“We’ll be going ‘Out Of Town’ with
Jack Hargreaves at 11.30 …”
Episode Three saw Warren rightly blowing our own local trumpet when we chatted about
the output of Southern TV.
Growing up
in Dorset in the 1970s, this was our station and many of their shows stick in
our memories. They produced a wide range of enjoyable programmes for children,
including ‘How’, ‘Freewheelers’, ‘Runaround’, ‘The Famous Five’, ‘The Saturday Banana’
and the sheer brilliance of ‘Worzel Gummidge’.
Although we have
covered ‘Worzel’ in Episode Ten, we could do pieces on any or all of the above.
At least one of them is on the shortlist for the future…
Southern had
all manner of talented people working for them – the above shows feature such
names as Jack Hargreaves, Fred Dinenage, Wendy Padbury, Mike Reid, Bill Oddie,
Jon Pertwee… And let us not forget Gary Russell memorably giving us his Dick.
But even on
the presenting front, there were legends such as Cliff Michelmore, Trevor ‘The
Weather’ Baker and Cyberleader par excellence Christopher Robbie.
Jack
Hargreaves, for example, is a fascinating figure. Best known to viewers as a
broadcaster well-versed in country matters (and arguably the inspiration for ‘The
Fast Show’s Bob Fleming) there’s much more to his story than just doing a ship
in a bottle every week.
…
Southern
started broadcasting on 30th August 1958 with its fantastic theme
music ‘Southern Rhapsody’ by Richard Addinsell, a piece later appropriated by
Nick Goodman for his tapezine ‘Rayphase Shift’. The station finally shut down
in the early hours of the 1st January 1982, to be replaced by TVS
(who were initially based in some Portakabins in Southern’s car park).
We don’t
tend to stay up very late for New Year’s Eve any more, but for the final evening
of 2017, we did watch part of Southern’s final show ‘And It’s Goodbye From Us’.
As the star logo faded into the night sky and flew off into the universe with a
poignant echo, I did feel more than a twinge of nostalgia…
(By Andrew Trowbridge)
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