End of an Era

The BBC have announced the end of one of the classic kids programs "Byker Grove". I was a little old when this first started, but still watched the first series or two, and we all loved it at our house. There were a couple of things that stick in my mind - it was in Byker, which was just along the road from the butchers shop my Dad owned growing up, and there's nothing like seeing places you know on TV. Also, one of the other shop owners on my Dad's street was also an actress, and she was in it, so technically we were nearly famous (well, closest I had come at the time to knowing someone who was on tv - this has changed now with Michelle hitting the John Elway and some casino in Black Hawk adverts, and Michael having his legendary pepper crackin scene in CSI, along with some particulary dodgy appearances in Boy meets Boy on Bravo (don't ask...)).

It was also one of the few TV shows to fire off a few Geordies into Stardom (Spender, Auf Wiedersehen Pet and anything with Robson Green in it being the others that spring to mind, but they were all for old people as I thought at the time). Ant and Dec now host pretty much every show on ITV from what I can tell, and no idea what Donna Air is doing these days, but she's famous judging from the number of pics I found of her on Google. There's probably a couple of others since then as well, but I was way too old (and out of the country for the last 8 years) to follow along.

The final thing was the catch phase that somehow got adopted in our house - I can't remember if it was just me and Deborah who used it, or if Daniel and Matthew joined in as well. It still ticks over in my head every time I see Ant and Dec (or PJ and Duncan as they used to be), even though they hadn't even joined the show by then. So, for old times sake (and probably the only person to care will be Deborah)......

Say Hello to Julie, Winston.

Hello Julie.