John Prescott The TV That Made Me

TV, the magic box of delights.

As kids it showed us a million different worlds,

all from our living room.

This takes me right back.

That's so embarrassing! I am genuinely shocked.

'Each day, I'm going to journey through the wonderful world of telly

'with one of our favourite celebrities...'

It's just so silly!

Ah! I love it!

Is it Mr Benn?!

IN LONDON ACCENT: Shut it!

'..as they select the iconic TV moments...'

Oh, hello!

'..that tell us the stories of their lives.'

SHE GASPS

Oh, my gosh!

BOTH: Cheers. 'Some will make you laugh...'

HE GROWLS LOUDLY

Oh, no! '..some will surprise.'

DUCK QUACKS, SHE SHRIEKS

'..many will inspire...'

Ooh! Look at this.

Why wouldn't you want to watch this?

'..and others will move us.'

Seeing that there made a huge impact on me.

Got a handkerchief?

So come watch with us as we rewind to the classic telly that shaped

those wide-eyed youngsters into the much-loved stars they are today.

WHOOPING AND APPLAUSE

Welcome to The TV That Made Me.

My guest today was once the man who was second in command

of the entire country.

John Prescott started his working life in the Merchant Navy,

where he slugged it out in the boxing ring

and, for the first time, the world of politics.

He became a Labour MP in 1970

and he eventually served as Deputy Prime Minister for over a decade.

Now, he's an actual baron.

The TV that made him includes some royal pageantry...

..and a gritty cop show.

Ladies and gentlemen, Lord Prescott. APPLAUSE

Welcome, John, come and join us.

I liked the cheering bit. Can you do that again?

Come on, sit down.

Make yourself at home.

And do I call you Lord Prescott, can I call you John?

No, the pantomime season's finished.

I know they call me Baron -

you played it in a pantomime, didn't you?

I've done many pantomimes. Call me John, anyway. All right, then, John.

And if there's any bother, John, I've got an egg.

LAUGHTER

Now, that does make me shiver. Does it?

Does it really? Why?

Well, it all happened very quickly.

Look, I've been 40 years in politics.

40 seconds, when a man hit me with an egg... Yes.

..and basically, when that obituary comes for all of us,

I'll have that situation of me thumping a fella.

That was my contribution to politics in 40 seconds.

Tony Blair rung me up afterwards. He said, "Are you all right?"

I said, "Yeah." He said, "What were you doing?"

I said, "I was carrying out your orders."

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "You told us to go out and connect with the electorate,

"so I did." LAUGHTER

Well, welcome, John, and we hope to connect with you today,

because today is a celebration of television that you have loved

and watched over the many years,

that you've been around and... Many! Many, many.

Well, we're going to show that now, because we've got some clips

and a little bit of footage of what it was like

being a very young John Prescott.

John was born in May 1938

in Prestatyn in Wales to Phyllis and Bert Prescott,

a railway signalman and Labour councillor.

He grew up with two sisters, Dawn and Vi,

and two brothers, Ray and Adrian.

When John was just three, the family left Wales and moved briefly

to Brinsworth in South Yorkshire, before settling in Upton, Cheshire.

After leaving school, he joined the Merchant Navy as a ship's steward

during the last days of the great ocean liners.

There he got involved in trade unionism,

which brought him to the national stage.

He became MP for Kingston-upon-Hull East in 1970

and in 1997, Deputy Prime Minister in the new Labour government.

In 2010, he was elevated to the House of Lords

to become Baron Prescott of Kingston-upon-Hull.

So, John, it's time for your first choice.

We're going to take a look at your very first TV memory.

'They asked the crowd to be forbearing

'and not to try to surge forward,

'and now here is the Queen.'

This, of course, is the Queen's coronation. Oh, yeah!

1953, John. Yeah.

An estimated three million people lined the streets of London,

hoping for a glimpse of the newly crowned Queen.

And with over 8,000 guests and dignitaries attending,

there weren't enough horse-drawn carriage coachmen

to transport them to Westminster Abbey,

so millionaires and country squires

offered their services, dressing up as Buckingham Palace servants.

Did you know, there was an estimated 27 million people watched this?

Yeah, my father had won a horse bet and won ?1,000 in 1953,

and therefore he bought a television.

It was 14", a big cabinet, small screen

and all the neighbours came in to watch it.

They all came with a flask of tea and their own sandwiches.

A lot of things were just getting over rationing,

so you couldn't come in and have your tea

and your sandwiches provided.

But I got a bit annoyed cos I couldn't see anything.

Because the lounge was so busy?

The room was all full. They'd all turned out.

They were from number 29, they were from 24

and they all had their little tea things,

they were sitting around looking at this little television.

I was a bit annoyed, so they kicked me out

and I was riding in my bike around the streets.

CROWDS CHEER

Are you very much a royalist? No.

I think she does a remarkable job.

It's a judgment as a kind of democrat, in my way.

I find it hard to believe that you have a monarchy,

but they're well-loved in this country.

But let me tell you, the Queen came to Hull on her Silver Jubilee

and they said, "You must come up and meet the Queen."

I'm not a monarchist, so I didn't really want to go there,

but I didn't want to cause offence,

cos a lot of people do think it's important.

But in the end, I said, "I'll come up, but I won't bow."

I was standing there when the Queen arrived and I was standing up.

The wife had done her curtsying.

She came to me, the Queen, and I didn't realise how small she was.

And then I shook hands with her and she said...

HE IMITATES MUMBLING

I said, "Pardon?"

LAUGHTER

I wasn't so clever.

So what was the house like growing up?

My father was a railwayman, so he moved around a bit.

I was born in Wales, in Prestatyn.

He, at that time - I was born in 1938 -

lost his leg at Dunkirk. Oh, right.

He used to have a stump stocking

and they used to put the orange at the bottom,

because it was your Christmas stocking!

So your love of politics,

did that stem from your father?

Yes, from my parents. My mother was from a very strong Labour family.

In fact, we're proud that my grandad then

was on the front of the Daily Herald as a miner

as those who had fought for the nationalisation of the mines,

so you came from that family background in Wales.

It was pretty hard in north Wales.

They were a good mother and father.

They got difficulty later in life and they separated,

but you're forever grateful to your mum and your dad,

whatever their difficulties. Yeah.

Though when I got into politics,

they were giving more press releases than me.

LAUGHTER

I was on the Today programme and John Humphrys said, "Well, John,

"the Labour Party's middle class now."

I said, "It's always had middle class in it.

"They've played a major part."

I said, "Anyway, I'm middle class -

"how could I be anything else with two Jags?"

He said... LAUGHTER

He said, "Well, OK, then, bit of a shock."

My mother and father rung up the Today programme,

went on the programme and disowned me, saying,

"We're working class, I don't know what he's saying." Really?

LAUGHTER

So it's quite a divisive family, and very political, of course.

So what age did you leave home at?

I left the school at 15

and then got a chance at 16, 17,

before the army conscription came along,

and I joined the Cunard steamship company as a waiter.

Yeah. So I had ten years at sea, got eventually kicked out of it

and blacked by most of the shipping companies

because of my union activities.

The working conditions at sea were tough,

with very little time or space for recreation.

A seaman on the Franconia, whether he washes dishes in the galley

or tends the engines in the extreme heat of the ship's belly,

works on average an 11-hour day,

seven days a week.

There's no break in the routine, no place they can escape to.

Cruises can last for three or four months

and in all that time at sea, they're working half the day

and on call for the other 12 hours.

The men had to find their own entertainment

and for John, that meant entering bruising boxing bouts

with colleagues, a sport he had dabbled in before.

The first time I ever did box was in Butlins.

They used to have boxing competitions at Butlins?

That's right. Really?

And I got in the ring, I had my bathers and a pair of pumps,

and this fella got in the ring, he had boxing boots on,

he had the shorts, he had the gear

and he was, "Shu-shu-shu-shu!"

I thought, "What have I done?"

So I go out, but he'd come with the most beautiful girl

I'd ever seen up to that stage, until I met the wife.

Anyway, she's there and I'm looking at her like that.

He hits me and sends me in a complete somersault across the ring

and I'm so embarrassed getting up, not because of him,

though I'm not happy about that,

but this woman sees me battered by her boyfriend.

So you never won? No, I didn't. No.

I hit the ropes on the other side.

I learned, don't take your eye off the man in front of you. Yeah.

Now, your next choice comes out of the first year you were married.

Let's have a look at your must-see TV.

That's it, that's that theme. Z-CARS THEME PLAYS

It's Z-Cars. That's the old Ford Zephyr. Oh, yeah.

At that time, it was quite a car.

They didn't have a Jag, them. No!

LAUGHTER

Z-Cars reinvented British TV cop shows.

Out went the gentle bobby on the beat

and in came police in fast cars,

chasing the criminal underworld.

It was an instant hit, topping 14 million viewers during its run.

Right, then.

A bit of a squeeze.

Is that Smithy there? That is.

Yeah, there he is, Brian Blessed.

You look a bit like him.

I thought I'd lost a bit of weight.

LAUGHTER

Where will the master criminal strike next?

Get out of it, ya mug, you!

Look, this bloke will try it again,

only he won't be expecting us this time.

Ah, it's a beat bobby's job, not ours.

What you do associate it with was Dixon Of Dock Green, "Evening, all."

This was just a major change from it,

about police acting probably more like they are. So a bit more gritty?

Oh, aye, Smithy was, wasn't he? Yeah.

It was a radical change.

Ah, it's a waste of time, this bloke was a casual, a down-and-out.

He'll be miles away at a seaport by now.

Spending his ill-gotten gains.

But coming into that was the reality of dealing with difficult problems

and how individuals dealt with them.

Yeah. I never missed an episode.

Z-Cars was one of Brian Blessed's first ever TV roles.

He had a roaring success in the BBC serialisation

of the Three Musketeers, alongside future Sherlock, Jeremy Brett.

He played Caesar Augustus

in the triple Bafta award-winning I, Claudius,

a drama series about the history of Rome.

And he boomed "Gordon's alive!" as Vultan, Prince of the Hawkmen

in the 1980 film Flash Gordon.

He was a household name by the time he played the mad, comical figure

of Richard IV in the first series of The Black Adder saga.

And he was in fine voice as the lovable Greek fixer Spiro

in My Family And Other Animals,

about the life of famed conservationist Gerald Durrell.

Now we move on to your next choice now, a comedy character.

Till Death Us Do Part was conceived

by legendary TV writer Johnny Speight

as a satire of the bigoted views around at the time.

But some of the audience didn't see it that way,

instead embracing the often offensive views of Mr Alf Garnett.

Alf. Alf Garnett.

This scene shows Warren Mitchell,

playing the right-wing caricature at his full-blown ranting best.

Number one, the Tories has got money, right? Right.

Right, you agree with me there? Yeah.

Number two, if you've got money,

you don't need to fiddle, right? Aw, give over!

Therefore, number three, the Tories can afford to be honest!

What was it about Alf Garnett that you loved so much, John?

Well, he kept to the character.

A lot of people actually thought about it like that.

I disagreed with him politically, but he captured it, didn't he,

with the accent, language, the most reactionary part of things,

but it's what I call a working class Tory.

Yeah, yeah. And he was very much that.

Many of Garnett's tirades were about politics

and took direct aim at socialist son-in-law Mike,

played by Tony Booth,

who later became real-life father-in-law to one Tony Blair.

On that last election, see,

they was betting, wasn't they?

Not only on who'd win the election, but when it'd be, right? Yeah.

And the only man in the country who knew when it would be

was Harold Wilson himself, cos he's the bloke

what had to choose when it'd be, didn't he?

Garnett's rants used language that would shock today's audiences.

But back in the 1960s and '70s,

it was prime-time viewing.

..which is his pero-jative, I'll grant you that.

But he played off against him, Antony Booth.

Great satire, great programme, great acting.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yeah.

We're going to take a TV break now, John.

This is one of your favourites.

Roger, dear boy, how's your client coming along?

It's the PG Tips adverts. Oh, yeah, yeah!

These cheeky, tea-drinking chimps

first hit our screens in 1956.

Don't worry, madam, I'll take over.

It's horrible! Can you imagine them trying to film this.

So what did you enjoy about these little monkeys?

I thought it was remark...

Well, first of all, anything that makes you smile is good, isn't it?

You're going to like that.

Using animals, getting them to film that,

that wouldn't be done in half an hour, would it? No.

I think the imagination behind it, the skill in doing it...

One of the unique things I think about British advertising,

it tends to have a...it's important for the British humour,

that it has humour in it,

more than, say, when you're in America -

it's always about slickness and everything.

But with animals - you see it with dogs and different things now -

it's part of the British psyche,

if there's an animal involved, you ought to begin with that.

The campaign sent sales soaring,

but it divided opinion and still does today.

Animal welfare advocates branded the ads exploitative,

but they were a huge hit with viewers.

Anything that makes people smile and feel warm,

isn't that what it's really about?

Now, John, we're going to move on to a charismatic politician

who you named as one of your biggest influences.

This is a challenge we did not seek

and do not want.

All the more so because it comes from men

who have won the undying respect and admiration of the whole nation.

Harold Wilson, of course, Prime Minister. Yeah.

But he was a remarkable man and for the first time,

we had a professional economist, cos that's what he was.

He had a background and therefore he was exciting.

There were certain characteristics about him.

He was talking about things that are relevant today.

This was man who told the Americans,

"We're not going to Vietnam,"

to which Johnson made it very difficult for the UK,

but that was a principle, that we shouldn't be involved

in that special relationship and get involved in Vietnam.

And he did a lot more things -

he was a principled man who voted against health charges,

under a Labour government

that wanted to bring in those health charges.

He then resigned and came down with Bevan and others.

As often with politics, though,

what you're trying to do is not necessarily what you want to do

and you have to play

and try and find a way forward to achieving that,

but I admired him because he was professional,

he was an economist - most of the problems of that day

were about the economy and balance of payments.

To have a man who understood it and did it, I welcomed that

and for Labour to be looking forward

and carrying in technology changes to meet with it,

that's good, cos so often, we tend to defend

a lot of our things from the past, rather than getting on.

He captured that, I think.

This strike will settle nothing.

It will neither establish their case

nor settle their grievances.

But at great cost to Britain...

Back in 1966, Harold Wilson's government declared

a state of emergency after the nation's seamen went on strike.

As a prominent trade unionist, John was heavily involved in the dispute.

You've got to remember, that speech is just before the election

and we were threatening to go on strike again.

We'd had a seven-week strike before, which I'd been involved in.

We were working 84 hours a week with no overtime and we were working

under a merchant shipping act that if you disagreed with the captain,

it was mutiny. I only had one charge on that,

but we had to change the act.

He produced the proposals,

I produced a pamphlet called Not Wanted On Voyage,

which rejected most of this argument,

so when he came with the white paper, we wrote on it,

"Not wanted on voyage," and chucked it over to him.

"That's what we think about your white paper."

So we go to see him in Number Ten,

the first time I'm taken into Parliament, I'm not even an MP,

and into the Cabinet Room.

He meets us at the Number Ten door.

We go in there and he shakes hands with us

and he said, "I'll tell you what I'll do..." This was typical Wilson.

He said, "Look, accept this and then, when we come back,

"we'll have a new piece of legislation

"changing it as you want." He wanted to settle it.

So I said to him,

"Harold..." Or "Prime Minister" it was, right?

"..how do you know you'll win this next election?"

He said, on his pipe, "I'm very confident."

Well, he lost it, didn't he?

So I went up to him, I came in as an MP, I went to him and said,

"Now, Harold, what do I do?"

"You have to get on to the Tories, son."

To be fair to Harold,

he did bring about the changes in our legislation, all credit to him.

Though unfortunately he couldn't complete it, he started it,

because the Tories came in.

John, let's now take a look at a very young John Prescott.

This is...? This is Panorama. Panorama!

'What we essentially seem to be discussing here is the role

'of a trade union in a capitalist society

'and whether collective bargaining is a valuable weapon for trade unions.

'If it is to achieve a redistribution...'

I think you do look like Brian Blessed.

1966 was a busy year for John,

as he took his first steps onto the biggest stage,

even making his first ever national TV appearance

on the biggest political show of the day, Panorama.

For your first television appearance, John,

I have to say you don't look nervous. No.

After all, Mr Wilson told us

the answers to these problems before he was elected.

What we're vitally concerned about at the moment is apparently...

..the very answers which they told us were wrong

when the Tories used them and we feel if it was wrong for the Tories,

then it must be doubly wrong

for the Labour Party to adopt the same measures.

We started it and I was on with a reporter from the Guardian.

I did a question, he did a question

and then they said,

"The camera's broken down, we're going to start again."

But what this journalist did was to pinch my question!

I'm trying to think now, I've lost my question,

this bugger's pinched it,

so when I look at that - that was my first television -

I often think, "You've got to watch for the guys around you,"

but that's life and you have to live with television,

as it's live television. Yeah.

That's things you have to watch for.

But that was my first one, really, after the seamen's strike.

Politicians, John, appear in the most unusual places,

including this next clip. Here it is, John.

Oh, Gavin! I knew nothing about this programme.

The Bafta award-winning Gavin Stacey is an unlikely tale of love

between a lad from Essex and a girl from Barry.

Oh, I never saw this! In this typical scene from series two,

Nessa, played by co-writer Ruth Jones,

recounts one of her seemingly unbelievable stories

about her past famous conquests to a fascinated Stacey.

This reminds me very much of my time with John...

Prescott.

LAUGHTER

I had the lot.

A flat in Westminster, full use of one of the Jags,

didn't even have to cook - I had a little Filipino do it for us.

Nessa's past was apparently littered with amorous encounters

with the rich and famous.

But not happy with just dropping his name,

Nessa takes it further,

inserting herself into the story of one of John's best-known moments.

He could be very dry.

I left that night and I never looked back.

Cos I knew I'd only ever be happy in Barry.

How did John take it?

SIGHING: He took it bad.

He went mad, he did, shouting and fighting.

Next day, he punched a civilian.

When I saw it on the telly, I knew that punch was meant for me.

I was doing a programme for BBC on class.

It was these two series on class in Britain.

And I wanted to talk to... Yeah, James Corden.

So I get in touch with him, "Can I come in?"

He said, "Only if you come on my programme."

I said, "What's your programme?"

He said, "Gavin Stacey."

My son said to me, "Oh, it's a rave programme."

I said, "I don't know it."

Anyway, if he'll do this interview with me on class...

I'll do that one for him.

Uh-huh. So I came in, they said, "Can you walk into the wedding?"

And that's what I did.

See you in there. Yeah, see you in a minute.

Hi, Dave.

Congratulations. Cheers, John. Nice to see you.

That was so natural, John. LAUGHTER

And so...

You're wasted, love, you're wasted.

Well, all politicians are actors of one kind or another. Yes, they are.

Course it is.

But to follow on from that story,

I was down in Bristol, I knocked on a door campaigning

and these students came to the door and they said, "Oh, hello, John."

I said, "Are you going to vote Labour, then, lads?"

They said, "Yeah, yeah!" I said, "Is it our employment policy, health,

"jobs, education?"

"Oh, no, you were in Gavin Stacey."

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE That became the only reason

I got their vote, was because of Gavin Stacey!

I just don't think anyone expected you to be on the show. They don't.

Because she would often talk about her romances

to this star and that star

and the fact that you were there,

it just underlined it and emphasised it

and it's just a lovely moment.

And has quite an effect.

The response that comes from people who watch that,

they're surprised, but they're pleased that somehow

you've come into something they watch.

I can't explain it in any other way than that,

except they will come up to you and it got us some votes.

John's appearance on Gavin Stacey continues a long tradition

of British politicians popping up on the entertainment scene.

After leaving office, Harold Wilson appeared

on The Morecambe And Wise Christmas special,

teasing Eric by deliberately calling him "Morry-camby".

In 1984, then Labour leader Neil Kinnock helped take

Tracey Ullman's cover of the Madness song My Girl

to number 23 in the charts

when he appeared in the music video.

In his final year as PM, Tony Blair appeared

in a hilarious Comic Relief sketch

with Catherine Tate's teenage alter ego Lauren,

to ask her, "Am I bovvered?"

And Boris Johnson stole the show

when he appeared for the first time on Have I Got News For You,

launching him on the road to becoming a TV personality.

Do you get to watch much telly these days?

No, I don't, but I'll tell you what I probably watch most -

I do find it very relaxing -

it's either films or the Discovery Channel.

All those things, they're fascinating.

I watch so many air accidents... Oh, dear, plane investigation?

I don't know how they find out how a plane went down.

It's quite remarkable. I love that programme.

I always watch it before I go on holiday and my wife tells me,

"What are you doing watching this for?!"

But I do really enjoy it.

I think the skill in which they find out what caused it

is quite remarkable and it's reassuring.

OK, you might be dead in an air crash,

but they will find out why you died!

So, John, we give our guests the opportunity

to pick a theme tune now for us to play out on.

Have you got something in mind?

Yes, very much. Going back many years, cos I went to visit...

Does anyone remember The Prisoner? Yes.

With that big bouncing ball,

you're wondering where the hell it was coming from.

But it had a fearful sense about it

and somehow, the theme music just captured it.

That theme music identified a programme

and a place which was wonderful, something different

and excitement and a little bit of fear on the side.

Well, you've been exciting

and there's been a little bit of fear on the side.

Have you enjoyed your experience?

Thoroughly. Today, you mean? Yeah.

Not life, I mean today on the sofa!

Yeah, I have.

The audience were great, the interviewer was a bit going on.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

John, it's been an absolute pleasure, Lord Prescott.

My thanks to John. Give him a round of applause.

APPLAUSE And my thanks to you lot

for watching The TV That Made Me.

We'll see you next time and bye-bye!

MUSIC: The Prisoner Theme