is not taking himself seriously in the slightest.

That's what I always loved about him.

I don't think I ever saw him in a serious mood

or being serious about himself.

# ..Borne from afar on a gentle breeze

# Joining the murmur of summer seas... #

He always came to a piece of music with an attitude.

He always came to information with an attitude.

And I think that's what made him on the radio

such a kind of multi-layered, satisfying listen.

And Terry used that attitude to great effect

when his barbed comments on American soap opera Dallas

helped turn it into a hit.

We're back to Dallas.

God help us!

I can't seem to get away from the place.

It's like living in Texas here.

He took the characters, he made more of them.

Sue Ellen was putting gin in her cornflakes.

Lucy became the poison dwarf.

He just...he expanded the characters that were on screen

and made people want to watch it

and then hear what he had to say the following day.

Because he was bringing people into his club

and that's what he did brilliantly,

he was a great leader, a gang leader, if you like.

Are you in any way in fact

putting your power to the test over your listeners

and trying to make them watch something

that you are particularly interested in?

You can't force people to watch things, no,

any more than you can force people to buy a record.

It doesn't matter how often you play it -

if they don't want it, they won't buy it.

I will say things obviously to try and generate a response.

I will say something and hopefully get people to latch on to it

and provide me with my script.

Otherwise, as I said, I'd be sitting here mumchance.

'We'll be fighting the flab this very minute

'because it's quarter to eight and I have a room full of people'

who are only too willing to get into their leotards

and shake their shoulders about.

He absolutely understood Middle England, if you want.

Just for a couple of hours in the morning, you could forget about

everything else that was going on

and just enter that parallel universe that was Wogan's world.

I don't want anybody corpsed by this fight on flab.

It's an exercise designed to whittle down the shoulders

cos there's little more unsightly than a flabby shoulder.

The reason he connected with his audience on the radio

was because he knew that it made it his show.

He knew it made a difference to whether they were happy in the morning or not.

Seven or eight million Brits finishing at half nine

happier than they were at half seven.

That's the Bee Gee Sisters.

Famously, somebody once said to Terry,

"How many listeners do you have?"

And he could have said eight or nine or ten million, or whatever it was,

but he said, "One."

I'll always remember that as a broadcaster

because I thought that is the secret.

He's not a broadcaster, he's a narrow-caster.

It's him and you and there's no-one else

and you really feel like he's talking down the phone to you almost.

Well, that's the height of it for another day.

Thank you very much for your company between seven and nine on Radio 2.

It's disco.

Having conquered radio, the next step was television

where he appeared on a wide variety of entertainment shows.

'And the man with all the questions,

'and some of the answers, is Terry Wogan.'

I told you, a television, radio personality.

Will you just say something in your voice that they'll all recognise?

Would you like to lie down on the floor and fight the flab with me?

Terry Wogan, yes!

Terry's most successful job on TV during the '70s

was a seven-year stint as presenter of Come Dancing.

Hello, and welcome to the grand final

of the 1974 series of Come Dancing.

Oh, yes, frilly shirt, big bowtie, velvet jacket.

That's what's great with Terry Wogan.

It didn't matter what he went into, you know,

he was great at it because he gave his all to everything he did.

And I think that's the secret.

However, despite being hugely popular,

he still needed a breakthrough TV hit.

It arrived in 1979.

'Terry Wogan!'

It was the moment he knew he was a star.

He said, prior to that, whenever he'd done television,

he was always told how to find the camera.

You stand there to find the camera. To find your light.

And Blankety Blank was the first time he realised

the camera was following him.

What's small and green and covered with red spots?

An unripe...

raspberry.

-An unripe...?

-Raspberry?

-Raspberry!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Well, let's see how many points David gets with this one.

Blankety Blank was absolutely perfect for him,

because it was about words,

so he could be mischievous,

he could act as if he didn't understand what was going on,

or whatever, but Terry and words went together like milk and tea.

The show really depended more heavily than most game shows

on the personality of the host...

with the celebrity guests bouncing off him, him bouncing off them,

it was just a wonderful half hour

of nonsense, complete nonsense.

Nobody pretending it's anything other than a very, very silly quiz.

What I like about it is it's a kind of anti-quiz.

The prizes are not worth winning,

the questions are not worth asking

and the whole thing is probably not worth doing.

Look at that. Every move a poem...

With Terry at the helm, Blankety Blank's ratings soared,

to over 20 million viewers.

Aren't you the saucy crew this week?

And stars of the day flocked to be on the show.

I hope Santa Claus gave you what you wanted for Christmas.

I asked for six stars.

He was the first person on television

to take the mickey out of the celebrity guests.

And that's what made Blankety Blank a great game show.

It wasn't the format or the guests,

it was because Terry was going for the guests all the time.

Don't say anything until we get the "Ready" signs from...

..these highly trained gerbils here!

I just liked off-script Terry.

I just like... "I'm going to do what I want because I can.

"I know what I'm doing. Don't worry, I'm just going to have

"a little moment away from the script, but I've got this!"

Can I offer another prize to the gentleman?

I'm in the theatre at Newcastle.

I've got four tickets for his family, yeah?

-On me.

-Thanks very much.

APPLAUSE

That's a prize?!

He knew all about timing.

He knew everything about timing.

He would never step on a punchline or anything like that.

No, no. He was far too classy for that.

-Bazza?

-Yes, Tezza?

Well, he had a love of laughter, for a start.

He had a love of comedy.

And he was never a flippant man.

He was serious about serious things.

But if there was a funny angle to any situation, he would spot it.

He loved the other person getting the laugh.

Are you going to read it again?

-No.

-Oh. Trouble with your Rs, eh?

He would blatantly feed you, hoping you would come back at him.

Why do you think I have to wear these dark suits?

If the jokes die, you're dressed for it, aren't you?

He may well have been one or two steps ahead.

He would never create that impression for the viewer or the listener,

cos that would have been

ungentlemanly towards the performer.

I don't have to do this for a living.

I could have been...a brain surgeon or anything.

-A disc jockey!

-I could have been a disc jockey, yes!

-You could still be.

-I could still be...

He had wit, and wit is basically the intelligence of comedy.

And that's... Very few people, very few DJs have that.

Maybe he's the only one that's ever had that.

This was the dawn of a decade of extraordinary success for Terry.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to whatever it's called this week.

Terry Wogan wasn't just

the face of light entertainment in the '80s for me.

He was the yardstick.

He was the nation's darling.

From the Queen to the guy who sells papers.

In Piccadilly. They all loved him.

And quite rightly so.

He had that thing a lot of people don't have, charm.

Charm personified.

APPLAUSE

He's spoken of as a god.

"God, is he on again", they say!

By 1981 he had achieved the double,

presenting the most popular programmes

on British radio and television.

He was also voted most popular television personality

ten years in a row.

In typical Wogan style then asking not to be entered again,

so someone else could have a chance.

A poll rated the Queen and Prince Charles

as the only people in Britain more famous.

Now, Wogan. And he'll be doing very well

if he gets down in three or four from here.

And he even made history as the sinker of the longest-ever televised putt,

a record he held for 22 years.

It can't... Ha-ha!

The greatest putt I've ever seen in my life!

Well, he'd go on about that one when we'd had a couple

and I got, "James. Well, James, now, listen, just to mention..."

"Shut up! I don't want to know about the putt."

I'd have given anything for it to have been me.

Here we have a disc jockey, singer,

golfer, elephant rider...

-Sex symbol.

-Sex symbol, compere, star tipster.

-Good to his mother.

-Good to his mother.

Dare I ask you what Terry Wogan's ultimate ambition is?

I'd hate to have an ultimate ambition.

I have ambitions that take me from year to year.

Things I would like to do.

It's a funny thing, when I started in radio,

I was ambitious to be a radio announcer in Ireland.

And now look at me.

Gone straight downhill.

But Terry's huge popularity coincided with

one of the most volatile periods in British history.

Four people are dead and dozens injured

after the bomb at the Conservative Party hotel in Brighton.

But the IRA failed in what they set out to do.

Bear in mind, Terry was there

broadcasting at the height of the Troubles in Ireland,

bombings in England as well by the IRA.

That was a difficult time to face a British nation.

What if you're an Irish man, woman, boy, girl in the UK in the 1970s?

And indeed the 1980s.

And there's a bombing campaign going on.

And that bombing campaign is going on, committed by other Irish people.

And you have to go to work on a Monday morning and it's raining,

and a bomb went off at the weekend

and people are thinking, "Those Irish."

And it's ugly.

And yet, as you're driving to that same office,

you're listening to a man with an Irish accent.

So it can be very difficult if you have bombs in a Birmingham pub

and then you have to come up with a cheery, unmistakably Irish voice

at the end of the bulletin and introduce a record.

But if you started to dwell on that, you'd never do anything.

Of course he broke down barriers.

Of course he showed that things were possible.

Whatever your background is, to have one of your own lead the way,

fly the flag, is a tremendous inspiration for those who follow.

And I think Terry was very touched by the fact that he had this role,

if you like, of an unofficial ambassador.

I think he probably did as much for the Irish in Britain

as any diplomat that passed through the doors of the Irish Embassy.

Good morning!

Now at the top of his profession,

Terry still revelled in new challenges.

In 1980, his fascination with Dallas

had led to a television interview with its star, Larry Hagman,

at a time when the world was wondering who shot JR.

Will you live?

Yeah, well, I tell you,

they'll be in a hell of a lot of trouble if I don't!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

The BBC were impressed

and, with the departure of Michael Parkinson in 1982,

they needed a new chat show host.

Terry was the obvious choice.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Obviously, it's the first in the series,

so there's going to be blind panic and there already is!

But I hope you'll enjoy it more than I will.

No, I'm sure we'll all enjoy it.

It was absolutely a cornerstone of the BBC One schedules.

And within a year, we had ITV in disarray, very, very quickly.

And it was a huge, hugely successful project.

The Wogan show in the evening was revolutionary.

It moved from a Saturday night Parkinson-type slot

to three nights a week - Monday, Wednesday, Friday - on the BBC.

And this had never been done before.

Going out live, it was a daring prospect.

But something had to give.

After 12 years, Terry took the tough decision

to step down from his Radio 2 breakfast show.

-APPLAUSE DIES DOWN

-Oh, you've stopped.

The all-new BBC.

And they have to rely on somebody like me to start it.

Welcome to the beginning

of what I hope will be a long and happy relationship.

Terry had made the right choice.

Wogan was a hit.

Oh, Wogan!

Drawing an average of eight million viewers a night

and crowning its host the king of television.

1 million for your next movie.

Wow!

In fact, Terry...

-Is it Terry?

-Yes, it is.

His chat show was on at a time, I think,

right towards the end of stars having mystery about them.

When he had the big American stars on, it was a big deal.

Do you have an ideal man?

Well, I worked with many partners

and an ideal man would be...

a man with the eyes of Paul Newman,

the nose of Gregory Peck

and the...

..the nice, wonderful, slim figure of Mr Wogan.

Do you know...

He didn't do interviews. He chatted.

But he gave you the impression it was easy.

It didn't look like work when he did it.

And so you did kind of think, presumably anyone can do that.

Look at him. He's just a man in a suit, chatting.

And I think that was really what he communicated to an audience.

But they don't seem to make any...

..concession to the fact that you're a woman.

No, why should they?

I don't make any concession to the fact that they are men.

He listened. It was never about him.

And yet, every now and again, he'd flash the steel.

And every now and again he'd say something or do something

that you'd think, not only is he listening, but he...

doesn't particularly like that person.

-May I finish?

-Yes, but I'm... Yes...

But I don't entirely accept that psychological point, as I say.

I understand. But may I finish?

Well, yes, if you have a point to make...

Yes, I do have a point to make. Thank you.

And when you watch him in one of those interviews,

with Anne Bancroft or something,

which..it's just...

I'm there, I'm thinking, oh, oh!

But I care more as a viewer than Terry did as a host.

Why do you hate this kind of thing so much?

Is it... Is it me?

-Probably.

-It's probably me.

It's not the dried flowers or anything?

-That, too.

-Do you do any of this stuff in America?

-Would you ever do a talk show?

-No.

-Are you glad you did this one?

No.

And also, although Anne Bancroft was clearly not enjoying it,

he didn't torture her.

He kind of let her be that bad on a talk show.

Because that's how she wanted to be.

And that was his way of coping,

was to just roll his eyes and go, "Oh, well, there you go."

Watch two interviews, I often think.

If you watch him talking to Gene Wilder,

there's two fellas...

..who are like-minded souls. It is chat show heaven.

Was it the love of a good woman that converted you?

Or have you just grown in experience and knowledge of women?

No, it was the love of several good women, but...

-You're boasting, now, you see...

-No, no, no.

Several can mean more than two.

No, no, several is five or six.

Or possibly 10 or 20.

All right, have it your way.

And you watch that, you could see Terry loved him.

He was really interested in what he had to say.

And Wilder was intrigued by, I suppose, the twinkle in the eye

and the interesting questions and so on. Lovely.

Then you bring out Bette Davis.

And halfway through the interview,

she points to the book and starts saying,

"When are we going to talk about my book?"

You have to ask me about my book.

Watch his reaction, because funnily enough, in some respects,

the light went off.

I came on this show to sell a book.

I am in England to sell a book.

Oh, I don't know. We're glad to see you,

whether you've come to sell a book or not.

I think he felt the chat show might have died there.

And I think a little bit of him became disillusioned with the chat show.

Having paused for that brief commercial...

'I seethed inwardly quite a lot.'

But my iron self-control and early training by Jesuits

stopped me ever really losing my temper.

I did feel, of course, like giving people a slap.

But I never actually did.

And I think, full marks to me, because quite often

I had plenty of grounds for giving people a good slap.

If life on Wogan could be unpredictable,

Terry's home life with Helen was unswervingly rock-solid.

I suppose people like me are driven...

..by God knows what force,

perhaps it's ambition, but ambition for yourself...

is not a very laudable thing.

If you have somebody behind you who gives you all the support

and love and more than you could possibly use...

..then it's no great shakes to me that I'm standing up here.

It's mainly due to her, and I'd like to thank Helen for that.

APPLAUSE

Theirs was a happy home, but not without its sadness.

They lost their first child at only three weeks old.

You remember a little bit of the pain because that never goes,

never forget that.

You ask why it should happen to you, of course.

As you go through life, you realise it's a lottery anyway

and that I've been luckier than most in my life.

I'm not going to knock it.

Terry and Helen went on to have three more children,

who Terry adored.

His real secret weapon was Lady Helen and the family at home,

because he was always so stable and they gave him the confidence

and the foundation and the security.

He knew what was important in life.

Everybody felt that Terry was their friend,

but on the other hand, actually, he was very private.

You didn't know much about him.

You knew as much as he would let you know.

Working with him for 15 years,

I knew very little about him.

Really a very private man.

He didn't really have much time for producers and directors.

He wasn't one for going for a drink with the lads afterwards.

His love was for the audience

and for his family, and that was it, really.

-All right?!

-INDISTINCT OFF CAMERA

No, it's all right.

I was lucky enough, together with my wife, Ruth,

to be invited into his home.

This is a man who has interviewed hundreds and hundreds

of very, very famous people,

and there were loads of photographs in his house,

pictures, pictures, pictures, pictures everywhere.

But as far as I could see, not one with anybody famous.

It was his family, his sons, his daughter, his grandchildren,

and I think that really is the essence of the man.

My philosophy has always been - this is what I do.

I do it and then I go home and have my dinner.

The most important thing in your life is your family.

The rest, as they say, is just peripheral.

That stability at home became even more important

when his show Wogan was cancelled in 1992.

For about the 100...1,000... 251st time, welcome to Wogan.

Aware that the show was flagging,

Terry had wanted it to end the previous year, but the BBC refused,

only to pull the plug, unceremoniously, a year later.

And that's it.

Thanks to all my guests, all 4,008.

All that's left now are the memories.

He felt he knew when he'd come to the end of something.

Buenos noches. Goodnight, thank you.

He always believed that you leave before they give you the sack,

or before they get fed up with you.

And he was more than happy to finish the chat shows a bit earlier.

Most importantly, and this is a lesson

he would teach any broadcaster, is he survived.

And even when he did kind of get the bullet,

let's face it, on the chat show, where it just had run its course,

what did they put on instead of it?

Eldorado. How did that work out for you?

Yes, all right.

'I was angry with what had happened, as you would be,

'and in a sense, that's what moulds you.

'You think, "OK, that's never going to happen again.

' "I'll make my own timings." '

There you are, you see.

'But I'm not going to be defeated.

'I don't recognise failure.'

He made a remark to me once about being unfaithful to radio.

He'd had an affair. He'd had an affair in public with television.

"And I'm going back home now."

# BBC Radio 2... #

Have a pencil and paper handy.

And your brain in gear.

Terry did indeed go home, to radio,

where his presence was as welcome to his colleagues

as it was to his delighted audience.

Terry was a man who was almost always in a good mood.

He and I would turn up at sort of 5.30 in the morning,

feeling less than enthusiastic, or even subhuman.

-Yeah, no, I can vouch for that.

-You probably saw that.

He would turn up, and within five or ten minutes,

-you were having a great time.

-Yes.

And that applied to everyone that was listening to him as well.

By now, Wake Up To Wogan

was the most listened to radio show in Europe

and a new army of fans had mustered,

the Togs, or Terry's Old Geezers and Gals.

Norman, I think you're chief Tog.

What does Tog stand for?

Togs, well, we always love Sir Terry, it's a state of mind.

It's taking a wry look at life, and a non-PC look,

and generally, whatever age you are, having a good time.

I think the Wogan magic was the bond between him and the audience.

It was unbreakable.

They adored him and he adored them.

www.bbc.co.uk...

He never seemed aware of how popular he was.

He liked being liked.

Never had any trace of how famous he was or anything.

And it wasn't elaborate false modesty.

I got to know the man. It was genuine.

It's a helter-skelter ride on Radio 2.

-THEY SPEAK OVER EACH OTHER

-Crazy!

-I've done it again.

-You have.

-Yes...

Terry is not one for doing an awful lot of pre-preparation

and he didn't need to.

He had this really excellent ability to communicate with people

and sort of get inside them, and you felt

you were listening to a friend when you listened to him.

The trains are coming in... overcrowded on the platform.

There was a Tube strike, so I had to run into work,

so I got my gym kit on

and I ran six miles across Hyde Park and everything, get to Radio 2,

stand by the lift, and I'm aware of this presence beside me,

and I look round and it's Terry in his perfectly pressed vanilla suit

with his briefcase. We go into the lift

and I'm about to press the button for my floor, which is the second,

when I suddenly see the time is 7.28,

and I said, "Terry, it's 7.28, you're on the air in two minutes."

And he said, "Yes, I'm early this morning."

So I said, "Well, let me press six and we'll get you to your show..."

So, anyway, go up to his show, out he goes,

goes round the corner with his briefcase.

I go down to the second, put on the radio, a jingle goes,

Terry Wogan's jingle, and there comes this very familiar voice.

'You know, the heavy traffic,

'brought on by the hold-ups and the Underground and the rest of it,

'and people cycling and running, not without its benefits, Deadly.'

-'What was that?'

-'Oh. When I came in here about, oh, three minutes ago,

'I got to share a lift with Jeremy Vine,

'who'd run all the way from Hammersmith.

-'And you could tell.'

-'He's very early, isn't he?'

# 88 to 91 FM... #

And I thought, "That's the genius of the guy, isn't it?"

Because he hadn't even had a thought

about his opening link for his programme

until he saw me in the lift 90 seconds before.

The thing is that he had a very well-stocked brain, didn't he?

-He was well educated.

-Yeah.

-He was well read.

-Yes.

-And he would often sort of throw out the odd quote

from something or other and it would stop you in your tracks.

You'd think, "Blimey, how do you know that?"

-Yeah.

-"Why have you remembered that?"

-Yeah.

So, you know, we're not talking some complete numpty here.

# How can I think I'm standing strong... #

But while Terry's easy conversation and quick wit

may have been his trademarks, he also had a deep love of music.

The thing with Sir Terry's shows was that he really created...

As a personality, as a voice on the radio,

he never seemed to try and push too hard to reach the listener.

He always seemed to be very relaxed.

# This is the closest thing to crazy I have ever been... #

And so I think that atmosphere was really unique and very special,

and so he needed certain types of music to be able to...

make that atmosphere, you know, carry on throughout the whole show.

Obviously, to me, it meant a great deal,

because he was the first person to start playing my music.

# And now I know... #

Not only did Terry champion new artists such as Katie Melua,

the enormous respect he commanded

meant that he had the power to influence record sales.

He certainly could make an artist, and he did with several of them.

Katie Melua, Eva Cassidy,

Beth Nielsen Chapman, people like that.

He loved hearing a soulful female voice singing a good, strong ballad.

# ..You. #

But it wasn't only on radio that Terry's musical judgment was in evidence.

For 31 years, he presented the Eurovision Song Contest.

I can't believe the excitement in here.

You'd think there was something entertaining going to happen.

If ever there was a show made for Terry, this was it.

Oh, look, it's the ghost of Christmas yet to come.

Who knows what hellish future lies ahead?

Well, actually, I do, cos I've seen the rehearsals.

With Eurovision, you know,

Terry Wogan took something that wasn't a job

and made it a thing.

You know, because I think people forget how many people

have commentated on Eurovision over the years.

Loads of people have!

This girl will need the neck muscles of Arnold Schwarzenegger

to keep this necklace up.

I don't know why her head is not down around her knees.

SHE SINGS IN ROMANIAN

And he made it his own to such an extent that I've done...

I think this will be my ninth year, and I still have Terry in my head.

Alex is striking, I'm afraid,

another death blow to barbers everywhere.

HE SINGS IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE

He would see very quickly the quirky and the mad and the utterly insane

and the inexplicable.

SHE SINGS

I want you to keep an eye out

for a man playing a bunch of grapes in this.

Not a thing you'd see anywhere else but the Eurovision Song Contest.

I think Terry had an extraordinary ability

to communicate very nuanced things with his voice.

He had one of those voices, you could hear a raised eyebrow in it.

Keep an eye out for Archimandrite, high priest of the bongo.

There's the fellow.

It was the original Gogglebox. I mean, he was just sitting there,

going, "What the...? Where the...? Who the...? How the...? Why the...?"

And you're thinking, "Yes!"

That voice is our voice on the couch.

Watch out for the lead singer.

You'll be able to tell what he had for breakfast.

# Come on, come on, come on... #

The word that describes Terry best, I think, is irreverent.

He was irreverent to the BBC.

He was certainly irreverent to poor old Eurovision,

but, actually, in a way, his irreverence saved it.

His irreverence is the reason

it's still on the air in the UK and still loved today.

Terry may have revelled in the ridiculousness of Eurovision,

but he also enjoyed a few highlights,

such as when the UK won in 1981 and again in 1997.

Well, we all know who's won.

They've been leading from the beginning.

First time since 1981, since Bucks Fizz did it here in Dublin.

Leading to his only stint in front of the cameras as host.

Hold it down to a dull roar.

The rest of Europe thinks the British are reserved.

CHEERING

Bonsoir, mesdames et messieurs...

In 2008, as he turned 70,

Terry made the decision to stand down

from the Eurovision Song Contest.

I think it's tremendously disappointing

from the point of view of the United Kingdom.

We've come joint last, along with three other countries.

You have to say that this is no longer a music contest.

I think he was disappointed. He just didn't care for the way

it had moved and there was such obvious blatant bias in the voting.

I think he felt, "This is not the same as it was."

And when the fun goes out of something for Terry, it's gone,

so he left at the right time.

Good evening, and welcome to the Eurovision Song Contest 2009,

coming to you live from Moscow.

I'm Graham Norton.

I miss Terry, too.

I'm sorry. He's not here.

I think about a week before I was heading off to do it in Moscow,

my phone rang, and it was Terry, and, you know, that's...

I genuinely thought that was lovely.

He bothered to call me to wish me well,

and to say that he'd be watching.

And the only advice he gave me was not to have a drink before Song 9.

Then, in 2009, after nearly 30 years behind the breakfast show mic,

came the announcement that would break the hearts of millions.

This is it, then. This is the day I've been dreading.

The inevitable morning when you and I come to the parting of the ways.

I'm not going to pretend that this is not a sad day.

You can probably hear it in my voice.

I'm going to miss the laughter and the fun of our mornings together.

Have a happy Christmas.

Thank you. Thank you for being my friend.

When you listen back to his farewell,

I think all those years of closeness to the listeners and to his team

came out when he said goodbye, because you could sense it.

Is it over, really?

He left at the top of his game.

He was the foundations of Radio 2. He was absolutely part of

the fabric of the place, and that resonates through now, as well.

Well, Radio 2's Terry's home, you know.

I mean, Radio 2 is where he was for over, you know...

close to four decades,

and so it's his ship, we just get to sail it.

Terry's popularity, though, showed no sign of diminishing.

Sir Terence Wogan, for services to broadcasting.

In 2005, he'd be knighted by one of his most famous fans.

In the years that followed, more awards flowed in.

After 50 years as the country's greatest and favourite broadcaster,

it gives me enormous pleasure...

It is also... Genuinely, it's a terrific honour for me

to be asked to give to Sir Terry

this special lifetime achievement award for radio broadcasting

to Sir Terry Wogan.

All broadcasters that like television, that watch television,

that have grown up being passionate about television and radio,

you can't help but look to him as the daddy.

Please.

Well, ladies and gentlemen...

..it's been a journey.

This only sustains my long-felt theory

that, in our business, if you can stay upright and reasonably sober...

..they'll give you something in the end.

With more time on his hands, Terry threw himself into a variety of work.

A new weekend radio programme,

documentaries, and appearances on panel shows,

all confirming his role as a true broadcasting great.

Hello. Hello, and welcome to what they call a show.

Now, I think you all know why I'm here.

I mean, I could have been on Strictly Come Dancing,

I could have been on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here,

but I wanted to put myself through

the most degenerating and debasing show of them all.

He understood that you had to keep up with the times,

and he was genuinely interested in what was going on culturally.

He was courageous and he kept trying new things,

and he was just up for a laugh.

Thank you.

I've done quite a few panel shows, with all different sorts of hosts,

and normally, if they have a bit of a go at you, you want to fight back.

-But when Terry says anything, I just sit here thinking, "You're right, I am

-BLEEP!"

The strongest thing was just the affection people felt for him.

He was one of those figures. There's a handful of people,

and when we have them on Would I Lie To You,

you can tell the audience just have great affection for them.

On David Mitchell's team tonight,

a man who has broadcasting in his blood,

along with Sanatogen, cod liver oil and Viagra.

It's Sir Terry Wogan!

When we had him on, I know there was a sense, amongst the three of us,

of, "Terry Wogan's on the show, fantastic!"

You know, and you kind of just want to sit back

and just watch him do his thing.

Which is a danger, when you have someone who's as beloved as he was,

that you sort of don't get in the game, you know, you just want to go, "Wow, look who it is!"

Every year, I signal the start of Christmas dinner

by taking my seat opposite Mrs Wogan

and firing a pistol loaded with a blank or blanks.

Have you ever set fire to her?

-In ways that I will not divulge...

-LAUGHTER

Live from the BBC Television Centre in London,

and across the United Kingdom, it's BBC Children in Need!

But while Sir Terry Wogan's influence on broadcasting is undeniable,

there was never any doubt in his mind

about what he saw was his most important role.

It's the guvnor. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Terry Wogan!

Terry first became involved in Children in Need in 1978,

when it was just a five-minute television appeal.

It doesn't take much to make a child happy,

so help us help these children in need.

# You're not alone Together we stand... #

With Terry at the helm for 44 years,

Children in Need turned into a fundraising phenomenon,

with almost £800 million raised to date.

Children in Need just wouldn't be the same

without one of its main presenters, Terry Wogan.

We're going to see some more golden moments, aren't we, everybody?

264,398...

£17,213,664...

£20,991,216...

£26,757,446...

£32,620,469...

CHEERING

-ALL:

-Terry! Terry! Terry!

I think the reason Terry was so successful with Children in Need

is cos he meant it.

He was different on Children in Need.

You know, his persona was completely different.

That was the closest Terry to the real Terry you ever saw.

They need your help, if you've read the papers,

more than ever, so please, please, dig deep, dig deep.

I'll be coming round with buckets for all of you.

He has always said he didn't like rehearsals,

he's always said he likes flying by the seat of his pants.

This was seven hours of flying by the seat of his pants.

I thought we might have a member of the audience come down and pick

a golden moment for us. What do you think of that?

Belting idea.

Whoa!

And he also felt that relating to people is the most important thing of his job, absolutely.

Nothing to do with directors, pleasing programme controllers,

nothing to do with that.

Myself and the aforementioned Joanna Lumley,

she who looks like a wasp with the measles,

she in her bondage boots,

and me in the shoes with the hole in the sole,

are going to go up and prise money from our studio audience,

who've only just come in, this is a nasty shock for them, I can tell you.

Terry was shameless.

He would do absolutely anything for the charity.

-ALL:

-Eight!

He would make a complete pillock of himself.

# And there was the band with the curious tone

# Of the cornet, clarinet and big trombone... #

He was always talking about

the generosity of the great British public,

over and over again, he was very vocal in his gratitude for that,

but he never talked about his own generosity.

The target this year is £1.5 million,

and helping out Joanna Lumley and Sue Cook

will be the man of a thousand jobs, our own Terry Wogan.

At the moment, he's hard at work, I'm told, in Broadcasting House.

He put his heart and soul into it.

His radio programmes leading up to Children in Need,

there'd be so much going on.

We're doing very well.

Even as we speak, they've dedicated nearly £8,000,

or pledged nearly £8,000 between those early hours of the mornings.

Terry was Children in Need.

He was. The fact that he was there from the beginning,

the fact that we associate Children in Need with him.

I just remember being made to feel so welcome,

and that I was being schooled by a legend and a real pro.

And just watching him with his easy nature was a real lesson.

Shall we get the show on the road?

-Yes!

-OK!

A lot of the time, I would have to sort of gently elbow him

to sort of, "Wind it up now, Terry," but he didn't care,

he knew that was going on, he was the most professional,

hard-working, skilled presenter I've ever worked with.

Easy, girl. Don't tell anyone, but I'm making it up as I go along.

I'd guessed that, yep.

The amount of man hours he put in to that charity,

and also the extraordinary amount of money that he personally

was responsible for raising is phenomenal.

CHEERING

Over the years, that's what the British public came to understand,

that this wasn't just a man in a suit saying,

"Please give generously."

It was a man in a suit

who absolutely believed in what he was doing,

and what he was saying, and the good that could come from the show.

Now, as you can see,

there is a certain someone missing who is usually by my side,

but due to ill-health, for the first time in 35 years,

we are without our Knight of the Realm,

our very own Sir Terry Wogan.

It was really, really weird not doing the show with Terry,

because he is Children in Need... well, he was Children in Need,

so it was really strange.

It was a sad, sad evening.

Stepping in at the last minute, ladies and gentlemen,

please give a very warm welcome to Dermot O'Leary.

It was a very emotional night for me, cos that,

coupled with the fact that I'm, you know,

walking in my hero's footsteps, really.

Much like Radio 2, his...

DNA is all over that show,

and the feel and the shape and the beat of the show are very Terry.

Sir Terry, please get well soon, you know you're my hero,

your shoes are big shoes to fill, big size 11 Irish brogues,

but I will do my very, very best.

In a lovely way, they went, "Do you want to rehearse?"

I said, "Yeah," and they said, "Oh, thank God for that."

I said, "What do you mean?" They said, "He never rehearses."

I said, "What do you...? It's a two-and-a-half hour..."

It was a three-hour live stint, something like that.

I said, "What do you mean, never rehearses?"

They said, "No, he never rehearses.

"He just comes on and just does his thing."

Bless you for the warmth of your enthusiasm.

Spend as if your pocket thinks your hand's gone mad tonight.

Tonight's a very important night for the nation's children.

It's a chance for us all to do something life-changing

for the people who need it most.

For me, the greatest attribute...

and the most important thing you can bring to a marriage,

the most important thing you can bring to a family,

the most important thing you can bring to anybody, is kindness.

In the old church word - charity.

So it's a combination of love and charity.

Kindness. That's the word.

He had one of the most recognisable faces and voices in the land,

inspiring affection as well as admiration

over the course of a 50-year career.

Sir Terry Wogan has been called a broadcasting legend today,

after his death at the age of 77.

I think the whole place, the whole BBC, was rocked on the day,

because we didn't see it coming, and, you know...

to think that somebody who was so much part of everybody's life

wasn't going to be there any more,

it left everyone feeling a bit bereft.

He meant so much to me, because he taught me so much,

and that is very rare that you can, you know, just learn from someone

from watching how brilliant they are at what they do.

I'll remember him as being generous,

I'll remember him as being...

..kind, thoughtful, on a personal basis.

On a professional basis,

I'll remember him as being funny, laconic, smart,

bold, naughty, and intelligently offbeat...

..because he was one of the good guys.

I learned so much from Terry as a broadcaster,

both by listening to him, and by being with him.

The most important thing that I ever learned from him

is that they either like you or they don't, that was his phrase,

they either like you or they don't.

I think Sir Terry will be remembered as a dear friend to everyone.

That's how I'll remember him.

I mean, he was just a nice fella, a real good laugh,

and...

..I'm really pleased to have known him,

and known him as a pal.

My abiding memory of Wogan will be

to see him standing at the front door of his house

as we pulled up, usually looking very casual

in a cashmere sweater that had seen better days,

with a beaming smile on his face,

and a Waterford Crystal glass in his hand.

"Oh, by God, you're just in time, just in time for a drop."

And then...

I see him every day.

For Terry to be that relaxed and that sanguine

showed the class of the man.

And that's what I'll always remember with Terry, the word...

He's just class.

My life, if you're asking me about my life

and the meaning of my life...

..it's been absolutely wonderful.

I've had a lovely family, I've had a loving wife.

I've had...success in the material world.

I've done something I wanted to do.

I've had an ideal life.

So I can only tell you what it means to me,

which is happiness.