Life's What You Make It

by Phillip Schofield

  I was waved through and pointed in the direction of the main reception. I knew my way. There was the iconic John Piper mosaic on the wall. I waited for a few minutes, watching the hustle and bustle, until I was collected and taken up to meet Pat Hubbard in his office on the fifth floor. He told me what they were planning and that it had never been done before. He also told me that the idea was being met with resistance from a number of different areas, but ‘Fuck ’em!’ He was very blunt. After an initial chat, he introduced me to his deputy, Stuart Dewey, and I was led to Presentation, where I would audition in front of a camera.

  If the way to Hogwarts is the magical platform 9¾, then the way to Presentation was a magical 4½. We walked to the stairs in the South Hall. I’ve always thought that the cantilevered staircase in the South Hall is a work of art, with its apparently suspended dogleg stairs. Thankfully, after most of the building was made residential and reopened in 2017, the staircase was left intact.

  On all the floors in the South Hall there was nothing behind the lifts, except on the fourth floor, where, to the left of the lifts, was another, smaller set of steps that took us behind the lifts, and at the top was a door. I had not discovered this secret part of the building during my previous adventure. Pat explained that this was the home of Presentation, the unsung department of the BBC that was responsible for playing out all the shows on both BBC1 and BBC2 and all the bits between them. It was Presentation who ensured that the Six o’Clock News started at exactly that time. As we walked down the corridor, he pointed out a door to a gallery on the right with an announcer’s ‘continuity booth’ at the far end, which was the brain of BBC1 Presentation. A door on the left of the corridor led to a similar set-up for BBC2. At the end of the corridor were two small studios. The one on the left was ‘Pres A’, where the weather forecast was transmitted from. It was from there that Michael Fish would say in 1987 that a woman had phoned the BBC, concerned that there was a hurricane coming. He assured her and everyone watching that there wasn’t. That night, the great storm ravaged Britain, and Sevenoaks became Oneoak. Next to ‘Pres A’ was, unsurprisingly, ‘Pres B’. This was used mostly for recording graphics to go into trailers and promos, but it was also the home of The Old Grey Whistle Test, where ‘Whispering Bob’ Harris played host to some of the greatest musical names in the world. We turned right and I found myself in an emergency gallery which was usually ‘dark’ and stood waiting in case either of the other two broke down. On a tripod in the corner was a small TV camera with a chair in front of it.

  Pat asked me to imagine that I was introducing the various children’s programmes that day and gave me a copy of the Radio Times so I could see what they were. He said each link should be thirty seconds to a minute, and that was it. Pat and Stuart left me to prep for five minutes or so, then Pat popped his head back in to tell me I could begin when I was ready. He then disappeared back to wherever they were watching me from and I set about introducing the shows for the day.

  Nothing was said after I’d completed my audition, they just chatted politely as I was led to the lifts.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ said Pat.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me,’ I replied.

  Down to the ground floor, out of the South Hall lifts, past the golden statue of Helios and through the ‘Doughnut’ I walked, out into the August sunshine. The next day, Pat Hubbard changed my life.

  It was morning when the phone in my flat rang. It was Russ. Could I pop over to the office? Many agents/managers would impart important information over the phone, but we were a team, we were all friends, they wanted to see my face.

  I drove to Ibis Lane, knocked and waited. Pete opened the door.

  ‘Come in, matey.’

  Pete and I both walked up to the office. Russ was behind his desk and I stood there, looking at them both.

  ‘You’ve got it, mate! You’ve bloody got it!’ Pete shouted.

  The three of us cheered, we hugged, we had a celebratory drink and I phoned my folks. It had happened: my dreams had finally come true. Thirteen years after my ten-year-old self had typed the first of many letters to the BBC, I was now a presenter for them.

  My first job was to talk to the programme controller at Capital Radio. I told him that I had just been offered a job on BBC1, but I hoped that wouldn’t be a problem. He informed me that it was indeed a problem. I couldn’t work for both Capital and the BBC; it would be a hideous conflict of interests.

  ‘But,’ I explained, ‘you’re asking me to choose between presenting every afternoon on the telly and presenting a couple of weekend graveyard shifts for you.’

  ‘Yes, that is a tricky dilemma,’ he agreed.

  I told him that I was going to take the TV job and he apologized for having to let me go. Candyfloss and a radio show – not a bad collection of sackings to have on my CV. I should perhaps have been more upset to lose my radio job, but although I would miss the handovers with Kenny, on the whole, it was pretty unfulfilling. I was playing terrible music in the middle of the night to practically no one other than an insomniac controller, and I couldn’t be remotely creative. Also the studio didn’t have a window that looked out on to an extinct volcano. In the balance of things, to be the first live in-vision presenter on the BBC in a generation certainly had the edge!

  ‘How did the Capital meeting go?’ asked Russ on the phone later that day.

  ‘They fired me.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The next couple of weeks were blissfully frantic. I had publicity shots taken, I did interviews for the press and we set up the new ‘Children’s BBC’ office. My producer was Ian Stubbs. We were in the circular section of the ‘Doughnut’ on the fifth floor. Pat Hubbard’s office was along the corridor. Our full team was only me and Ian, and we were a few doors down, in a little spur corridor opposite the office of the weather presenters. Bill Giles, Michael Fish, Ian McCaskill and John Kettley were always fun and friendly neighbours. Ian Stubbs was a great character and full of stories. He had previously worked as a cameraman, and though I think, looking back, those were the ‘golden’ years of TV for me, Ian had witnessed a far wilder BBC.

  My first publicity shot for the Broom Cupboard.

  The BBC club was a major hang-out for everyone. Far from the gaze of the public, everyone could let their hair down. I had been a member in my Broadcasting House days. There was a club in most buildings and, if you joined, you were a member of them all. No matter where a BBC employee or correspondent might be in the world, there was probably a BBC club nearby. They were relatively straightforward bars with a bit of food where everyone knew they were safe from the outside world and they were always buzzing with countless interesting people. A major presenter could get smashed and fall over and no one would ever tell. Mind you, that was before camera phones and online news. The one in Television Centre had a very appealing outside area overlooking the studio roofs. Ian told me that when he was a cameraman for Top of the Pops, one particular director would get crashingly drunk. As the countdown to the live show began, his friends would persuade him that he really should leave the bar and go to the gallery to direct his live show.

  As the studio waited to go live, the camera team, Ian among them, would be listening to their headphones to find out what state the director would be in. On more than one occasion, as the opening titles rolled, the gallery door would burst open and the director would fall through it and shout, ‘Okay, lads, away you go!’ That was the only direction they got. He fell asleep in his chair and they and the rest of the team made it up on the hoof.

  On 9 September 1985 at around three forty in the afternoon, I walked with Ian Stubbs from our office on the fifth floor to the Presentation gallery of BBC1 for my first broadcast. Everyone had wished me well, and the producers of the various shows I would introduce had sent good-luck messages. Everyone in both the Children’s Department and the Presentation Department was extremely nervous. This could be a terrible idea; it was extremely un-BBC. Live and unscripted, it had embarras
sment written all over it. Nothing like this had been done before and my face was going to be all over it. I should probably have been more nervous, but it was so huge, I was swept up in the excitement of not only creating something new but creating something new on BBC1.

  I was given two very strict instructions. Under no circumstances was I to press the button that would put the iconic spinning globe on air, and I was not to touch the button that would do the same to the BBC clock. The set-up was simple. In the booth, a small Ikegami camera had been bolted to the stack of monitors in front of the announcer’s control desk. Other than the two and a half hours we were on air, it would have a lens cap covering it. When I came in, the afternoon announcer would vacate the chair and I would take their place until five thirty. When I finished, after introducing Neighbours, I would place the lens cap back on the camera and the announcer would return to the chair to introduce the Six o’Clock News.

  At ten to four, the announcer, lovely Peter Bolgar, vacated the booth, the camera lens cap was removed and I selected the correct button on the desk to enable the camera to go live. A simple, tiny gesture – removing a piece of black plastic from a camera lens – but it was so much more, it opened up the black, glassy eye of the camera, a camera that could put me into every living room in the country. I sat in the chair and waited. At five to four, the cutting-edge computer-generated ident that had been specially created played. It looks shockingly dated now, but back then it was a revelation. For the first time, my face appeared on British television and the ‘Broom Cupboard’ entered television legend. Children’s BBC was born. Just the week before, it had been the stern, totally ‘correct’ invisible BBC announcer who had introduced the programmes; now it was an unrehearsed guy in questionable jumpers who took the nation’s children through their afternoon. Over the years, I watched ‘Children’s BBC’ be shortened to ‘CBBC’ (I wish I’d thought of that!). It grew, from my links, to Andy Crane and beyond, eventually having its own channel and non-stop broadcasts.

  I can’t remember a single moment of that very first day. It went by in a blur. But at 5.30 p.m. I vacated the chair, the announcer returned, the lens cap was replaced and normal service was resumed. I was euphoric: it had worked. All departments were thrilled. It had gone well. I hadn’t disgraced either myself or the BBC. In the coming two years, I would come close to doing both.

  The Broom Cupboard … my view.

  Pat Hubbard was extremely happy. If it had gone wrong, he would have carried the can, and I wouldn’t have wanted to make him angry! I had witnessed his explosive temper on a number of occasions. Mercifully, I was never directly in the firing line. I have, over time, described Pat as rude, bombastic, blustering, incredibly loud and outspoken. His fury would ignite over the smallest of things and his rage could be a terrifying tempest. If you didn’t know him, he could scare you rigid. I did know him, and so when he ‘went off’ I’d make myself scarce or sit quietly and wait for the storm to pass. And it did, as quickly as it had erupted. As a counterbalance to that side of him, this ‘father of the Broom Cupboard’ was incredibly kind to me. He was very protective and always open to new ideas and silliness. This was in

  contrast to the BBC as a whole, which, at the time, had one stock word: ‘No.’ For a centre of television, sometimes those further up the ladder made it very hard to actually make television. Could we do this? ‘No.’ Could we go here with a camera? ‘No.’ It always really annoyed Pat, though I have to admit some of our ideas weren’t necessarily fully thought through. One afternoon it snowed. Could I go out on to the roof of TC1 with a camera to ice-skate? ‘No.’ Pat was furious, until it was pointed out that there was no safety barrier or any kind of wall up there. If I skated too far, I would fly off the edge and on to the inner ring road far below. They had a point.

  So, my time in the Broom Cupboard got off to a great start, but I eventually found out that my new position had not been without controversy. Firstly, the Children’s Department didn’t like the fact that someone employed by Presentation would be introducing their programmes and that they had little or no control over what I said. Secondly, some people in the Presentation Department were unhappy that I would be presenting from the BBC1 continuity booth. It was, for some announcers, but by no means all, very much beyond the pale. An upstart twenty-three-year-old, in their booth – what had the BBC come to?

  There were mutterings that I had been a little disrespectful by calling the booth the ‘Broom Cupboard’ because it was so small. For me, it was a term of deep affection. Even now, I’m often stopped in the street by parents who remember watching me in the Broom Cupboard when they came home from school. Some of them are captains of industry now, and some of them have entered the worlds of television or advertising and employed me! As I was quickly discovered by the nation’s viewing children, they would send pictures and toys to our office, and I stuck them to a board that sat behind me. It forever amused me that, as I sat at home watching BBC1 and the solemn unseen announcer said, ‘There now follows a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the whatever Party,’ behind them would be a colourful array of pictures of Jimbo and the Jet Set and SuperTed, along with a stuffed orang-utan called Hogan.

  The mail was flooding in, so we hired a secretary because neither Ian nor I could keep up with it. Doreen Harden joined our team. She was and is one of the funniest, kindest and most delightful women I have ever had the pleasure of working with. She very quickly became a friend and has remained so ever since. She used to have ‘ladies’ evenings’, when all her friends from the Women’s Institute would gather at her house. Fellow presenter and my successor, Andy Crane, and I loved dropping by to surprise them. The grub was great, too.

  Doreen was also incredibly protective and I was shielded from any mail that was negative. Thankfully, as I understood it, little was – until the day I said on air that I didn’t like the dentist and hundreds of mothers wrote in to angrily berate me for giving their kids an excuse not to go. Sometimes I learned the hard way. It was a very fair reaction. Obviously,

  I didn’t have children at the time so occasionally I needed reminding of the influence I had and the trouble I could cause if I was careless with my words. I was also scolded for using the word ‘berk’ on children’s television. I had absolutely no idea of the origins of the word, but was horrified when I found out. (I bet you’re googling it right now.)

  Doreen Harden.

  Reunited years later with Doreen and her ‘supper club’ ladies, recreating the picture she is holding.

  One afternoon as Doreen was opening the mail she let out a chilling scream, which was unlike her. She had opened a letter and an entire bush of pubic hair fell into her lap. The fan in question had shaved herself for me and sent the proof. Ian and I were helpless with laughter, but Doreen said that she looked like she had a Bearskin cap in her lap.

  Even with Doreen on board, I still liked to open my mail myself if I could. Doing that led to a very unfortunate misunderstanding on one particular occasion. We had decided to have a badge of the day each afternoon, and the theme had to be a show on CBBC. The badges arrived in their hundreds. One day, I opened a letter from a gentleman who sweetly professed his undying love for me. He said that he was going to be out of the country for a fortnight, but when he returned, could I please give him a sign if I was interested. On a specific date, he asked if I could present CBBC wearing yellow for yes or red for no. It was a very kind letter, but it went in the bin and I forgot all about it. Over the course of that fortnight, the kids got wise to the fact that, as our camera was on a ‘locked-off’ shot and couldn’t zoom in, the bigger the badge, the more you could see it.

  Paul Daniels was presenting a show called Wizbit at the time about an alien magician. Wizbit was a yellow cone-shaped character. Totally by accident and in a twist of cruel coincidence, on the day the gentleman had specified, I wore an absolutely enormous yellow Wizbit badge that had been sent in. Two days later the letter arrived. He was overjoyed: he had seen the sign
. Would I please write back so that we could arrange to meet? I was mortified. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize that I never did write back.

  Each afternoon I replenished a cardboard box with letters and pictures that had been sent in. That box was a very important safety blanket. If a programme we were showing was on film and the film snapped down in the basement transmission suite, it could take a minute or two to fix it. For those two minutes, I would be expected to fill the time, which I did with letters and pictures from the box I carried from the office to the booth every day. It was also vital every Monday and Thursday when Blue Peter was being transmitted from downstairs in one of the big studios. The presenters didn’t wear earpieces back then so timings could be extremely haphazard. They could over-run, and we’d be frantically dropping everything we were going to do, or they could under-run and I would fill the spare time they had given me with letters from the box. The only hint that they were finishing was when the presenters all sat together on the sofa.

  ‘They’re gathering, here we go,’ our network director would say in my ear.

  One afternoon they dropped short by seven minutes and I read every letter in the box. Then I went to find the legendary and formidable editor of the show, Biddy Baxter. She was leaving the gallery and I caught up with her in the corridor. Biddy was incredibly short-sighted and I was practically nose to nose with her before she recognized me.

  ‘Dahhhling,’ she said. ‘You were magnificent.’ My irritation subsided at the praise from a BBC icon.

  ‘Is there any way you can help me out here, Biddy?’ I said. ‘Can I have any stuff from the show that would help me fill the time if you drop short?’

  ‘I would love that, darling. You’ll be like a fourth presenter.’

  Pat was extremely concerned about that final comment. I should have been, too.