Steve Crook

To have it presented by Richard Dimbleby helped put it over.
Plus the fact that in 1957 not many British people knew much about spaghetti. They wouldn't have seen it often and almost certainly wouldn't know how it was made

Steve

Dame Starry

Of course, I'm much too young to remember it myself:



DS x.

lupinpooter

Aha, of course it was! Thanks Captain W

Bunnyboy

I remember this. He built a shelter out of sticks, moss, grass etc and when he left the island he left it standing "in case anyone else wanted to use it". He also had a ration of biscuits.

Anyone remember then tory MP Matthew Parris trying to live off 20 quid a week or whatever dole money was back then? A similar 'experiment'.

CaptainWaggett

Tony Wilkinson pioneered this genre for Nationwide when he lived on the streets for a while. No idea how genuine it was but I remember scenes of him coming up against the bureaucracy of not being able to sign on because he had no permanent address being quite shocking and attracting a lot of news coverage at the time though it probably didn't make any different to government policy on the homeless.

Fletchy

Does anybody remember the Nationwide story about an eccentric millionaire who had made his money from second-hand cars? He lived in a mansion with hundreds of rooms and slept in a different one each night. He employed somebody from his car business to live with him as his jester.

I am wondering now if it was an April fool. Anybody remember this?

winsfordtown

It was 'cat's eyes' inventer Percy Shaw but I'm not sure it was Nationwide I think it was on an Alan Whicker programme.

Fletchy

No, it definitely wasn't the cat's eye inventor.

The programme was Nationwide and the item was about a man who made money from cars.

Anybody remember this?

glyn horton

Yes, the fact it was on the BBC and presented by Richard Dimbleby made people believe it. Apparently when the joke was revealed there was real astonishment, as one commentator said years later having Dimbleby do an April Fool was like finding Lord Reith drunk in the gutter outside Broadcasting House!

There was an April Fool on Nationwide. They did a report about some mad scientist creating dinosaurs in a country retreat. Quite well done until you saw the obvious fake T-Rex chasing the reporter.

I remember Matthew Parris trying to live on the dole. Didn't he get into trouble with his party when it became obvious he couldn't do it?

The other famous Nationwide piece (often repeated) was the beer drinking snail.

batman

I thought that was the bloke who owned one of those huge booze warehouses in Calais.

"Do you know why fattries are called fattries .... it's because they are big and people make things in them."

davidb

mathew parris living on the dole was on itv ,i think world in action .they made a follow up programme a couple of years ago ,nothings changed ! he still found it hard .he did get in trouble with thatch the first time round ,he was looked on as someone who had made a high profile fool of himself .it certainly stalled his political career

samkydd

It was just as awful as regional news progammes. I hated them all, especially my home region's Look East with Michale Cole (Al Fayed's man now) and ITV's About Anglia with Graham Bell and Jane Probyn.

If there was a national news item such as a 'plane crash in The Andes they'd feature it heavily if one of the victims had the slightest tenuous connection with 'the region'. "Charlie Harris, 37 from Nottingham was vapourised instantaneously as the aircraft hit the mountain, and when he was 12 he once stayed at a caravan site in Great Yarmouth, which of course is in our region!"

The other regular news items were industrial action at the Perkins Diesel Engine factory at Peterborough, a contract awarded to Lawrence Scott and Electro Motors in Norwich, and the stupid item I remember was the tit who had a low powered motorcycle and was a learner who tried to change his bike into a replica of an American police motorcyle by sticking a plastic fairing and stupid lights and stickers on it!

They tried their best I suppose to keep the local population informed about 'the region' but all it did for me was make me even more determined to leave the place as soon as I left school!

At least Nationwide gave us an insight on how crap the other regional news programmes were!

In all these years nothing changes, we have South Today and Meridian Tonight now and they are dreadful.

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

hoggers

I'm not old enough!! However I do know the "Nationwide" James Hogg quite well. We're distantly related and he visits my home town quite often. Very nice chap as it goes!

Marky B

Our regional news programmes a pretty good,with Tyne Tees in Gateshead and Billingham,and Look North from the BBC in Newcastle. The only grudge I have against the BBC,is that they tend to ignore what's happening south of the Wear. A coupe of years ago,there was a massive explosion at a chemical factory in Billingham. Thankfully,no one was hurt,but it did not get a jot of interest on Look North - Tyne Tees,however,made it a headliner.
Tyne Tees have a studio in Billingham,but I am not sure if the news coverage for Teesside and North Yorkshire is filmed from there.
Ta Ta
Marky B

I am special. The heavens always open for me.

lupinpooter

Guffaw!