First watched : Uncertain
How was the brainchild of Jack Hargreaves, the Deputy Programme Controller of Southern Television, an avuncular character, already halfway through his fifties, with some idiosyncratic ideas on what made riveting television. Accordingly How as first envisaged, was targeted at people like himself, middle-aged bores coming home from the pub , to settle arguments or teach tricks. After the late night pilot in 1966 , Hargreaves felt it was better aimed at inquisitive children and viewing figures soon proved him right.
There were occasional temporary changes in the line up but for most of the time the quartet of presenters were eager Fred Dineange, dry scientist Jon Miller, jolly Bunty James and of course bearded, pipe-smoking Jack himself. They usually each got one question to answer per show and there was some jovial banter between them especially as it was broadcast live with frequent mistakes and mishaps. As with all magazine shows you were lucky if you were interested in every item; in fact with this show I felt lucky if I was interested in one although compared to Jack's other contemporary offering ,Out of Town , a weekly tour of his garden shed , it was always enthralling.
The series came to a halt in 1981 when Southern lost its franchise to TVS. They waited nine years before reviving it as How 2 in 1990. Dineange had graduated to senior presenter and stayed with the revived show until its end in 2006.
Jack went over to Channel 4 and presented a show called Old Country until 1985. He retired to Dorset and died in 1994. Miller was 60 when the show ended; he did not appear on TV again and spent his retirement in Cornwall writing erudite letters to newspapers and magazines. He died in 2008 . James left the show in 1977 and vanished into obscurity apart from a brief reappearance as herself in the nostalgic TV film The Happening in 1991. She is now in her eighties and thought to be living in Scotland.
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