https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/ en Tue, 09 Jun 2026 05:59:05 GMT vBulletin 60 images/misc/rss.png https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/ https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/school-days/309969-what-were-you-teased-about-in-school Thu, 04 Jun 2026 18:41:57 GMT My big ears and nose My big ears and nose School days Meaty https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/school-days/309969-what-were-you-teased-about-in-school https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/school-days/309785-what-celebrities-would-be-in-your-school-yeargroup-if-you-went-to-school-together Sun, 24 May 2026 21:16:28 GMT Basically what celebs are you same age as for me Harry Kane and Harry Maguire With Justin Bieber and Harry Styles the year below for me Harry Kane and Harry Maguire
With Justin Bieber and Harry Styles the year below]]> School days Meaty https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/school-days/309785-what-celebrities-would-be-in-your-school-yeargroup-if-you-went-to-school-together https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/people/gone-but-not-forgotten/309760-rip-judith-chalmers Fri, 22 May 2026 15:53:08 GMT When watching ITV's Monday evening Krypton Factor replacement at 7.00 pm during the winter and early spring months of the 1980s and 1990s, I used to think how great it could have been to get a job which combines going on holiday to half the countries around the world whilst still working at the same time, and no, I am not confusing it with a Busman's Holiday either. Sadly, we have lost someone who famously done that for the best part of 30 years, and now, it is a case of Wish You Were Still Here With Us. Judith Chalmers, the main presenter of Thames TV's popular holiday show, has died from complications of Alzheimer's disease at the age of 90, and we do wish that she was still here with us.

Chalmers was someone who give inspiration to the TV viewers' holidays for the years ahead whether it was Beirut or Blackpool, but she had also presented other TV shows not long after afternoon programmes began in 1972 such as Good Afternoon! later After Noon Plus for also for Thames, and was also a presenter for Woman's Hour, the radio programme which inspired and influenced the aforementioned afternoon TV programmes, joining the programme when it was still on in the afternoons on BBC Radio 2. She had the glamourous surname of Chalmers, and quite rightly did not use her married name of Durden-Smith as her husband Neil (whom she married in 1964), and son Mark (born 1968) had! (I, for one, didn't blame her as I would rather be a Chalmers than a Durden-Smith!) She was also seen quite recently on a BBC One daytime programme in the past few years or so, I believe. Chalmers' son Mark Durden-Smith became famous in his own right, presenting the Channel Four Big Breakfast replacement flop RI:SE in 2002 and then presenting National Lottery game shows not long afterwards; indeed, this was around the time when the surname Durden-Smith had obvious comparisons with the then Conservative leader Iain Duncan-Smith which I immediately caught on back then.

When Chalmers stayed put in the UK and was not exploring on behalf of Wish You Were Here...?, she presented Family Favourites on the radio; Come Dancing on the television; and was the UK presenter of the Miss World contest, until Thames had pulled the plug from the UK side of things in 1988 probably because of the fact that it looked rather misogynist. As an actress she appeared as Susan in The Clitheroe Kid and worked with Ken Dodd as a foil for his act. Guest appearances in later years include Lily Savage's Blankety Blank and an appearance with her son Mark on Celebrity Antiques Road Trip. Even off the television screens, as recently as 2022 at the age of 86, she was appointed by Heathrow Express as their new Chief Smile Officer.

Nearly twenty years after she joined Woman's Hour, Chalmers was back on Radio 2 at 9.30 am as one of three female presenters (the other two were the late Katie Boyle and Nanette Newman), presenting the mid-morning show in 1991 and 1992 while Ken Bruce was on his two-year early morning and late night sabbatical, sandwiched between Derek Jameson and Jimmy Young in the daytime radio schedules, and rivalling Simon Bates on Radio 1. Her younger sister Sandra (or indeed Sandy Chalmers as she was known as), wasn't as well-known as Judith but she also did radio; she was a presenter on Primetime Radio, usually doing weekend lunchtime programmes; Primetime was a charitable radio station which sadly closed down in 2006 due to a lack of funds, and the station played such great music that no other station seemed to play.

Chalmers' own cultural currency wasn't too bad either; she was quoted once by Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough when he was referring to Roy Keane following time off due to red-card suspensions and injury at Manchester United, saying: "he's had more holidays than Judith Chalmers". (No doubt that Nottingham's Brian Clough statue might get some tributes from there). Whilst Victoria Wood, when performing her infamous Ballad of Barry and Freda (aka the Let's Do It song) on a while grand piano towards the end of her Audience With... in 1988, proclaimed that: "the only girl I'm mad about is Judith Chalmers..." I believe that Chalmers was one of the many celebrities who happened to be seated in the audience in that evening's show. (Coincidentally, as well as referring to Chalmers, both Clough and Wood had appeared in TV commercials for East Midlands Electricity back in the early to mid-1990s!)

Chalmers was appointed an OBE in 1994. During her final years she battled with Alzheimer's disease for many years, finally succumbing to the illness on 21^st May 2026 at the age of 90. We all wish that she was still here now.


]]> Gone but not forgotten George 1978 https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/people/gone-but-not-forgotten/309760-rip-judith-chalmers https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/people/gone-but-not-forgotten/309598-alan-rothwell-rip Fri, 15 May 2026 02:17:28 GMT It is a Monday morning in around 1984-1985; I am off school in bed, (presumably unwell and not as a school refuser which I would become a few years later), watching the black and white portable in the bedroom. TV-am has just finished; the Central start-up commences and by 9.30 am they join the...
Even now I have always associated Picture Box with its long-standing presenter, Alan Rothwell, who has died aged 89. It was often a truism that Rothwell was the first person to be seen on an ITV Network programme on a Monday morning during the school term weeks. Granada Television in the 1970s and 1980s had its own brand of TV presenters an actors, and Rothwell was one fine example of this; he was one of the original cast members of Coronation Street when the series began in December 1960, playing the David Barlow, the brother of the ever-present Kenneth (as he was credited up until 1972) played by William Roache. The irony was that David himself was killed off back in 1970 and his screen brother famously lived on for over half a century. In addition to Roache, there seems to be just three original cast members who are still alive. The Street wasn't his first ongoing drama as he was heard as Jimmy Grange in The Archers just before ti started. By the 1980s, Rothwell also had a stint in Channel Four and Mersey Television's Brookside in the 1980s as well; playing Nicholas Black and staying within both the North West and soap opera territory as he did twenty years before. He was primarily known as an actor, and since the 1990s he has played parts such as Anthony Rafferty who was a very bitter man in an episode of Casualty and returning as two other characters. His near namesake coroner Alan Massey in the documentary-drama Shipman in 2002 which was all about the killer General Practitioner and his mostly patients as victims. Ironically for someone who had appeared in Coronation Street, his final credited appearance was in a drama for Sky, called Rovers.

Rothwell also presented TV programmes as himself such as the aforementioned Picture Box, and also for Granada, Hickory House between 1973 and 1978, alongside co-presenters such as Louise Hall-Taylor and Amanda Barrie (who played a love interest for his screen brother on Coronation Street nearly two decades later). Remember Humphrey Cushion and Dusty Mop? (and no, I am not confusing the name with Dusty Bin). Hickory House was Granada's answer to the long-standing Rainbow, and although it didn't run as long as the Thames TV classic, or was well-remembered, it had spawned off a series Daisy, Daisy in around 1978, although I have to say that it was before my time as I mostly remember Granada making series in that slot such as Our Backyard (and I also assume that it was before Laura Burston was born as well!) His experience presenting Picture Box was a natural progression to a programme for the under-fives (or under fifty-fives as average age of the Hickory House audience would be these days).

His acting career was well-varied; he worked with Sid James in Citizen James; he guested in Z-Cars; he was typecast slightly as a vicar in episodes of Watching and Heartbeat, and also hopped across the Pennines to Emmerdale. He appeared in All Creatures Great and Small; Medics; the children's TV series Wilmot; and even Queer as Folk. I suppose that Rothwell was one of the reasons why I didn't want to school on Monday mornings and wanted to see him on the TV instead. He was a bit like a friendly uncle with one or two surprises as a presenter, and as a matter of fact, when I had a website writing about old TV programmes and presenters back in the early 2000s, I mentioned Rothwell during one of the articles that I was writing about; one of either his sons or nephews came across it on a Google search, and they had emailed me to say they they were delighted that I had remembered their father or uncle after so many years!

Was there ever such a nicer person to greet us on our TV screens, first thing on a Monday morning such as the late, great, Alan Rothwell?



]]> Gone but not forgotten George 1978 https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/people/gone-but-not-forgotten/309598-alan-rothwell-rip