640 Lynda Lee's People

First  viewed  : Summer  1983

This  was  a  regional  programme  made  by  BBC  North  West, the  rest  of  the  country  being  fortunate  enough  to  escape it. Lynda  Lee  was  Lynda  Lee-Potter, right  wing  columnist  for  the  Daily  Mail . She  was   a  miner's  daughter  from  Leigh  who  went  to  a  grammar  school  and  made  her  way  up  the  social  ladder  as  a  journalist. Following a  filmed  report  on  her  home  town  as  a   Nationwide  feature,  she  was  commissioned  to  make  this  series  about  other  people  from  the  north  west  who'd  made  good  such  as  Debbie  Moore  founder  of  the  Pineapple  Dance  Studios.

As  a  TV  presenter  she  had  an  irritating  voice  and  a  very  patronising  manner  which  got  my  back  up  immediately. However,  the  series  had  one  huge  feather  in  its  cap  for  me, a  rare  ( at  the  time  at  least ) TV   interview  with  my  ultimate  hero, the  Lakeland   guidebook  writer  Alfred  Wainwright .

There  were  no  great  revelations  from  the  interview  which  he  described  as  "a  torment"  at  its  close. I  already   knew  he  was  in  his  late  seventies  so  there  was  no  shock  in  seeing  him  as  a  brittle  old  man; I  just  wondered  at  his  judgement  in  granting  an  interview   to  the  appalling  Ms  Potter.