Episode 8 Holiday of My Lifetime with Len Goodman

Childhood holidays. Oh, the anticipation seemed endless.

The holiday itself, well, it was over too quickly.

So, in this series, I'm going to be reliving those wonderful times

with some much loved famous faces.

THEY SCREAM

Every day, I'll be arranging a few surprises

to transport them back in time.

Oh, look! It's just as I remember.

'We'll relive the fun...'

THEY LAUGH

'..the games...'

-Yes!

-We got them!

'..and the food of years gone by...'

Yummy!

Welcome to 1959.

-Total happiness.

-Yes, perfect.

'..to find out how those holidays around the UK

'helped shape the people we know so well today.'

Bruce Forsyth.

-IMPERSONATES BRUCE FORSYTH:

-Marvellous. You're my favourite.

'So buckle up for Holiday Of My Lifetime.'

You know, Len, I'm quite enjoying being on my holidays with you.

On today's trip down memory lane, I'm in the sunny southwest,

heading to meet our mystery holidaymaker.

Hello. Here's the news - Len Goodman is catching the ferry

to meet a lady whose illustrious career spans over 45 years.

Here she is practising her first smile for the camera. Hey!

Born in 1944,

this lovely lass was destined to make headline news herself one day

when she became the first woman journalist

to read the news on national TV.

In 1976, she broke out from behind the news desk

to high kick her way through a dance routine

with comedy greats Morecambe and Wise.

Oh, yes!

Recently, she has been championing the causes of the consumer,

stopping those people from getting ripped off.

You must know who it is.

You must have got it.

It's the Ginger Rogers of news reading. It's Angela Rippon!

An only child, Angela comes from modest roots.

Her dad, John, was a Royal Marine, and her mum, Edna, a seamstress.

When she left school,

she worked in newspapers before moving into radio and television.

She's tried her hand at just about everything in the world of telly,

but I remember her presenting Come Dancing in the '80s,

and she's still strutting her stuff all these years later.

-Welcome to my world!

-Lovely. Oh, what a lovely day.

-It's not bad, is it?

You realise, you've crossed the border there, don't you?

You've come from my hometown of Plymouth in Devon,

but in the middle of the River Tamar here,

is the border between Devon and Cornwall.

And when you got off the boat, you stepped into Cornwall.

-Cornwall, here we are.

-Yeah!

So where are we going?

Mount Edgcumbe, but we're going to start in Maker Camp,

which is where all the kids from Plymouth used to go

for a sort of summer boot camp in their school holidays.

-Fabulous. And what year is it?

-1952.

-I was eight years old.

-Do you know something? So was I.

-I know.

-Darling, we're the same generation.

-Yeah, we are.

So back then, in '52, how would you have arrived here in Cornwall?

When I was with the school,

we came over. And we'd get to here and then we'd get on a bus.

So it would have been a bus something like this one?

-Oh, my goodness.

-Here it is.

An original 1952 bus.

SHE LAUGHS

Which would have taken a whole load of us screaming schoolkids

off to an adventure.

Yes! Oh, yes.

So let's get on board.

# We're all going on a summer holiday. #

On the south coast of England, Mount Edgcumbe Country Park

sits on the Rame Peninsula.

It's on the border between Cornwall and Devon

and across the River Tamar from the city of Plymouth.

It's nearly 900 acres of beautiful lawns, gardens and woodland

and is also home to the Grade 1 listed Mount Edgcumbe House,

which was formerly the seat of earls and countesses.

This area is known as Cornwall's forgotten corner,

but still attracts thousands of visitors every year.

Today, I'm taking Angela back to relive that memorable holiday,

when she set off with her school chums for a week away from home...

Oh. That's the taste of childhood.

..leaving behind the port of Plymouth

for a countryside adventure.

With our jam jars and our nets

and our bare feet in rock pools like this, having the time of our lives.

'And I'll find out just how formative

'this first childhood vacation was for Angela.'

From that holiday, I got that sense of adventure,

I got the curiosity, and I think that's probably what stayed with me.

Before any holiday truly begins,

first you must set out on a journey.

Whether by plane, train or automobile,

we've all experienced those hours of anticipation,

just waiting to get to the promised destination you've been dreaming of.

In the years following the Second World War,

holidays were very different to today.

Back then, less than half of us could afford one

so there were no low-cost airline trips to the Mediterranean

for our Angela.

When she hopped off the ferry with her school friends in 1952,

an original '50s bus, like this one,

whisked them away for a week of fun and activities in a summer camp.

So, does this take you back to 1952?

Well, it does, and even beyond that

because I was born in the city of Plymouth,

which during the war, was bombed.

Right, yes.

It was blitzed by the Germans. And my family were not wealthy -

we were like most people in Plymouth,

struggling after the war, very poor.

We couldn't actually afford to go on holiday anywhere,

so we used to go on day trips.

And then going to primary school

-and suddenly to have the opportunity to go to a camp, a holiday camp.

-Yes.

That was the excitement.

So getting on a bus, as we would have done like this,

with all the screaming schoolkids, you know, say 40 of us in the back,

sitting with our little suitcases...

-Singing along.

-Singing along.

-Without our parents.

-Wow!

-That was the thing - without Mum and Dad.

That was the adventure.

So we're going to Maker Camp.

Now, what am I going to look forward to seeing?

My memory is that it was a lot of sort of wooden huts

that did look like an army camp.

-I mean, it was basic.

-Did you have a scrapbook?

Did you keep a diary?

Were you writing things about your time at Maker Camp?

No, I wasn't.

I suppose, although I never knew I was going to be

a television journalist

because, you know, again, living in the West Country,

poor family background, the thought of working on television

was not something that would have gone into my head.

I wanted to be a photojournalist and fortunately,

I've been born with almost a photographic memory.

So my diary, Len, is up here.

I actually have pictures in my mind.

Stories, words, situations are all in my mind.

So no, I didn't keep a scrapbook at all, no.

The journey from the dock to the camp took just 15 minutes,

but by the time Angela arrived, excitement was at fever pitch.

We're nearly here at Maker Camp. Have you been back since 1952?

Good Lord, no. It was a one-off holiday. Never been since.

Oh, look! It's just as I remember.

Corrugated iron huts. Look at that.

SHE LAUGHS

Back in 1952, Great Britain was a very different place.

It was the last time we had a king.

George VI reigned for 14 years

and was just 56 when he passed away in his sleep.

After 12 years, our national drink

was no longer subject to wartime rationing.

At that time, the UK consumed almost a third

of the entire world's tea production.

Talking of big productions, Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap

started its run at the New Ambassadors Theatre in London,

a play that still runs to the present day, over 60 years later.

And 1952 saw the introduction of the music charts.

The country had its first-ever number one hit single!

American crooner Al Martino made history with...

# Here in my heart I'm alone and so lonely. #

# And stay here... #

He had to fight off competition for the coveted spot

from Nat King Cole and national hero Vera Lynn.

To begin Angela's Holiday Of Her Lifetime,

I've brought her to the place it all began - Maker Camp.

It was a former outpost for American soldiers in World War II,

but after the war,

it was transformed for use as a summer camp for children,

and Angela took full advantage.

Here we are. Can you manage?

-Look at the view from here.

-The view.

Can you imagine a gang of kids getting off a coach,

coming up here and saying, "Come and look at this"?

Coming out of Plymouth, 1952...

They'd kind of, I think, started rebuilding the city.

But coming out of that, never having been away from Mum and Dad before.

Freedom!

-You've arrived and you know you've got a whole week.

-I know.

A whole week away from Mum and Dad with your mates, in the sunshine,

on holiday. What's not to like?

I'd love to have a little look.

-Shall we go inside and see what it's like?

-See if it's changed.

Well, I hope it has.

SHE LAUGHS

Part of the magic of any childhood holiday

is the excitement of staying somewhere new.

In 1952, Angela and her classmates stayed on site

in one of five converted Nissen huts.

Each hut had 20 iron beds

and the boys and girls slept in separate dorms.

Angela hasn't been back in over 60 years.

Oh, my gosh!

So this would have been it?

This would have been it.

Iron bedsteads. Oh, yes, I remember this.

Oh!

-Oh, not too bad actually.

-There you are.

-Not too bad.

Do you remember which bed you slept in?

I know I was on... Coming in, I was on the left-hand side.

-I would have been down here somewhere.

-Right.

I know I was kind of in the middle,

because we came with our teacher, Mrs Adams,

and like a lot of teachers at that time,

she had her favourites, and I was not one of them.

But when we came here,

we had to make our own beds. And I shall never forget...

Actually, it was a lesson well learned.

..that I made my bed, and Mrs Adams

went round like the regimental sergeant major,

you know, looking at that.

"Rippon!

"What have you done?" she said.

-And I had just sort of pushed it round.

-Yeah, pushed it all in.

And she said, "No, hospital corners,"

and I learnt how to do hospital corners, and I've done it ever since.

The bed-making technique of hospital corners

is common in boarding schools and the military

as well as hospitals.

It involves folding sheets tightly and neatly

in order to make the bed presentable to look at

and comfortable to lie in.

-I'll have a go at this one.

-And I'll have a go at this one.

-OK.

And we'll compare.

I wish Mrs Adams was still around, cos she could decide...

She could decide who did the best hospital corners? Yeah.

I tell you why it sticks in my memory.

Not only because I had to learn how to do this,

but also because I was halfway down and I really was...

She sort of made an exhibition of me.

Oh, she said, "This is how not to do it."

Oh, she shouted at me. Oh, gosh, yes, didn't I get shouted at?

Cos what I did was...

Cos I came in never having done it, I just went like that, you see.

And she said, "Rippon, do it again!"

And then showed me how to do it.

And I've never forgotten.

I still do all the sheets in the house at home...

When I'm making the bed, I still have to do hospital corners,

Len, just like that.

Still do it.

'Who'd have thought it?

'TV's golden girl getting told off by her teacher!'

Angela grew up in Plymouth,

born into the rubble of the Second World War.

Food was rationed, money was scarce

and much of the city had been destroyed by German bombers,

so escaping the war-torn ruins must have been a great relief.

Plymouth, a bit like where I grew up in the East End,

did take the full brunt of the Blitz.

It was absolutely flattened, absolutely flattened.

We had the dockyard, we had the Navy here, the Army, the Air Force.

We were a prime target.

I can remember walking around the city, with my father

walking me up through what is now Royal Parade,

and that was all flattened,

walking me into St Andrews Church, which is...

We always think of it as the parish church of the city of Plymouth.

..a beautiful, beautiful old building.

It was completely destroyed in the war. Lost its roof, lost everything.

And very famously,

a schoolteacher found a piece of wood,

which had been one of the beams presumably,

and with chalk, as a teacher,

she wrote "resurgam", which is Latin for...

-"Rise again."

-"..I will rise again."

And she put it in front of the church. And it was a sort of...

That really sort of summed up the spirit,

I think, of the people of Plymouth.

"We don't care that these bombs are coming

"and absolutely trying to beat us into submission.

"We will rise again."

And the church did. And in fact,

that's the church that I was married in.

These days, Maker Camp is a residential community centre.

But back in the '50s and '60s,

it was a place for children to let their hair down,

as local girl and former Plymouth councillor Gloria Bragg recalls.

The boys were

up to all their tricks.

They were away on holiday as well.

And they decided that they would spook the girls,

trick the girls.

They used to make noises like it would be an owl or a fox or a dog,

everything. They would do that.

They would have a bang on the windows and run away.

But it was all part of fun.

Night-times, we would make sure, the teacher would go away and say,

"Goodnight, girls," and, "See you in the morning.

"You'd better go to bed early and have a nice rest after today."

And we would jump on the beds and we would have pillow fights.

And we had the best pillow fights and we were jumping around the beds.

We were really having some fun.

And my head was pretty sore at that time because, don't forget,

the pillows at that time, they were real feathers

and they were pretty hard.

No holiday experience is complete without sampling the local food.

The memories of those tastes,

smells and textures stay with us forever.

Angela came to Maker Camp just seven years

after the end of World War II.

Millions of Britons had grown up with food rationing,

and basic provisions that we now take for granted

were seen as treats.

-Well, this looks like a typical 1952 feast.

-It does, doesn't it?

-When did rationing end?

-'54, I think.

'54, so it was rationing, yeah. This would have been staple food.

And I don't think you'd have got as much butter as that.

-No, nothing like that.

-You'd have got the loaf.

-Yes.

-Jam.

-Got the bread and the jam.

-Yeah, mums used to make jam.

And I'll tell you what we used to have -

lettuce leaves with sugar on them. Oh, that was luxury.

So I'm going to go for a nice slice of bread and jam.

Are you going to do the same

or are you going to go for the lettuce and sugar sandwich?

-I think I'm going to have the lettuce and the sugar.

-Go on, then.

-Piece of bread.

-Yeah, piece of bread.

-Cut it in half then.

-Yes.

And I'm not going to have the butter

cos I have an intolerance of dairy foods now, unfortunately.

When I was little, I could eat anything. Anything.

And of course, being in the West Country

with all the wonderful dairy products down here,

we used to have clotted cream on everything -

on the cornflakes, everything.

'There was no clotted cream at Maker Camp, though.

'Instead, Angela is having her favourite childhood meal,

'although I can't say it sounds too appetising.

'Lettuce and sugar? Oh, no!'

What's it like?

Oh, that's the taste of childhood.

Have a bit of it. Remember there's no butter on it.

That's all right.

That's all right because it doesn't matter. You don't actually need it.

Here we go.

I would imagine that all different areas,

you basically fed your kids what was in ready supply.

-What you could afford.

-And what you could afford.

-Mm.

-Yeah.

-It's lovely.

-Not bad, is it, Len?

-No.

-Lettuce and sugar.

We lived with my grandparents until I was about six, I think.

-He would have grown lettuce in the back garden...

-Yeah.

..because he would have grown lettuce, tomatoes.

-We had chickens in the back garden.

-We had chickens.

We had chickens. And, you know, if I was naughty,

I used to hide in the chicken coop.

-You and the eggs.

-Yeah, right up the back.

Despite its proximity to bomb-damaged Plymouth,

Mount Edgcumbe in the early '50s

must have felt a world away to children like Angela.

So, growing up, money was tight.

Did that spur you on to want to get out of that?

I don't think money was then, or is now,

the driving force in my life.

I tell you what was.

My dad bought me a little Box Brownie camera.

And in fact, I brought it here, to Maker Camp.

And it had a white plastic thing on the top,

you know, to wind the film.

From the age of about six or seven, I took photographs,

and still do in fact,

and I wanted to be a photographer.

Then I wanted to be a photojournalist,

and that was my ambition.

I'd seen an advertisement in the local newspaper

for a job in the photographic department of the newspaper,

and I applied for that and got the job, and that was it.

And I did two years of photography

and then joined the local Sunday newspaper as a journalist,

photojournalist.

I suspect it all came from that little plastic camera

that my dad gave me that I actually brought here

and remember taking photographs.

I wish I could find some of the pictures that I had taken!

But that was my first camera.

The city of Plymouth, and the surrounding areas,

is very popular with British holidaymakers.

Over four million visits every year.

There's so much to enjoy here, and I've chosen ten of my favourites.

Plymouth is brimming with historical reminders

of its military past.

The Crownhill Fort was built in the 1860s

to repel any potential French invasion.

At the time, its moat and ramparts were seen as advanced.

And today, it serves partly as a museum,

open to the public once a month.

Older still is the Merchant's House,

a 16th-century building still standing tall.

A former home to mayors and other wealthy locals,

this mostly limestone house was restored in the 1970s

and now serves as a museum.

On the waterfront, sits one of the best outdoor

swimming pools in Europe -

the Art Deco Tinside Lido opened in 1935,

allowing swimmers to comfortably bathe in the sea water.

Despite falling into neglect, it's undergone a recent renovation

back to its former glories, and is open from May to September.

Plymouth has a proud reputation for seafaring.

It was from here that Sir Francis Drake embarked

with the English fleet

to defeat the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Plymouth prodigy, Chris Robinson,

knows all about this great British hero.

The story of Drake is a fun one, really,

because people have got it wrong down the years.

The Armada was sighted, and somebody came running to tell him.

And he was playing bowls.

But Drake would have known the state of the tide

and he knew his ships were ready,

so he knew that there was no chance of him moving out of the harbour

for at least a couple of hours, so he said,

"I'm going to finish my game of bowls,

"then I'll deal with the Spanish Armada."

And thankfully,

he did deal with it effectively, and we're not speaking Spanish today.

Hooray.

Mount Edgcumbe sits atop the Rame Peninsula,

looking across the Plymouth Sound.

Three miles to the south lie the coastal villages

Kingsand and Cawsand.

With three beaches between them,

this is where Angela and her school friends

came in search of adventure in 1952.

Now I'm bringing her back to Kingsand

to see if this is where

she discovered her thirst for knowledge.

-This is lovely.

-It's pretty, isn't it?

-It's really pretty.

-This is classic kind of Cornish fishing village.

-Yeah.

-Tiny little roads, never built for cars, of course.

-Of course not.

And all these lovely little cottages.

-Charming, isn't it?

-Yeah, charming is the word.

There we go. There's the sea. And the little beach.

It's absolutely fabulous.

A small sand and shingle beach appears at low tide

and fascinating rock pools are revealed

to inquisitive young holidaymakers like eight-year-old Angela

all those years ago.

They're doing exactly what we used to do

when we came down here to Kingsand and Cawsand.

They've got their nets, they're in a little rock pool

and seeing what they can find.

Look at that little boy out there, look, with a net.

We used to do all of that.

Isn't it lovely that we can see kids doing what

we used to do 50 years ago,

still getting pleasure out of it?

Not sitting at home with their laptops and this,

that and the other. It's great.

I'm going to roll my trousers up

because we might get a bit wet down here.

Actually, of course, we would have taken our shoes off.

And I can see you now - 1952, all you little girls,

with your frocks tucked into your knickers.

Oh, yeah, with our jam jars and our nets

and our bare feet in rock pools like this, having the time of our lives.

This little pool, it's actually quite...

Look, we've got lots of little winkle shells down here.

-And these are all live.

-Live winkle.

-Little live winkles.

-We used to have them Sundays.

-Yeah?

-Yeah, round my nan's.

Tiny, tiny little shells. I can't see any sea anemones.

Look at these. Look at these little limpets stuck.

-Limpets.

-Not coming off.

Look at that. Solid.

Do you think that was the start of your being inquisitive

-and wanting to find out things?

-Probably.

It was being out in the country, bird-watching,

being able to say, "Oh, look, there's a woodpecker,

"that's a...whatever,"

you know, "tree creeper or a starling or whatever."

-Yeah.

-I tell you what it also was.

It was part of my love of the countryside

and natural history.

Angela's parents encouraged her interest in the natural world.

She was very close to her father, who was away from home

fighting in the war for the first three years of her life.

Was you a bit of a daddy's girl?

Very much so because my father was a Royal Marine, as I said,

very much a macho man,

and my mum couldn't have any children after me, so I was the only one.

But my dad imparted to me

a lot of the things that he would have done to a son -

things like standing up for yourself, self-reliance, believing in yourself,

all of those things, which haven't half stood me in good stead

working in television, I can tell you.

So, there you were, one of the first female journalists

ever to be on the news, the proper nationwide news.

Did you get advice from your dad?

My very first day in television was at BBC Plymouth.

My father said to me, "When you look at the camera, talk to me.

"Just pretend I'm the camera."

And my dad was so right,

because I've now spent 48 years talking to my dad.

He was a special guy, my dad.

Tourism is a major industry here in the southwest of England.

In Plymouth alone, visitors spend over £250 million

every year exploring this historic naval city.

Sailors have always been well-catered for down here,

and the city is home to the oldest gin distillery in the world -

Black Friars.

This 18th-century building once produced more gin

than anywhere else on earth, and now hosts distilling demonstrations.

Older still, the Minerva pub

has been serving for over 450 years.

It's said that Sir Francis Drake himself drank here.

And the building's wooden framing is taken from the Spanish Armada

he helped to defeat.

Nine miles outside the city is an altogether different attraction.

On the edge of Dartmoor, in 33 acres of woodland,

is a family-owned zoo.

It's home to a lion, tigers and even a bear,

and was featured in the 2011 film We Bought A Zoo.

Without doubt, the main attraction at Mount Edgcumbe

is the Grade 1 listed house and its spectacular gardens.

Angela didn't come here with her school,

but she did come with her parents,

a time which holds some very precious memories,

so I'm taking her back in style.

All aboard!

Come on, Andrew!

So, Angela, you used to go off to Edgcumbe House.

As a day trip, yes. It was so easy, you see.

Come over on the ferry, walk up that lovely driveway to the house,

have a picnic in the grounds and then walk around the headland

and, if you were really energetic, come as far as Kingsand and Cawsand.

This place holds such formative memories for Angela,

the eight-year-old girl who grew into a national treasure.

Now I want to know how she's managed to transform herself

so many times through almost 50 years on our TV screens.

Well, you're certainly one of those people that loves

to spread their wings.

You've done so many different things. Why is that?

I always think, Len, I've been uniquely privileged

that... "I'm a broadcaster," I always say,

"and not a nanocaster, I'm a broadcaster."

But I've been given the opportunity as a broadcaster

and a communicator

to work on everything from Top Gear...

I was the first presenter of that on national television.

..Come Dancing, of course, What's My Line?

Of course, now using my journalistic skills in consumer affairs

as one of the presenters on Rip-Off Britain on the BBC.

The first time I really saw you spread your wings

was when you came away from the news desk

onto that fantastic Morecambe and Wise programme.

That was enormous fun, it really was,

and a huge compliment because, of course, at the time,

Eric and Ern were THE names on British television.

And to be asked to do that

sort of plum spot at the end of their Christmas special,

that was such an accolade when you think of all the people

that did it before me -

like Andre Previn, Elton John - big, big names.

So to be asked to do it was huge

and such a compliment.

And weren't they just the loveliest people to work with?

Set within nearly 900 acres,

Mount Edgcumbe House was built in the middle of the 16th century

and has been the seat of seven earls.

Thanks, Andrew. Thanks for bringing us back in the bus. There we go.

'Angela first came here as a young girl

'and hasn't been back in over 20 years

'so I've arranged for manager Ian Berry

'to give us a special tour of this splendid building.'

-This is fascinating.

-It's lovely, isn't it?

I guess back in '52,

because there'd been a lot of damage during the war,

it wasn't quite how we see it now.

No, it was not.

It had been severely damaged

-and in fact caught fire, didn't it, Ian?

-It did.

And there was no roof.

-We're talking about a building what, Tudor?

-Tudor building.

Stood all that time and then the German bombers came along

and puff - off it went.

Two small incendiary bombs on the roof burned through the roof,

set fire to it all.

There was a big wing just along here.

That all went up in smoke and it was left as a shell.

And my first real kind of memory of this place

was coming here with my parents and getting bored on a Sunday afternoon.

And I came up and snuck through the wire

to where I shouldn't be,

to come in and kind of explore all around the garden,

which is over there to the other side of the house,

and I was having a great time.

I thought, "I'm here and there's nobody else here."

And then I saw a lady in the garden over there with a hat

and secateurs and a trug,

and I thought, "I'm going to be caught,"

and I just hightailed it out of here and went back down there

and thought that would be the last time I'd ever go into the house,

but of course it wasn't.

'After being devastated in the Second World War,

'this magnificent house has been restored

'in a classic 18th-century neo-Georgian style.'

-Look at this.

-Wow.

-Isn't it lovely?

-Fantastic.

-And I suppose, when you was a young girl, there was no roof.

-No, no.

-When I was little and came here, the roof was gone, wasn't it, Ian?

-Yeah.

It was just a shell then. And they started a rebuild in the 1950s,

which in itself is a fascinating story.

-We need to look at this painting up here.

-Oh, right.

This is of Kenelm Edgcumbe and his wife, Lillian.

Kenelm was the Sixth Earl of Mount Edgcumbe

and it was Kenelm who had the inspiration to rebuild the house.

The family had been through a pretty rough time.

Their son had been killed at Dunkirk.

The house had burnt down in 1941.

The Fifth Earl died in 1944.

That's when Kenelm came into the title.

So that's the lady I saw

in the garden with the secateurs and the trug.

-That's the one, Lillian.

-Fantastic.

'Just being in such grandeur is making me feel kind of regal.

'I could see myself as the lord of the manor here.'

-I tell you what, Len.

-What?

-Talk about Fred and Ginger.

-We've got the steps.

-Oh, yes.

-We've got the ballroom.

We could have our little dance, couldn't we?

SHE LAUGHS

-We can just...

-We can go across, can't we?

We can just swan across.

THEY LAUGH

Angela's television career began in 1966,

when, aged 21, she worked as a news reporter for BBC South West.

She returned to Edgcumbe House

to make a film about the restoration of the gardens here.

Now I've done some digging, and dusted down the old film

that Angela hasn't seen for nearly 40 years.

Ah. Vivaldi.

I know what you're going to show.

Well, just sit back and enjoy it.

The beauty of the house was so widespread

that it was claimed as prize in war.

'We were told that the Duke of Medina,

'who commanded the Spanish Armada,'

had decided that Mount Edgcumbe would be his home

after he conquered the British fleet.

-It's fantastic.

-Good Lord.

So, how long is it since you've seen that footage?

Oh, Len, I haven't seen that probably since I made the film,

which would have been, what, in the late '60s.

-Really?

-Yes.

And you talk about having a photographic memory.

That piece to camera I did from memory.

-There was no autocue in those days.

-No, of course not.

Now, going on to your time as a newsreader,

one of the ventures that you went into

was TV-am with four others.

It was a revolution and there was so much, I remember, criticism.

-"News in the morning?"

-"On telly?"

-"On telly? No, we can't have that."

We were actually...

It was me, Anna Ford, Robert Kee,

Michael Parkinson and David Frost.

We were the famous five.

The ratings battles between rival breakfast shows

made headline news in the '80s,

but TVam struggled to win viewers

and was mired in internal politics,

leading to difficult times for its under-pressure presenters.

Anna Ford and I were very publicly sacked,

which was...

Did that knock my confidence?

I thought that was the end of my broadcasting career, I really did.

But I was given the opportunity to go and work for CBS in Boston

as their arts and entertainments correspondent.

I went to America, absolutely on a flyer for a year.

From then on, I've just continued to work in television.

And I actually think, in a very funny way,

rather like this building that we're in,

that, you know, Mount Edgcumbe House,

like a phoenix, rose from the ashes from that destruction,

that from that moment of destruction, actually going to America

and working on American television for CBS for a year

was one of the best things that could have happened to me.

And it wouldn't have happened had it not been for the debacle at TV-am.

It could have destroyed me, but it didn't.

It actually, out of the ashes,

gave me an opportunity to do something quite different,

and 48 years later, still be here, working in television.

You know, the thing is, you turned

-a negative into a positive.

-Into a positive.

And just like that little eight-year-old, you know,

if you fall over, you get up,

-you dust yourself off and you start...

-Yes.

Pick yourself up.

BOTH: You dust yourself off and you start all over again.

The house and gardens at Mount Edgcumbe

date back nearly 500 years.

But today, I've roped in Richard Toy

to help me find a more modern way

to enjoy these peaceful surroundings.

-Look out.

-Hey?

-That's smooth.

-That's what you call a pair of wheels.

-That is, isn't it? Yeah.

-Excellent.

-Are we going to go on one of these?

-Absolutely.

-Yeah.

-Oh right.

-Let's give it a go.

'These things look a bit too nippy for me.

'I'll wait and see how Angela gets on.'

Richard, I want you to watch both of us individually.

I want you to decide which one is the more elegant.

I'll score you out of ten if you'd like.

I would like that, please. And don't start all that seven business.

All right, let's get you started.

So when you're ready, two hands on the handlebars. There you go.

Just place one foot on for the moment.

Lift yourself up with your leg onto the second foot platform.

There you go. You might wobble around a little bit.

You're a pro already.

As you start to lean forward, you're going to start to crawl.

Excellent. When you lean back slightly... And then you'll stop.

-Oh, no.

-Do we have The Blue Danube?

-No. You're showing off now.

I don't think I need to have a go, Richard, really.

I think Angela has shown us. Whoa! Hey!

Well, I have to say, you picked that up really quickly.

Marks out of ten?

It would have to be at least a nine. Let's make that 9.5.

-Not bad for a novice.

-Absolutely.

-You going to have a go?

-Well, yes, I am.

-Go for a ten?

-I'm going for a ten.

-Going for a ten.

Let's see a supreme performance.

-Start leaning your entire body...

-No, don't. I don't like it. No.

Oh, no, give over. Why is it going over there?

-You're steering it that way.

-I don't mess about. Here I go.

I must be doing three miles an hour now.

See if you can stop right there.

-Stop right there?

-Stop right there.

-Perfect.

-Where are you going?

-Shut up.

-No, I'm going to dismount.

-OK.

Ten for Len or not?

Not quite, no. It was nearly a nine.

-I must say, Angela, you did have a more professional approach.

-Did I?

-Yes.

-They're fun!

-They are fun.

-They're a lot of fun, absolutely.

-Can I have another go?

-Yes, of course you can.

-Want a lift, Len?

Carry on.

That's the trouble -

Angela is good at everything.

She is.

She's humiliated me in front of millions of people. Look at her now.

Look at her. Look at her go.

-SHE LAUGHS

-Shut up, Angela.

SHE LAUGHS

Plymouth and the surrounding area has a wealth of history

that keeps millions of tourists coming every year.

Visitors can climb aboard one of these Segways

for a guided adventure 300 feet to the top of Mount Edgcumbe.

The vista from the summit is spectacular,

with views across the Plymouth Sound and the River Tamar.

The best way to get about the city is by hiring a bike.

Cyclists can head to the waterfront,

and take in the Grade 1 listed Royal William Yard,

or the Mayflower Steps,

where America's Founding Fathers set off on a voyage of discovery.

Plymouth has been home to the Royal Navy for over 300 years,

and many have died in defence of the country.

Completed in 1924, the spectacular Naval War Memorial

commemorates the lives of over 23,000 personnel lost in battle.

And the most iconic attraction has to be Smeaton's Tower.

This 18th-century lighthouse stood 72 feet high

and was originally lit with just 24 candles.

Now visitors can now climb the 93 steps

to witness spectacular views across the Plymouth Sound.

Angela Rippon has had a most prolific and varied career.

She's brought us the news. She's travelled far and wide.

And she's even done a spot of dancing.

Her time spent on Mount Edgcumbe helped shape

that wide-eyed eight-year-old into the national treasure we know today.

But I want to know the secret to her success.

Well, your career has spanned getting on for 50 years.

What is the secret to longevity?

Well, I don't actually know.

I always feel that my theme song

should be the one from Follies, Stephen Sondheim -

I'm Still Here. Don't ask me how.

I hope it's because people quite like working with me.

I hope it's because the viewers

enjoy the kind of programmes that I get involved in.

Or maybe it's just because I'm stubborn and won't go away.

THEY BOTH LAUGH

Well, you know, of all those things, and the list is endless -

documentaries, quiz shows, Come Dancing, on and on,

newsreader - what one has given you the most pleasure

or which one are you most proud of?

I think probably...

When I get young women coming up to me

and saying, "You were my role model," when I was reading the news.

"You were the person that made me

"want to get into journalism or broadcasting."

That, I think, is what gives me...

I get kind of tingly just talking about it now.

I think that probably makes me...

I feel good about that.

Of all the people you have interviewed,

who has been the one that has impressed you the most

and was just fantastic?

Oh, I tell you who is quite outstanding for a lot of reasons -

Yul Brynner. I was a fan of Yul Brynner since I can't remember.

That voice, sexiest voice on the silver screen.

And to actually meet him and interview him

and get an interview towards the end of his life

when he knew he was dying of cancer,

the things that he said stayed with me forever.

How do you think your holiday in 1952

has helped you to become the person that you are today?

I think probably from that holiday, I got that sense of adventure,

I got the curiosity. And I also knew,

because it was the first holiday I'd ever had away from my parents,

a proper holiday,

to stand on my own two feet and to trust my judgement

and to be able to go out and do things on my own.

-Yeah, not to be afraid.

-No.

And I think that is probably what stayed with me.

'It's been an honour to take Angela back to a place

'which holds such very special memories...'

Oh, look! It's just as I remember.

'..reliving the times she spent here as a schoolgirl 60 years ago...'

I'm going to roll my trousers up cos we might get wet down here.

'..and seeing that a few things have changed in all that time.'

That's the taste of childhood.

'It's clear that Mount Edgcumbe

'is still a very special place for Angela even now.'

-I've got a little gift for you. Don't get excited.

-Right. Oh.

Here we go.

What's this?

This is Holiday Of My Lifetime With Len Goodman.

It's a little keepsake of memories of our time together.

'A photo album capturing all the fun we've had

'on a wonderful day together.'

I tell you why that's really brilliant, Len.

I cannot find any photographs at all of that original holiday in 1952.

So to have this, reliving it with you as my mate,

as my companion,

is really, really special.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

-The excitement hasn't finished.

-Oh, my goodness. Can I take any more?

Because when we were watching the film of you,

you said, "I'd love to have that."

-Oh, my gosh, there it is.

-There it is.

There's the film. Good heavens above.

Me at Mount Edgcumbe.

Oh, Len, the old film can.

There's not a film in there.

Oh, it's a DVD. Oh, thanks.

That's Christmas and birthday all rolled into one. Oh, thank you.

So that's Mount Edgcumbe.

Wonderful beaches, spectacular gardens, breathtaking views

and historic hall - all in one spot.

No wonder it's a place that means so much to Angela Rippon.