Sunday 1 March 2015

105 The Record Breakers


First  watched :  1972

If  Rainbow's  Bungle  was  my  least  favourite   children's  character , Roy  Castle  was  my  most  hated  presenter. I  couldn't  abide  the  smarmy self-satisfied  manner, the  crocodile toothed  smile , playing  kettles  and  the  tap  dancing; even  his  protracted  public  demise  in  1994  failed  to  elicit  much  sympathy  from  me.

It  was  undoubtedly  a  good  idea.  A  show  based  on  The  Guinness  Book   of  Records  would    have  a  wow  factor  in  every  episode  and  there  were  frequent  attempts  at  creating  silly  new  records  - domino  toppling, things  like  that- in  the  studio. The  appalling  Mr  Castle  presented   with  frequent  handovers  to  the  Book's  compilers  the  McWhirter  twins  for  expert  commentary.

When  Ross  McWhirter  was  assassinated  by  the  IRA  in  1975  it  was a  great  shock  to  me. Why  on  earth  would  they  target  a  kids  TV  personality  ?  What  I  didn't  realise  at  the  time  was  that  the  twins  were  extreme  right  wing  nutters . Ross  in  particular  had  talked  of  military  coups  and  gone  off  on  one  about  Ulster,  offering  a  reward  for  informants  and  calling  for  restrictions  on  the  Irish  community in  England, although  the  practicalities  of  how  you'd  police  such  a  huge  operation  don't  seem  to  have  occurred  to  him. I  am  rather  tickled  by  the  idea  of  my  dad  as  a  potential  enemy  of  the  state  though. Norris, who'd  been  a  reporter  at  Roger  Bannister's  four  minute  mile  success  in  1954,  was  relatively  circumspect, concentrating  on  undermining  the  trade  union  movement  through  his  Freedom  Association.

Roy  continued  to  present  the  show  until  his  death The  show  continued  without  him  until  2001  being  cancelled  just  short  of  its  30th  anniversary.

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