THE heart of the World of Sport doesn’t beat. It ticks relentlessly.

Tick-tick. It’s the first sound heard by three typists, four sub-editors, two pools advisers, eight results men, three editorial executives, 40 sound, lighting, camera, studio, props and make-up staff when they arrive at Teddington Studios at 8.30 every Saturday morning.

Tick-tick, tick-tick. That’s the sound of the enemy – the small black clock with white figures on the studio wall. It reaches a pounding, panic-stricken peak at around 4.40 p.m. And stops at 5.15 p.m.

But for eight hours 45 minutes every Saturday, that clock is the god of World of Sport.

Morning. Staff arrive quickly, without fuss. No time to chat. There’s equipment to check. Telepronters, soon to chatter their frantic messages; scripts to recheck; schedules to go over.

First tea of the day. Steaming. Good. One tea lady makes 25 gallons [~114 litres – Ed] of tea every Saturday for the World of Sport team.

Control room. One long desk. Six monitor sets.

Sports editor John Bromley, tall, rather pale, intense, sits in the middle seat. Assistants Ian Marshall and Olympic runner Adrian Metcalfe flank him. Already they’re checking on outside broadcast teams. John Rickman at horse racing… Freddie Trueman on a roving commission… Bill Fallowfield at Rugby League… Kent Walton at wrestling.

Late instructions for all of them. Last minute link with cricket correspondent Ian Wooldridge in South Africa.

The line’s faulty. Needs attention. Are the telephonists on the switchboard happy? Everything OK with the 16-man O.B. teams?

No troubles. Not at the moment. Anchor-man Eamonn Andrews arrives.

Teleprinters start tapping mid-morning messages. A game off here… a team change somewhere else. Each message carefully scrutinised; weighed up for news potential and rushed to Andrews.

No time for lunch. Just tea. It’s nearing zero hour. 12.50 p.m.— when World of Sport booms across your screens.

Strangely, no outward excitement. A sense of calm. Of expectancy. Of relief. Who was it that said waiting was the worst part of war? Countdown … three, two, one … IN. Perfectly synchronised. The face of Eamonn Andrews appears on the two centre monitors in the Control Boom.

Tick-tick, tick-tick, bang on 12.50 p.m. The war is on. The enemy is the clock.

First film report. Bromley waves his hands in the air as the flashover from studio to film seems to be seconds out. Sighs with immense relief as it flicks on in perfect time.

Pictures from Catterick racing appear on the two monitors on the right. John Rickman tuning in. Teleprinters going. Everyone has a job. News flashes from Bloemfontein to Birmingham are plonking into the in-tray.

Over to Catterick. First race. John Rickman selects his tip. Editorial racing man Ian Marshall duly notes. Eamonn Andrews, off screen, gets a few facial flicks with a powder puff from a make-up girl.

In comes the result of the first race. Jubilation in the Control Room. John Rickman tipped the winner. Eamonn does a double-handed “thumbs up” across the studio floor. Tick-tick. Everything going fine.

The soccer programme has kicked off. Flash. Denis Law has scored. That’s quick. And worth a mention. Skilfully, Eamonn’s voice is superimposed over snooker with the news. Another quick score message. Passed to Eamonn.

Panic, panic, panic. That last score … it was a Combination League score, not first team stuff. Frantic waving of arms in the Control Room, trying to attract Eamonn’s attention through the window. A messenger boy gallops away at full throttle with the correction.

“Now steady down, lads,” shouts Bromley. But is he just reassuring himself?

Executive producer Geoffrey Gilbert sails into the scene from his studio control box in the gallery. Declares that things are going smoothly.

Back again comes racing. John Rickman back on the screen, weighing up the next race’s prospects. “Tell ’em about your first race winner, Rickers,” implores John Bromley. (Nicknames are rife: Rickers, Bromers, Matters. I swiftly became Lanners!)

“OK, OK, Eamonn can do it,” said Geoffrey Gilbert. “Not to worry, lad. It’ll all work out.”

Tick-tick, tick-tick. Trouble. The 2.45 p.m. race starts 13 minutes late. Big trouble. Timing thrown out. The odd minute is allowed for. Thirteen minutes is a lifetime.

Schedule running late. Urgent readjustments. Cut Jimmy Hill interview. Get back snooker.

Soccer results coming in. Results “king” Dave Richmond collates the mass of teleprinter messages thumping on to his desk. All around a cacophony of clattering, typing, shouting. This is full stretch.

Yet on the studio floor, complete calm.

Wrestling over. Eamonn Andrews sums up the headlines. Into result sequence. Result reader Martin Locke is allowed exactly four minutes 40 seconds to cover all six leagues. He takes his time, standing casually before a mike, reading from a monitor in the studio. Ian Marshall does the same for the racing round-up.

All eyes on the clock. Tick-tick. tick-tick. No longer a menace. Eamonn signs off. Bang, theme music. Bang, advert for toothpaste.

John Bromley strides out of the Control Room, thanking everyone loudly. The clattering has stopped; plenty of chatter. Eamonn Andrews sits back, pours himself coffee from a couple of thermos jugs.

The news room is tidied and emptied within five minutes. One Saturday’s war is over. Next Saturday’s starts at 5.31 p.m. that same evening.

But at least you don’t hear the tick of the clock any more.

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The man behind the
TV legend – by
MOLLY SEYMOUR

You know Eamonn Andrews as a star of the television screen… the man with the well-known face and voice. But Eamonn has other loves beside audiences.

Those other loves are called Grainne and Emma — his wife and daughter.

On your television screen, he is very much in control. Smoothly efficient and never the man to get flustered. Off screen, he likes to relax in his home — for he believes a home should look lived-in.

Eamonn was born in Synge Street, the same Dublin street which bred George Bernard Shaw. He was the eldest of five sons in a desperately poor family.

He knew the difficulties of shrinking housekeeping money, of parents who were often in fear of running into debt and he ran errands and bought what bits he could to help his mother out.

One day, he used to tell himself, I shall have a home of my own. He has it now. It stands at Chiswick, and the Thames flows past the bottom of the garden. Grainne planned all the decorations, a white home, with pale yellow shutters buttoned back from windows draped with fragile curtains.

Inside, there are close-fitting saxe-blue carpets everywhere, and rose-red chairs. The lamps — empire pattern and gilded — have the same rose-red shades and there is the warmth of real friendliness about the place. There are enchanting mirror-lined niches in which the most fascinating indoor plants stand.

They both adore flowers and their garden is a picture. Grainne confesses that she used to paint flowers, and will again when she has the time. You can see, as soon as you step inside, that this house is the home of lovers.

Eamonn met Grainne at the Theatre Royal in Dublin. It was, he says, love at first sight, though it took him two years to pop tne question.

Theirs was a dream wedding, with a glorious procession of bridesmaids carrying enormous sprays of carnations — the happiest day of his life, Eamonn says.

But bad luck turns up in strange ways. Grainne was struck down with a tubercular hip, and spent nine months in hospital. For a long time no one was sure whether she would lose her leg, or spend the rest of her life on crutches, perhaps permanently lame.

Luck, and first-class medical attention were with her, and she recovered.

Because they had no child, Grainne suggested they should adopt one. Eamonn was all for it, and they set about the search.

This was perhaps the happiest time of all for them and they were so delighted with the idea that they didn’t worry whether their adopted child would be a boy or girl.

Eamonn was at work on a television show when a message came from Grainne. She simply must speak to him, she said. She had heard from the home that a baby girl was available might she fetch the little thing? The answer was: “Of course.”

This was one of the moments when Eamonn would most liked to have been with her. But duty was duty, and he had to stay. The moment the show was over. Eamonn shot down to Chiswick in his car — and has never done the trip so fast since.

Grainne must have heard him coming, for she opened the door to him, the baby in her arms. Perhaps that was one of the supreme moments in their lives.

They called her Emma. Today she is between two and three years old, a gay, fat little girl with roguish, laughing eyes. She is devoted to Quiz, the grey poodle, and he to her.

Eamonn Andrews, they say, was bom with a silver spoon in his mouth. But he has worked hard to make good.

He loves his home. He adores his friends. In an emergency he can get a meal, clean up, mind the baby — which he does remarkably well —and all this with a smile… for he is that sort of man.

RUPERT BUTLER
takes a look at the
new Sunday series

It could become the most talked about TV show of all. It is 40 minutes each Sunday of sheer unpredictability. To attempt to forecast what might happen is as pointless as trying to say when the world will end.

The central figure is Eamonn Andrews, for so long a stalwart of the BBC that one is mildly surprised he’s not still producing so-and-so’s aunt, cousin, husband, school-friend or shipmate on This Is Your Life.

Just what is The Eamonn Andrews Show? Well, here is what it is not. It is not preplanned, not pre-rehearsed, and not (except in skeleton form) pre-scripted.

For the next 26 weeks, personalities in the public eye will be brought to Teddington Studios, Middlesex and confronted by Eamonn.

He will talk to them, listen to them and maybe hear them sing, play and entertain. It all depends on who they are and just why they are on the show.

Let’s repeat — nothing is planned, nothing is rehearsed, if, for example, the show features a man who has hit the headlines by flying around the world in a flying saucer, he will meet Eamonn as a stranger and talk to him informally and “off the cuff.”

Of course, Eamonn will have done some homework on his guest — provided there was time. He will have studied a biography and looked through newspaper cuttings. But there will be no prior contact.

“Instead,” I was told, “the guest will sit outside the set sipping a drink until he’s called. He’ll be wondering what is in store for him — and so will Eamonn.”

The show will be transmitted “live.” Right up to the moment it goes on the air, there’s room to bring along topically offbeat people.

When one celebrity has been interviewed, he will remain on the set and meet the next guest whom he will be able to question or chat with.

“By the end of the show,” says Eamonn, “I could be talking about anything and everything to some six well-known people at the same time.”

Don’t get the idea, though, that The Eamonn Andrews Show is all chat. If a pop singer has made his mark, he’ll be on the scene, too. There will be a glittering late night sophistication about the whole proceedings.

Eamonn Andrews hopes to remain in control of things, but his guests will be allowed to pull any amount of tricks on him. It’s all part of the fun, all part of a desire to make The Eamonn Andrews Show a segment of late night viewing that no one will want to miss.

A programme spokesman said: “We are avoiding like the plague the ‘all pals together’ party where everyone laughs at private jokes and there’s general bonhomie.

“That sort of show looks phoney and sounds phoney. We wouldn’t hesitate to put two people on the screen who positively loathe each other. To us, controversy isn’t a dirty word.”

As far as is possible, guest celebrities for the following week will be announced by Eamonn after each show and he will invite viewers to submit questions they would like answered by the people concerned.

The post Eamonn Andrews calling… appeared first on THIS IS ABC WEEKEND from Transdiffusion.

He was born in Synge Street, Dublin, and educated at Synge Street CBS. He began his career as a clerk in an insurance office. He was a keen amateur boxer and won the Irish junior middleweight title in 1944.

In 1946, he became a full-time freelance sports commentator, working for Radio Éireann, Ireland’s national broadcaster. In 1950, he began presenting programmes for the BBC, being particularly well known for boxing commentaries, and soon became one of television’s most popular presenters. He began hosting the game show What’s My Line? in 1951.

Throughout the 1950s, he commentated on the major British heavyweight fights on the BBC Light Programme, with inter-round summaries by W. Barrington Dalby. On 20 January 1956, he reached #18 in the UK Singles Chart with a “spoken narrative” recording named “The Shifting Whispering Sands (Parts 1 & 2)”, which was produced by George Martin with musical backing by the Ron Goodwin Orchestra, released by Parlophone as catalogue number R 4106, a double-sided 78rpm record. The song later reappeared on Kenny Everett’s compilation album The World’s Worst Record Show, which was released in June 1978.

Between 1955 and 1964, he presented the long-running Sports Report on BBC’s Light Programme. In 1965, he left the BBC to join the ITV contractor ABC, where he pioneered the talk show format in the UK. He hosted a chat show on ITV, The Eamonn Andrews Show for five years. He was known for coming up with off-the-cuff linkings that did not work – such as: “Speaking of cheese sandwiches, have you come far?” This was parodied by the character Seamus Android on Round the Horne in the 1960s, performed by Bill Pertwee. In the 1960s he presented Thames Television’s Today news magazine programme.

He was likely best known as the presenter of the UK’s version of This Is Your Life, between its inception in 1955 and his death in 1987, when he was succeeded by Michael Aspel. Andrews became the very first This Is Your Life subject on British television when he was surprised by the show’s creator, Ralph Edwards. Andrews also created a long-running panel game called Whose Baby? that originally ran on the BBC and later on ITV. He was a regular presenter of the early Miss World pageants.

His contribution to UK radio is commemorated in the The Radio Academy Hall of Fame. Andrews appeared as the linking narrator who introduces the unrelated segments that comprise the portmanteau film, Three Cases of Murder (1955).

Article source: Wikipedia | Contributors | CC-BY-SA 3.0

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