Episode 20 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.

So funny!

That was state-of-the-art.

Ah!

I loved this.

Each day, I'm going to journey

through the wonderful world of telly...

Cheers.

..with one of our favourite celebrities...

We're going into space.

-It's just so silly.

-Oh, no!

Yeah!

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

My God, this is the scene!

Oh, dear!

..that tell us the stories of their lives.

I absolutely adored this.

Some will make you laugh.

SHE LAUGHS

Don't watch the telly, Esther, watch me!

Some will surprise.

No way! Where did you find this?!

Many will inspire.

It used to transport us to places that we could only dream about.

And others will move us.

I am emotional now.

Today, we look even more deeply.

Why wouldn't you want to watch this?

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

that helped shape those wide-eyed youngsters

into the much-loved stars they are today.

Welcome to The TV That Made Me.

My guest today

is a multi-award-winning sports presenter.

It's the lovely Hazel Irvine. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Listen to that cheer. They like you.

-How lovely to see you.

-Welcome.

Hazel Irvine guided us through the London Olympics opening ceremony,

an event watched by over 27 million people.

She was the youngest-ever presenter of Grandstand,

and the first female anchor at a men's golf major.

The TV that made Hazel includes...

a show that inspired her love of travel and languages...

..and a Doctor who scared the young Hazel so much

she hid behind the settee.

We mustn't let them touch us, must we? No.

How do we get out of here?

Before we go any further...

AS A COMMENTATOR: Yes, I'm here with Hazel

and it's a wonderful honour for me to be chatting to you,

sports broadcaster extraordinaire.

How does it feel to be on the show with me, Brian Conley?

It's fantastic, Brian.

Look at that. Goodness, yes.

That's much better.

I've always thought with these lip microphones,

it was not a great aid for television, was it?

-No.

-You couldn't see half the face. But there you go.

These are still the things that broadcast commentators use.

When they commentate on the football?

Lip microphones, they're called. Yeah, yeah.

-Really?

-Major events, we still use them, yeah.

-Yeah.

-Amazing, isn't it?

Oh, yeah, settle back.

-Yes, I will.

-Relax. Enjoy.

Are you looking forward to it, a trip down memory lane?

I'm looking forward to it because some of the...

Some of the programmes I'm looking forward to seeing again

because I won't have seen them since I was a kid

and it's incredible how powerful these things were

when you were a child and how much they've kind of influenced you

as you grow up and I don't think you realise it

until you start to look back a bit

and you see what you were like then and what you're like now.

It's quite frightening, actually.

Did you watch much telly as a child?

-Er...

-Was you allowed to?

We were allowed to watch some television, yeah, um...

But we had... We had a little, tiny, portable television set.

-What, in the lounge?

-In the lounge. It was no bigger than, I think,

maybe about 15 inches by 15 inches, really.

And there are these massive things now that take up whole walls.

Oh, yeah. It takes up a whole lounge.

65 inch. There it is.

Yeah, so that was what we used to watch.

-Aw!

-Yeah.

Well, today, we're going to watch a selection of classic TV shows

but, before we do, let's have a little look at a young Hazel.

Ooh!

Hazel was born in St Andrews but grew up in Cardross,

just west of Glasgow, with her mum, Nora, a ceramic artist,

and her dad, Bill, a lecturer.

She attended St Andrews University,

and graduated with an art history degree.

Her broadcasting career kicked off in the mid-'80s

at a local Glasgow radio station,

before she joined ITV to cover the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.

She started at the BBC a few years later,

and eventually took over David Vine's Ski Sunday duties,

establishing herself as one of BBC Sport's main presenters.

She's brought us golf, snooker, athletics

and both Winter and Summer Olympics.

And most recently, she returned to her homeland

for Glasgow's 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Does it take you back to... Just a different time, obviously?

Yeah. It's the hair, isn't it? You always...

It's the hair that always you think, "Oh, no, what was I doing?"

But I'm a sort of child of the '80s in terms of my fashion sense,

with the big shoulders and the feathery haircut

and all that sort of stuff.

I want to start with your earliest TV memory now, Hazel.

This is a huge sporting event that shaped your whole life.

The 1972 Olympics.

-There he is.

-The man himself.

This is, of course, Mark Spitz.

Mark Spitz. The moustachioed wonder kid.

Look at him.

Look at the Stars and Stripes trunks.

Just this fantastic tall, lean, fit guy.

He even had a concave stomach.

And I was seven and he was probably the man that shaped...

..where I am today in terms of my love of sport.

Mark Spitz became an Olympic legend at the Munich Games,

winning a then world-record seven gold medals.

This is the butterfly.

-Now, this is an absolute killer race.

-Yeah.

He was a master at this particular stroke, but he was so elegant.

-Leaps and bounds.

-Elegant.

Not only did Spitz win seven golds,

he also set a new world record time in each event.

I remember being absolutely enchanted

with the actual achievement of seven gold medals. Seven!

Never been done. And it just captured my imagination.

I remember going off to some of my little clubs and things -

the Brownies and things after school -

and everybody talking about Mark Spitz and the Olympics.

I had a sticker book,

and it had all the little logos of all the different sports

and I was fascinated by everything,

from swimming to Greco-Roman wrestling,

and that was it for me.

I wanted to be an athlete.

I wanted something to do with the Olympics.

It absolutely captivated me.

So moving on to your home life now, Hazel.

Tell me about your living room.

-What was it like...

-Um, well...

-..when you were growing up?

When I was growing up? In the '70s,

didn't we all have low-slung sofas that kind of did your back in?

You didn't so much sit on them as slouch on them.

Yeah. I can't imagine you slouching!

Yeah, I know, I know. I was a bit of a sloucher.

Hazel doesn't slouch.

I can imagine you just running while you're watching the TV.

-Or playing a game of golf.

-No, it was a very small television.

Oh, of course. I'd forgotten. Yeah.

But it was a very happy house.

I had a very, very happy childhood.

I was very lucky. I still am very lucky to have a mum and dad,

who've been so interested in my brother and myself,

and, when you think back on all those times,

what they are responsible for...

Huge swathes of everything that I'm interested in, due to my folks.

But my father was the one, for me,

that informed my love of the outdoors,

my love of sport, my love of adventure, my love of language,

my love of geography,

because his influence upon us informed all of those things.

One of the absolute must-see television moments

of any week was Holiday.

So Holiday was on and it was the time of Anne Gregg,

the lovely Anne Gregg.

Here, Cliff Michelmore anchors the show

and Anne Gregg is on location in Sicily.

..for our next report on the island of Sicily.

Look at the graphics! I love the way the...

The graphics come in.

Now, there's an awful lot of history crammed into that island,

and Anne Gregg set off to discover some of it on a coach tour.

Around 12 million Brits tuned into Holiday every week.

2,500 years ago,

the Greeks sailed across the Ionian Sea

towards the craggy east coast of Sicily.

They liked what they saw, dropped anchor

and established a settlement called Naxos.

I remember my dad saying, "We're going to go there."

Giardini-Naxos. We stayed there.

Isn't that amazing?

There are so many interesting historical sites in Sicily.

Agrigento is important because it was here

that Greek civilisation had its heyday in Sicily.

The town that was here then was called...

The lovely Anne Gregg. This beautiful, elegant lady.

And this was at the time when Spain was the package holiday place,

and we'd been a couple of times,

but he wanted to break out and do something different.

When you look back on my early years,

you will see that we didn't just go places.

We didn't go and see something.

We had to get to the top of it. We had to conquer everything!

So when we went, from the earliest times,

away in our little caravan into the Scottish Highlands,

from the earliest years,

there's my brother and my dad and myself -

and my mum taking the pictures - somewhere up the top of a hill.

And I remember, we went to Sicily and we went...

made a beeline for Mount Etna.

-Oh!

-Yes. Which was interesting.

This was not with your caravan on the back?

No, no caravan. We actually flew.

-Happily, we didn't.

-OK.

-But he wanted to go and do this

and my long-suffering mum,

who was kind of inured to adventure by this point...

"OK, I'll come."

We went there and Etna was actually erupting.

A side vent was erupting.

-Really?

-It was kind of spewing out a little bit of lava,

but they were still running tours to this lava flow.

It was extraordinary, when you think about it.

And about... Possibly about a foot and a half

under the ground that we were standing on, ie the lava flow,

was glowing hot and you were allowed on.

With a guide, you were allowed to go.

I was absolutely petrified, but totally fascinated by this.

And there's pictures of us actually up there in this ramshackle old bus,

along with other people,

walking on this lava flow, and you can see there's...

You can see there's smoke and steam coming out,

not too far in front of us, and this was totally inspiring to me.

I loved that whole thrill of adventure and I've travelled...

I've had a real thirst for travel around the world

and trying to communicate with people

even when I can't speak their language,

so thank you very much, Holiday,

cos I'm sure it played a very significant part in all of that.

Now for your next choice, Hazel.

Let see what your must-see TV was back in the day.

What have I chosen here?

We Are The Champions ran as a series from 1973 to 1987,

and was originally hosted

by former Welsh national athletics coach Ron Pickering.

The show visited schools around the country,

pitting pupils against each other in various sporting contests.

And this was effectively school sports given the Olympic treatment.

I mean, how good... It just doesn't get any better than that!

They brought all these wonderful Olympians and sports stars...

Do you think the titles promised more than the show did?

When I see it again, they promise a lot.

We Are The Champions,

a series of contests between two schools on a knockout basis.

Don't have to be great athletes -

everybody scores, everybody has a lot of fun.

When you're seven or eight

and the Olympics are coming to your school,

oh, I longed for it to come to my primary school.

-Really?

-I wanted to be a part of this.

Everybody starts and finishes.

Must finish with a hat on.

What I loved about it...

Hugely professional, Ron Pickering.

He wasn't just a great broadcaster - he was an Olympic coach, as well.

He was an athletics coach, so he knew exactly what he was doing.

He treated it as a proper event.

-It was great fun.

-Yeah.

Hopping along a bench?

Oh, that's death-defying!

LAUGHTER

When you see it now, it's just...

It's just so daft, isn't it?

But, oh, I loved all that stuff.

You weren't the only one, Hazel.

With the series running until 1987,

then annual specials right up until 1995,

We Are The Champions was a massive success.

200 points to 100.

It's Chalkstone by a nose.

It was just innocent, good-fun telly.

What would Hazel like to have won?

Ooh, the 100 hurdles.

-Really?

-Yes. I was a sprint hurdler.

That was my thing, yeah.

But I did huge amounts of sport. It was just something that we did.

There was always something after school I was doing.

It was gymnastics, it was athletics, it was swimming, it was everything.

-Golf?

-Golf. I mean, golf, my absolute passion.

But that was outside school.

-Now?

-To this day, yeah.

-You love it?

-Love the golf, yeah.

Are you any good at golf?

I'm not bad. I'm not bad.

Right, well I'd better go and get my putter, then.

Oh, no!

-Oh!

-So...

-Oh, the putter. OK.

-I've got my putter.

If you'd like to come and join me over here...

My family did this in the front room.

This is a wee blast from the past.

There's our TV That Made Me mug, which I will place about there.

Little crazy golf obstacles all over our floor

and we used to play with a putter around the living room.

-OK, all right.

-Just imagine you're on the 18th.

-OK. This is...

There's no pressure here at all, Brian.

This is to win the TV That Made Me Open.

I'm not sure of the speed of the greens here.

I've not had a practice putt, so I'll give it a go.

Ooh, just kissed the cup.

Kissed the cup! Not bad, right?

Excuse me. My go.

He's going to go closer - I can tell.

Hazel, I'll let you commentate now.

OK. Right, Brian.

Is he going to face the right way?

Well, that's a good start for Brian.

Now, this is a man who had a handicap of, um...

well, 108 until yesterday.

I've got to get it straight.

Which is unusual for a handicap,

given that they don't start there.

If I get this, Hazel, you're going to be so upset because you didn't.

This is for the Claret Jug, Brian.

Oh!

Yeah! Oh, it bounced out. Give me that.

-Give me that.

-Well done, mate.

-APPLAUSE

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

See, I've always been better at commentating

than I have at playing it, that's for sure,

but I still love my golf.

I think you just cracked under pressure there.

I must have done. Yeah, usually do. Competition.

Now, Hazel, we're going to move on to your comedy hero.

-Oh, right.

-Mm-hm.

One of my favourites, as well.

Is it? A legend. Yeah. Here he is.

Dick Emery.

An Englishman's home is his castle

but due to the population explosion,

even castles are getting overcrowded these days.

The Dick Emery Show ran from 1963 to 1981.

In this episode, Gordon Clyde is interviewing locals

on the housing shortage.

Cue Emery's hilarious comedy portrayal

of larger-than-life characters.

-LAUGHTER

-Excuse me, sir.

Oh, hello, honky-tonk. How are you?

-Very well, thank you.

-Nice to see you.

-Thank you.

-I'm asking people about housing.

-Oh, yes?

Is that how people dress in Scotland?

LAUGHTER

Only on a special occasion, Brian, obviously.

Tell me, do you have a house of your own?

Well, not really. I share one with five other fellas.

-LAUGHTER

-We call it Henry VIII Cottage.

Really? Why's that?

Cos there's six old queens living there.

LAUGHTER

There were some fantastic writers who were part of this, weren't they?

I mean, wasn't Mel Brooks part of it?

-That's right, yeah.

-Oh, dear.

-There were so many characters that he came up with.

-I know.

A man of many faces and characters, wasn't he?

It was Mandy. "You are awful but I like you."

-"Oh, you are awful but I like you."

-That was the one that everybody did.

Everybody did it at school, didn't they?

-Here we go.

-Here she is.

Emery had a clutch of characters,

from the vicar to the bovver boy

and, of course, the busty blonde bombshell, Mandy.

Oh, well, it's no problem to me

because my uncle's just left me two 14-roomed houses

and I'm thinking of selling them.

Well, you are lucky to have a couple of big ones like that.

-LAUGHTER

-Pardon?

Well, there must be a lot of people dying to get their hands on them.

Oh, you are awful.

But I like you!

Total nonsense and just daft but, to be fair, Dick Emery...

I think he spawned a whole new generation of sketch shows.

I liked The Goodies, as well,

that sort of anarchic nonsense, as well.

But I also liked Kenny Everett.

I'm a child of the time in that regard.

That's what was in front of us and that's the stuff we enjoyed.

We've talked about the telly that made you laugh,

-but what about the telly that made you scared?

-Oh, yes.

One programme in particular, Hazel.

Yes. Yes, I'm bristling at the thought.

Well, Doctor Who was something we used to watch all the time.

It was usually a Saturday night, about tea-time, I reckon.

But there was one episode and one thing...

And I think it was probably when I was about seven or eight,

and it was called The Green Death.

There were fluorescent green...

What would you call them?

..slugs, that bit you, and when they did,

they inflicted upon you the Green Death -

a long, slow, tortuous death

in which you became green, fluorescent and died.

And we would watch it from behind the sofa, my brother and I,

petrified of it all.

Are you... Are you up for it now?

Are you sure this is wise?

Hazel...The Green Death.

Doctor, here, quickly!

In this episode from 1973, the Doctor, played by Jon Pertwee,

with Jo Grant, played by Katy Manning,

are trying to escape the Green Death.

-SHE GASPS

-Look at that!

Oh, my word!

Look at that. How terrifying is that?

That is menacing, you know?

You wouldn't be able to run away from them, would you.

Ooh, look at them wriggling! Oh, they had teeth.

-Look, they did have teeth.

-Urgh!

There's no way out.

Nil desperandum, Jo.

Doctor, those things crawling around in that green stuff.

You saw what happened to the others.

We mustn't let them touch us, must we?

Now, how do we get out of here?

Jon Pertwee, eh?

Isn't amazing how things trigger fears and insecurities?

I've never been all that fond of creepy crawlies

and I'm just wondering whether...

-Oh, right.

-Whether it was Doctor Who that did it.

Hazel, in the words of Monty Python,

-and now for something completely different.

-Oh!

THEME TUNE STARTS HAZEL LAUGHS

Cagney & Lacey.

Oh, yes. There they are!

Brilliant! Sharon Gless, Tyne Daly.

Two feisty ladies.

For 125 episodes throughout the '80s,

these amazing ladies kept us entertained.

I love the titles, by the way. Look at this. They just...

They just got on so well as characters

but also, apparently, in real life as well,

they're very good friends. I loved this bit. She's...

Yeah, I would probably have been looking in at that coat as well.

But I just love the fact that they were ordinary women

doing a kind of extraordinary job.

You have to put it in the context

that all of the detective shows at the time...

We had Starsky & Hutch and we had The Professionals.

It was all real red-blooded, male machismo stuff, wasn't it?

You didn't see any women in there, especially doing that,

running through a train carriage with guns

and all that sort of stuff.

I loved that - the fact they were

just so totally nonplussed by that bloke at the end.

Fantastic. "Just get a life!"

I just loved that.

And this is great.

Their boss is good.

"Get back to work."

Brilliant!

I never figured out how come Mad happened to see our car

the day he told us about the drug buy.

Central to the series was the relationship these detectives

had with their boss, Lieutenant Samuels,

and with each other.

Not only was Cagney & Lacey a brilliant cop show,

but it often explored personal and emotional issues, too,

which set it apart from similar shows.

Well, sir, in fairness, the shoulder did feel better.

Go get it.

I loved Sharon Gless because she was so vulnerable, wasn't she?

She played this really tough, hard-nosed woman

but she was so emotionally vulnerable,

and she really wanted what Tyne Daly's character had.

She really yearned for kids and a family,

and this programme tackled a lot of social issues

that we weren't really used to seeing.

You know, women who want it all -

they want motherhood and they want a career.

And it tackled alcoholism and it tackled breast cancer, actually.

So there were so many things it addressed from a female perspective

that had never really been discussed on national television.

So it was a very influential piece of television.

-Mm.

-And of its time, yeah.

And something that influenced you.

I guess, subliminally.

I didn't make decisions on the basis of watching Cagney & Lacey...

-No, no.

-But it was...

-Didn't go around killing anyone.

And I didn't come the tough guy.

But you have to put yourself back to about 1986,

when I was coming out of university,

cos that was the year that Maradona's hand of God

put out England in the World Cup. Fergie married Prince Andrew.

The M25 was opened.

That was a long, long time ago, but that's where we were in those days.

There weren't really that many female role models on television

and the sort of dual-gender sports broadcasting world

that we are now was not the same then.

I remember being asked numerous questions

when I first went into television.

"What's it like being a woman in a man's world?"

I got this constantly -

"Woman in a man's world, woman in a man's world."

Eventually, I got so sick of even trying to tackle the subject,

for years, I never even talked about it, I just got on and did the job.

But if someone asks me that question now, I'm not.

I'm no longer a woman in a man's world

because I am surrounded by so many other female broadcasters in sport.

So we are in a completely different time,

so Cagney & Lacey, to me, kind of sums up why it was unusual

to see women in such high-profile roles on the telly,

and that's the kind of essence of it.

Now it's time to look at the beginnings of your own TV career.

-Kind of dreading this one.

-Why do you cringe?

-Why?

-Well, you'll probably see why I...

Oh, no, I'm just about to cringe.

Scotsport was the world's longest-running sports show

and gave Hazel her big TV break.

The cup final is undoubtedly the highlight...

Oh, look at that. Look at the shoulder pads!

..a very long and hard season in Scotland.

You look like you've got someone else in jacket with you, don't you?

LAUGHTER

I was the first woman that had ever worked as a mainstream presenter

of a sports programme, and particularly a football programme.

There was nobody else doing it in Great Britain. And we had a ball,

we had a fantastic time.

For one ex-Celtic player and manager,

his work is only just beginning.

The small town of Lillestrom is situated

some 20km from the Norwegian capital...

Oh, Lillestrom! This is the first foreign report I ever did.

And it's where David Hay is now living and working

as the manager of the town's local football team,

Lillestrom Sporting Club.

Happy days and happy times.

And a good learning curve for you?

A huge learning curve, yeah.

Our producer was a guy called Andy Melvin,

who kind of thrashed journalistic discipline into me

and taught me an awful lot of lessons about football

and about the vocabulary

and about the journalistic way of writing your scripts

and doing so quickly and under pressure.

And, in between all this,

I was asked to audition for ITV's Olympics of 1988.

So I worked alongside the great Dickie Davies.

-Oh, wow.

-Which was an extraordinary thing.

When you think about it, and I'm sure everybody remembers Dickie

and I didn't realise, I was so young, he was practically

holding my hand the whole time. He was looking out for me.

When I think back on that, how generous was that?

A senior broadcaster, who had been in the game for an awful long time,

actually taking pleasure in the fact

that I'd learned something under his watch. So, thank you, Dickie.

So, proudest moment, then?

Proudest moment...

Well, I guess it all comes together for me at the London 2012 Olympics,

as it did for so many other people

and probably for everybody here today

and a lot of people watching at home.

It was the absolute culmination of everything that my career

-and indeed my interest in life had been building towards.

-Mm-hm.

I was given the nod to do the commentary alongside Huw Edwards

at the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony.

Oh, wow.

And it was one of the most terrifying, wonderful experiences

of my whole life, as you'd imagine.

And whilst obviously Huw has the gravitas and the news journalism

and the background for that, I was there to help, er...

bring to life some of the sporting aspects of the ceremony

and to be a part of it too. That night for me, it was... Oh!

I've done, what, 13 Olympics now but that was the 12th one,

and for me to have done masses and masses of research -

there's 205 nations -

Trying to find out about all the nations coming in,

having something to say about their stars, their history,

their interests and, again, it's the geography.

It's all of - my interest in language - it's all coming together.

I remember enjoying it so vividly and the images and the music

and the noises and the smells.

It will stay with me forever.

It was a brilliant, brilliant moment.

So, Hazel, what do you enjoy watching currently, at the moment?

Besides your sport, how do you switch off?

Yeah, I'm a real Scandi-noir girl.

I love Scandic-noir.

All the stuff that's coming out of Denmark and Sweden.

The Bridge - brilliant, it's a Danish/Swedish collaboration.

And The Killing was one of my favourites as well,

and also Borgen from Denmark as well.

Which is a kind of West Wing in Denmark.

Very clever, beautifully acted and so I love all that.

I think it's really great.

-My kind of guilty pleasure, Brian, would be...

-Go on.

..The Apprentice.

-Ah, The Apprentice.

-Yeah.

-And the reason is...

-You're fired.

Well, yeah, all that.

I think you sign up for that, you know what you're signing up for.

These guys all know what they're in for,

and I know there's a lot of shouting and bawling

and having a go at one another, but is a bit of a guilty pleasure.

I'm forced to watch it on my own

because the rest of my family won't watch it with me.

So it is a sort of secret guilty pleasure.

So have you gone full circle and now you're back in the kitchen,

watching it on a very small little screen?

Yes, that's the one thing

I allow myself on my laptop to sit and watch.

So we give our guests the opportunity now to pick a theme tune

-for us to play out on.

-Oh, right.

What's it going to be?

-Well, I think there's really only one.

-Mm-hm?

And it's got to be Grandstand, hasn't it?

HE GASPS

I love... Look, it's got a gasp from our audience here.

-Well, it's kind of dear departed, really.

-Yeah.

But it was a programme that was so influential

in my upbringing because it had all the best bits and Final Score

and you watched it every Saturday, you couldn't miss it.

To have had the opportunity to present it for 15 years or so

was a real honour. I count myself very lucky to have done it.

Well, it's been a real honour having you with us.

Thank you very much, Brian. Thank you so much for having me.

-It's been great.

-Thank you.

-Pleasure, thank you.

-My thanks to Hazel.

-Thank you.

And my thanks to you for watching The TV That Made Me.

-We'll see you next time, bye-bye.

-Bye-bye.

THEME FROM GRANDSTAND PLAYS