615 Six Fifty five

First  viewed  : July  1983

This   early  evening  - I'll  leave  you  to  work  out  the  exact  time  - chat  show  from  the  Pebble  Mill  team  on  BBC  Two  ran  for  three  summer  seasons  from  1981  to  1983  but  the  first  two  (  when  it  went  out  as  Six  Fifty  Five  Special  )   passed  me by  entirely. It  was  on  five  nights  a  week .  For  the  second  season  some  star  power was  added   with  Sally  James  from  Tiswas  and  Anglophile  actor  David  Soul   becoming  the  presenting  duo.

For  the  1983  season  Soul  was  replaced  by  swarthy  young  Scot  Paul  Coia.  I  recall  episodes  which  featured  John  Hurt  and  the  bloke  he  was  playing  in  a  film, cancer-beating  jockey  Bob  Champion  and  one  which  featured  Mike  Read  and  Paul  Gambaccini  talking  about  30  years  of  the  charts. I  remember  Read  championing  The  Shadows  as  the  first  group  to  write  their  own  material against  Gambo's  plump  for  The  Beatles  given  that  the  Shadows' tunes  lacked  certain  vital  ingredients. There  was  also  a  show  given  over  to  TV  puppets  where  Sooty  attacked  Sally  with  a  water  pistol  ( not  that  that  was   likely  to  faze  her ) . It's  a  shame  he  went  for  her  face  given  she  was  wearing  a  white  summer  dress  at  the  time.

The  feature  I  remember  best  was  in  the  Friday  episode  where  Bob  Langley  would  go  for  a  walk  in  the  Lakes  with  a  celebrity. The  first  one  was  Chris  Bonington  and  I  remember  him  saying  that  he  fantasized  about  food  rather  than  sex  when  he  was  mountaineering. The  second  one  was  Martin  Shaw  who  talked  to  Bob  on  the  summit  of  Latrigg - at  the  time  I  had  no  idea  I  would  be  in  the  exact  same  spot  just  a  month  later -  who  took  the  opportunity  to  show  that  he  was  a  more  thoughtful  guy  than  his  screen  image  would  suggest. I  remember  taking  the  piss  out  of  him  for  talking  about  his  spiritual  guru  and  my  mum  rebuking  me   for  this  nascent  bigotry.

Sally  James  largely  withdrew  from  TV  after  this  to  raise  her  family  although  she  had  a  semi-regular  slot  on  Countdown  in  the  late  eighties. She  later  set  up  a  business  selling  school  uniforms. Since  2000  she  has  been  a  regular  celebrity  guest  on  numerous  programmes. Paul  Coia  has  been  lesss  visible  but  his  career  continues  as  a  game  show  host  on  satellite  channels  and  a  local  radio  DJ.