“For whom the jingle bells toll”

Mike Yarwood can be found wearing a red cardigan, reclining on a rug in front of an open fire for the benefit of Radio Times. He muses: “My main wish for Christmas is a male Prime Minister.” And then, changing tack, provides an insight into just what makes Christmas TV so unique: “I mustn’t make the show too Christmassy in case it gets repeated in the summer. So only the titles will be festooned with tinsel.” It’s Christmas 1980s style, everyone!

This year, BBC1 kicked off proceedings with an episode of the schools’ programme Watchentitled “The Nativity”. A fairly inauspicious start to the day, it mattered little as the channel boasted the triumvirate of Paul Daniels, Larry Grayson and JR Ewing waiting in the wings. Things continued in this gentle vein with Mr Benn and The Pink Panther Show until 10am when we dropped in on the Christmas Family Service. Broadcast from Clifton Cathedral, viewers in Scotland enjoyed an opt out to High Carntyne Parish Church, Glasgow instead – “the children bring their presents to show to [Rev] James Martin … you are invited to share in this joyous celebration.”

The feature film The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, being an 18 year old “star studded extravaganza” (the only recognisable name is Terry Thomas – and he’s 13th on the bill), and another interminable service (Carols from Warwick Castle with Douglas Fairbanks Jr) took the schedules up to 2pm, leaving behind a rather dull morning of TV. Finally, at 2pm Christmas properly kicked in - Top of the Pops ‘80. Hosted by Peter Powell and Jimmy Savile OBE the best acts of the year (Abba, Blondie, Bowie, Pink Floyd, The Police and – incredibly – The Nolans) were accompanied by Legs & Co and the Top of the Pops Orchestra. A second edition went out on New Year’s Day, hosted by DLT and Tommy Vance. The Queen rolled along at 3pm and then it was the afternoon film, Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, hardly blockbuster stuff but it represented the right sort of enjoyable stodge that would take us happily through to the early evening.

Then it was time for the Christmas specials. First up came The Paul Daniels Magic Christmas Show. The programme boasted “a trick that is fantastic. It’s called the Million Dollar Mystery and is probably the best guarded secret amongst illusionists.” With an intermission provided by the Evening News (read by dads’ favourite, Angela Rippon) the entertainment resumed at 6.10pm with Larry Grayson’s Generation Game. Fresh from the Radio Times’ Christmas party (“Larry Grayson and Isla St Clair came in tandem – the latter looking gorgeous in a blue shift”) this faintly ribald barn dance of a programme was perfect Christmas day fodder, with its pursuit of games and prizes.

Symptomatic of Dallas-fever (this was the year of “Who Shot JR?”), JR Ewing and the residents of Southfork shuffled on at 7.15pm with an episode entitled “Trouble at Ewing 23″. At 8.45pm we had the big film - Airport 1975, a disaster movie of the ilk that just doesn’t get made anymore. This bloated monolith taxied through the night until 10.30pm and another 10 minutes of Angela Rippon.

At 10.40pm BBC stalwart Michael Parkinson was enlisted to round off the day with Parkinson at Christmas. The following “Christmas Comedy Classic” felt much like an afterthought even then – but Fawlty Towers and a quick weather report drew a line under an inauspicious, but chunky Christmas day on BBC1.

With an apparent paucity of Christmas-type programming it perhaps would have been more fun if the Beeb had shuffled some of the Christmas Eve telly into the Christmas Day morning line-up. Here BBC1 laid on the stuff of a perfect summer holiday morning (King Rollo, The Red Hand Gang, Why Don’t You, Play Chess …) and better still an All Star Record Breakers (with Toni Arthur, Johnny Ball, Stuart McGugan et al, although no Kenneth “biggest puff in the business” Williams). “Down on the farm Roy holds a Record-Breaking party where cows and vegetables dance, Laurel and Hardy stage a comeback and guests are transported to outer space!”

This year also saw the demise of the traditional Christmas showing of a Beatles film. And so, on 13 December BBC1 brought us The Birth of the Beatles, a 1979 biopic of the Fab Four. From this ignominious exit the Fabs would return only rarely to join us on Christmas day.

It must be in the Charter somewhere, but as ever BBC2 opted out of Christmas altogether. The channel didn’t even start broadcasting until 11am with Play School and then quickly closed up again until 3.10pm. Their first programme back on air was A Year in the Life of an Exmoor Man(“The film follows Tom’s year, from sheep-shearing to lambing …”) presumably intended to coincide with a post Christmas dinner snooze. We were then assailed by a Fred Astaire double-bill and at 8.05pm, Tosca (“a superb film version of Puccini’s three act opera”). As we have seen before, and will again, BBC2 will unceasingly bang on an opera on Christmas Day. The rest of the evening panned out in much the same fashion with One Hundred Great Paintings and then Walter Matthau in The Front Page. Merry Christmas BBC2, you old Scrooge!

In the meantime ITV’s Christmas jewels were well summed up by the relevant TV Times cover which displayed Roger Moore, pushing Janet Brown (in Maggie Thatcher guise) through the snow in a skidoo whilst Morecambe and Wise in full Santa get up skied alongside. This was what we wanted.

ITV’s day started off in fine style; A Merry Morning with Don Maclean and Guys and Dolls brought us a children’s party from the Yeaden Town Hall in Leeds. The TV Times explained, “this is the first year Don Maclean has been host at the annual party which usually comes from a hospital.” And if casting off the grim appendage of sickness wasn’t enough, the programme also featured The Chuckle Brothers. At 9.45am it was, of course, time to fulfill that one niggling commitment and thus Christmas Eucharist brought us an hour’s service from Canterbury Cathedral. This was the first such service Robert Runcie had delivered since his enthronement as the Archbishop of Canterbury, but who wasn’t really chomping at the bit for Christmas Runaround to start at 11.10am?

In preparation for a new series of the excellent kid’s quiz from Southern Television (to start the following Wednesday) Christmas Runaround not only brought us the usual chaos but, wonderfully, on ice. A great concept. After these high energy exploits there was a comparative lull with Laurel and Hardy Film Library but we got back on track at 12.45pm and Give Us A Clue(which had only started the previous year – infamously using the same theme tune, Chicken Man, as Grange Hill). This year “instead of the usual male-versus-female competition, today’s teams are mixed”. The line-up was a classic; Lionel Blair and Una Stubbs (as per), then Joan Collins, Jim Davidson, Kenny Everett, Alfred Marks, Molly Sugden and Barbara Windsor. IfChristmas Runaround and Give Us A Clue were anything to go by, it would seem that your classic Christmas edition must feature one arbitrary (but nevertheless, enjoyable) change to the format.

At 1.15pm it was Crossroads, the only soap on Christmas Day, and only by virtue of the fact that Thursday was its normal transmission day. The moteliers found that romance was in the air at a Christmas Day disco, as motel secretary Rita Hughes got closer to manager Adam Chance. Interviewed in TV Times before the episode, Lynn Dalby who played Rita commented: “It is news to me. I haven’t read the scripts that far.” Most parts of the ITV network then tookBilly Smart’s Circus (STV had The Glen Michael Cavalcade) before Christmas Sunshine at 2.30pm. “As their names suggest, Sunshine try to bring a little happiness into people’s homes.” As expected this was followed by The Queen.

The George and Mildred film then locked horns with the BBC’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.George and Mildred the series was still doing good business in 1980, being the 20th most watched programme of the year, although its last ever new episode went out the previous Christmas. This brought us into a strong evening line-up. After dispensing with a quick news bulletin, Ted Rogers brought us the 3-2-1 Pantomime. Populated by Nicholas Parsons, Derek Batey, Bill Maynard, Sheila Steafel, Mike Reid, Jacqui Scott and Bob Carolgees, here was where all the stars spent their Christmas. Then it was time for the big movie, and fittingly it was one of the more vulgar James Bond films The Man with the Golden Gun. Here we found Roger Moore in his classic safari suit era, accompanied by the cheesiest Bond theme ever (“He’s got a powerful weapon …”) But in 1980, Bond was still a big hitter (“He charges a million a shot”).

And if things couldn’t get any better, The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show followed. It’s generally accepted that things for the duo were never the same when they returned to ITV, but with a line up including Peter Cushing, Jill Gascoine, Alec Guinness and Glenda Jackson, and with Eddie Braben scripting, it was probably good enough. Keeping it family-orientated, Eamon Andrews arrived with This Is Your Life at 9.30pm. But who was featured? As we reached 10pm, things became a little more grown-up. Janet and Company featured the then nascent Janet Brown in a half-hour tailored show designed to showcase her skills at impersonation. But this being ITV grown-up equated to gentle digs at the government and a lot of dressing-up.

At this point ITV then threw in the towel and allowed the day to peter off with a news bulletin followed by the “classy” Glenda Jackson and George Segal film A Touch of Class before the customary Late Call at 12.15am. But by this stage they’d done enough to prove that the lowly simple pleasures of a great Christmas Day could be utterly in tune with the business of independent television.

“He pulls the rabbit of verbal spontaneity from the hat of immediate circumstance.”

After last year’s great showing, Christmas ‘81 was a rather damp squib on ITV, with their two most notable programmes not going out on Christmas day at all. Interestingly, both featured ex-BBC properties passed their best.

On 23 December Eric ‘n’ Ern were back with The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show. The cast list this year went as follows: Ralph Richardson, Robert Hardy, Ian Ogilvy, Sussanah York, Alvin Stardust, Suzanne Danielle, Steve Davis and Valeri Minifie. Arguably not their most stella line-up (Stardust surely long since passed his best). Perhaps sensing that things were on the wane for the duo, Ernie was a little melancholic, and reflected on their lack of success in America in TV Times. He recalled his appearance on a US edition of What’s My Line? as a mystery guest. Alas, he beat the panel, who thought he was a vicar. “I think I’d rather have lost” he said wistfully, and advised us “when I die my epitaph will probably be ‘He was still on his way to Hollywood’.”

Fellow BBC refugees The Goodies also found themselves in the doldrums with The Goodies Christmas Special going out on 27 December. “Snow White 2″ crossed the traditional fairy-tale with Star Wars and featured an evil Snow White, 11 actors playing seven dwarfs and a wicked godmother called Timbalina. This special was their first effort for LWT and would be followed by a single series. Neither matched their BBC work. But what of the big day itself? Well, firstly let’s see what was on the other side.

Much like last year, Christmas Day on BBC1 would not really start until Top of the Popsshowed up. Thus in the morning the festivities commenced with Star Over Bethlehem at 8.40am (“a musical celebration for Christmas”) followed by a nod to the See-Saw constituent with a repeat of the always awful The Flumps. Rolf at Christmas brought us the unsavoury trio of Keith Harris, Darts and 200 kids, and based it all in Chester. Then (and forever and ever amen) it was Christmas Morning Service. This year it came from both St George’s Chapel and Windsor Castle, with HRH in attendance.

Curmudgeonly old Jack Scott ducked in with a quick look at the Weather followed by Disney’s first contribution of the day: The Donald Duck Story – part 1. tom thumb (yes, all in lower-case) followed. Starring Russ Tamblyn as the titular “tom”, this 1958 film blessedly gave way to Top of the Pops at 2pm. Peter Powel and that Despicable Little Toad did the honours, with Mike Reid hosting a review of the year’s records on 31 December.

Meanwhile, ITV had a slightly better run at it in the morning, dispensing quickly with The Moderator’s Christmas Message (in Scotland), Worzel’s Christmas Special showed up at 9am. Now this was more like it, featuring turns from Barbara Windsor (the superbly named Saucy Nancy), Billy Connolly, Bill Maynard and Bill Pertwee alongside the mighty-nosed Jon Pertwee at his comedic best. Written, as ever, by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall this edition had the quintessential episode title: “A Cup O’ Tea An’ A Slice O’ Cake”. Superb.

But then it was back to those religious commitments and Christmas Family Worship. At midday ITV chucked on The Three Lives of Thomasina; Disney again with a 1964 effort about a witch who heals animals. Amazingly enough, Patrick McGoohan starred. The obsequious Alastair Burnett then put in an appearance, toadying to the royal family with A Wedding in the Family which looked back to 29 July and that “wedding of the century” – namely Charles and Diana.

As ever, both BBC1 and ITV showed The Queen at 3pm (BBC2 picked it up at 6.35pm). The Beeb then dished up another Christmas day edition of Larry Grayson’s Generation Game. ITV, however, plunged on into “The James Bond Film” picking the oldest one from the canon, Dr No.

Disney got strike three of the day at 4.10pm with their adventure film In Search of the Castaways starring Hayley Mills and Maurice Chevalier on BBC1. “Enjoy it”, Radio Times advised us. Things improved however with the first ever Christmas day edition of Jim’ll Fix It: “Dear Jim, Please may I … Have a new set of angels wings? Go to Disneyland? Spend my 105th birthday by the sea? Work for Father Christmas?” The evening on BBC1 would continue – for a bit – in this improved vein.

Back over on ITV, Eamonn Andrews was on the prowl again looking for a celeb to hijack in This Is Your Life, before we joined Mel Brooks, James Colbourne, Bob Hope and Telly Savalas for ITV’s third film of the day, The Muppet Movie. Never as acerbic or funny as the TV series, this was still fairly enjoyable stuff. Going on into the evening one of ITV’s new hit shows was afforded the Christmas Day honour. Thus Jeremy Beadle, Sarah Kennedy, Matthew Kelly and Henry Kelly all bounded down the stairs (the latter doubtlessly buttoning his blazer as he did so) for Game for a Laugh. Fast turning into an annual engagement, Dennis Norton followed on, annoyingly delaying the next cache of funny clips by pondering “h-h-h-have you ever noticed” inIt’ll Be Alright On the Night 3.

ITN turned up at 9.30pm to give us five minutes of news before we were then tipped into another film, Harry and Walter Go To New York. Finally Barry Took and The King’s Singers brought us up to Late Call and the closedown with We Six Kings. Music director for this was Howard Goodall, who would achieve some infamy with the closing themes for Blackadder and Red Dwarf at the tail end of the decade.

All in all, a bit of a disappointing day on the third channel, which peaked with Worzel in the morning and never really came back. Back on BBC1 things were a little better. First up at 6.35pm was 40 minutes of Paul Daniels in his Magical Christmas. At 7.15pm this year’s big-hitter sitcom Last of the Summer Wine ambled out. In an episode entitled “Whoops”, Compo, Clegg and Foggy looked up some old schoolmates in an effort to recapture the Christmas spirit of bygone days. With hilarious results. Even better was to follow, with The Two Ronnies and their superlative guest stars Sheena Easton and Chas & Dave. Buried deep down in the Ronnies’ writing credits could be found the benefactor of some of the Beeb’s future Christmas hits, David Renwick, who this year was also taken on by Mike Yarwood to contribute to his tenth (count ‘em!) Christmas Special.

The nation still bewitched by the Ewing clan, a normal episode of Dallas was punted at us at 8.35pm, followed by the TV premiere of Loophole, a bank heist film made the previous year and starring Albert Finney. Moira Stuart popped up at 11.05pm to bring the day’s main news (all 10 minutes of it) and then it was – as it ever was – Parky with Parkinson on Comedy. Here was a compilation of his encounters with the likes of Dave Allen, Rowan Atkinson, Cannon & Ball (who were very much in the ascendant as we will find out later in these logs) and Kenneth Williams. Finally, packing us off to bed we found those blood-giving folkies The Spinners at the Spa for a musical celebration of Christmas.

Outside of Christmas Day itself, the Beeb’s most notable programme was a Grange Hill special on 28 December written by Phil Redmond from a storyline by Paul Manning. Manning was the 16 year old winner of a competition run by Blue Peter to come up with a story for the Hill at Christmas. How many other young prospective writers must have fumed as Manning outlined his winning entry which culminated in Tucker and co enjoying themselves at a disco (rather than getting chased by the local nutjobs which is really what we wanted)? In a spate of scheduling bliss, this episode went out before the premiere of K9 and Company (of which more,elsewhere).

As expected, grumpy old BBC2 remained resolutely stony-faced throughout, fulfilling their Play School commitment at 11am (Carol Leader and Ben Thomas this time) and then shutting down for another couple of hours. No opera this year, but this was more than made up for by the inclusion of a Russian film (Dersu Uzala) and Margot Fonteyn Introduces The London Festival Ballet. Lowlight of the BBC2 day, however: Sounds of Christmas in which Richard Stilgoe introduced a concert of carols and Christmas music, featuring various choral groups and ensemble bands. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo … and out.

“Every year for the last seven years we’ve had the wife’s family up for Christmas dinner. This year, for a change, we’re going to let them in.”

This year Christmas fell on a Saturday. This had little impact on the BBC who would churn out another schedule very much like last year’s, but for ITV it meant that LWT were calling the shots. ITV’s day, then, commenced with Liza Minelli stepping into her mother Judy Garland’s shoes and taking a Journey Back to Oz. This 1971 animated sequel reconvened the old gang from The Wizard of Oz and – as is the wont of sequels – also shoehorned in a new character less appealing than the originals. Jack Pumpkinhead took on the Ewok/Batgirl/Scrappy-Do role here. And if you thought starting the day off with a rubbish film was a sour portent of things to come, you’d be right.

Meanwhile the BBC yet again slammed on something for the younger viewers as they too set out their stall with some animated antics and The All-New Pink Panther Show. This year’s first sojourn to a religious service, however, was notionally enlivened by the presence of Paul Daniels who fronted Carols from Buckfast. The fun-sized conjuror had been musing on Christmas presents this year, and concluded that he least wanted to receive aftershave: “I never wear it. I’ve got bottles of the stuff all over the bathroom. I’m sexy enough without all that. I don’t need it.” The “sexy” star would, he revealed, be spending Christmas with his mum and dad and getting “stuffed to the gills”. The Christmas Parade followed, featuring The Queen’s Lifeguard and the sons and daughters of The Household Cavalry and The Scots Guards, all enjoying a “special television request party” presided over by the unlikely and unappealing coupling of Simon Bates and Floella Benjamin.

At around 10.30am both ITV and BBC1 dropped in on those annual Christmas Morning Services. The Beeb brought us St Chad’s Church in Lichfield, whilst ITV looked-in on the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady, St John’s Wood, London. Whilst BBC1 then returned to cartoons (Racoons on Ice, featuring the voice of Leo Sayer!) ITV shoved on another film, an adaptation of Enid Blyton’s “The Island of Adventure”. BBC1 followed suit at 12.05pm and brought us Anthony Newley and David Hemmings in Mister Quilp, a musical version of Dickens’ “Old Curiosity Shop” and, like The Island of Adventure, this was its first showing on British telly.

Come 2pm and at last we reached our regular Christmas Day highlight, Top of the Pops on BBC1. And a veritable Christmas party it was too with Peter Powell, John Peel, Dave Lee Travis, Steve Wright, Andy Peebles, Richard Skinner, Tommy Vance, Mike Smith and Mike Read all in attendance. If there’d be an outbreak of fatal food poisoning at that Christmas nosh-up we’d have been in a situation akin to the Manchester United air crash, with only poor old Sir Jim left to shoulder the burden of light banter and the propagation of repulsive sweaters. This year there was to be but one TOTP over the festive season.

Almost in protest at this DJ-ing centre of excellence, ITV threw on Andy Williams’ Christmas Special; “a musical journey back in time, recapturing the spirt and joy of an early 19th century Christmas.” Herein was the mum and dad’s version of the TOTP party.

As ever, the Queen revealed her annus to the Commonwealth at 3pm, before more films took us through the afternoon on the two channels. On BBC1 it was the premiere of International Velvet, a sequel to the Elizabeth Taylor 1944 film National Velvet (which BBC1 had shown on Christmas Day in 1977). Tatum O’Neal picked up the reins as the plucky young jockey, whilst Nanette Newman took over Taylor’s role as a now grown-up Velvet. Somewhat improbably the horse featured in this one was supposed to be the offspring of “Pi” featured in the 1944 version. Over on ITV, things were rather less exciting as hoary old Disney film The Parent Trap padded out the afternoon.

Still remaining roughly in step come early evening both channels brought us 10 minutes of news, and then it was Christmas Special time. Establishing an enjoyable tradition, Jim’ll Fix Itreturned for its second year at Christmas. This time: “Dear Jim, Please may I … Visit Ken Dodd’s jam butty mines? Sing with Val Doonican? Help Father Christmas pack his sack?” A new series of Jim’ll was to follow on 3 January. ITV’s effort was the redoubtable 3-2-1. This year Ted Rogers and guests mounted an investigation into the source of Christmas cheer and introduced us to The Brian Rogers Connection.

At 6pm Paul Daniels was back on BBC1, with a cornucopia of special guests to accompany him: Floella Benjamin (her second appearance of the day too), Lorraine Chase, Billy Dainty, Jill Gascoine, Lucinda Green, Rolf Harris (who’d been sadly lacking from Christmas Day thus far this year), Nerys Hughes, Barbara Kelly, Patrick Moore, Tim Rice, Barry Took and Kenneth Williams all providing a foil for the rapscallion Daniels and his Bronco Booth. This was followed by seasonal editions of Last of the Summer Wine and The Two Ronnies making this early-evening section an exact repeat of last year’s line-up.

Back over on ITV, and things were looking familiar here too as the Game for a Laugh gang bounded back onto the LWT set for another Christmas of leg-pulling. “Real people are the stars and anything goes when we reveal that children are also Game for a Laugh” went the pre-publicity somewhat ominously. Staying within the LWT stable Bruce Forsyth’s Play Your Cards Right took us up to the 8pm mark where it was movie time on both channels.

Both ITV and BBC1 hit us with British TV premieres. On BBC1 it was Death on the Nile, a fairly classy effort featuring “philosopher” Peter Ustinov in this Agatha Christie whodunnit. Less appealing was the frankly awful The Black Hole on ITV, a woeful Disney take on the Star Warssaga, featuring the crew of the USS Palomino and, in an era of cutesy robots (R2D2, Twiki, K9, Metal Mickey) the cutesiest of them all. Whilst Death on the Nile chugged on for a mammoth two hours 15 minutes, The Black Hole was over and done with by 9.50pm. With a shudder we then took up our invitations to Chas and Dave’s Christmas Knees Up, clocking the guests Jim Davidson, Eric Clapton, Lenny Peters, Jimmy Cricket, Albert Lee and Cosmotheka upon our arrival. Unsurprisingly we had LWT to thank for this ghastly shindig.

Post 10pm as always found the channels winding down, and never as obviously as with Perry Como on BBC 1. This was followed by The Signalman at 11.30pm – Andrew Davies’ adaptation of a Charles Dickens ghost story. Finally, and for the second year running it was Christmas With The Spinners, Tony, Mick, Cliff and Hughie singing out Christmas with their “navvy boots on” – probably.

Over on ITV Cleo and John featured an eclectic mix of musical guests (from Johnny Dankworth, Julian Lloyd-Webber and The Master Singers to … Rowan Atkinson?) bringing us an hour of pop, jazz and classical standards. Our final stop of the day was at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, but this was no throwback to those ’70s Meet the Kids efforts. Instead the programme featured the hospital’s radio station, Radio GOSH and followed the making of their own Christmas programme. In Granadaland, however, the night ended up a little differently. At 11.55pm they stuck on another film, The Triple Echo (an overwrought piece featuring Glenda Jackson and Oliver Reed) before bringing us Radio GOSH at 1.30am.

It should also be noted that the Beeb reverted back to a variation on Christmas Night with the Stars on Boxing Day (falling on 27 December this year) with The Funny Side of Christmas. Hosted by Frank Muir this 80 minute extravaganza featured mini-episodes of hit BBC comedies such as Yes Minister, Sorry, Only Fools and Horses, The Les Dawson Show, Smith and Jones,Three of a Kind, Last of the Summer Wine, Reggie Perrin, Butterflies and Open All Hours. TheFools contribution, “Christmas Trees” saw Del trying to sell telescopic Christmas trees.

The year was notable for the inclusion of a new channel into the Christmas line-up, Channel 4. Establishing a trend it would rigidly stick to thereafter, it put on little to reflect the season. Thus on C4 you could check out “top American illusionist” Mark Wilson performing magic tricks in China, catch-up with goings-on in the Close thanks to the Brookside omnibus, and laugh at Olivier’s “classic” interpretation of Richard III to round off the night. A winter of discontent indeed. The only bright spot came on 26 December with the first showing of The Snowman, the adaptation of Raymond Briggs’ story. For one young chorister from Wales, life was about to change dramatically … and for us viewers it introduced a mainstay in the Christmas schedules.

“And no royal Christmas party would be complete with charades, popular with the Royal Family through five generations. As in television’s Give Us A Clue, they divide into two teams to act out film, play, TV or song titles.”

After last year’s effort many would have vowed “never again” at the thought of another ITV Christmas. However, much like Sean Connery who creaked across our cinema screens this December flinging bottles of urine at Cornish wrestlers, it turned into a case of Never Say Never Again, as ITV stumped up with a much improved line-up.

This being a Sunday the morning started with Rub-A-Dub-Tub’s Christmas Day Special from TV-am with Bonnie Langford, Alan Dart and husband and wife Edward Woodward and Michele Dotrice joining in the fun. At 8am it was Christmas with TV-am, which featured the first real utilisation of sick kids for some years as Chris Tarrant reported from the Queen Mary hospital for children. Finally, giving us what we wanted, TV-am went off the air with Roland’s Winter Wonderland. Roland, Kevin, Errol et al broadcasted from their alpine retreat.

After The Moderator’s Christmas Message (in Scotland) at 9.25am we were brought a mercifully brief The Sound of Children before a, briefer still, teaser for the impending arrival of the Jim Henson series Fraggle Rock. This five-minute prequel entitled The Fraggles are Coming surely wins the prize for the most incongruous Christmas Day programme screened by either of the Big Two. Keeping things bite-sized Messengers to Earth was a mere 25 minutes of song put on by the Sheldon Theatre Company in Devon. Being an amusing concept with angels preparing in a celestial “ops room” for the birth of Christ, its relative brevity was probably the soul of any wit here.

At 10.20am, however, something of a revolution took place. As the rest of the ITV network succumbed to the Christmas Morning Service, STV delighted central Scotland with an hour ofGlen Michael’s Christmas Cavalcade. Derived from the regular Glen Michael’s Cavalcade, this fusty old kid’s programme is rightly celebrated by the Scots, featuring Glen (a sort of Casey Kasem via Glendarroch), Rusty (a dog) and Paladin (a lamp) this was stultifyingly awful fodder, built around a mélange of second-rate cartoons (Roger Ramjet, Batfink – you know the score). The regular highlight would be when Glen would stop the cartoon, and appear within the frozen frame himself thanks to the “magic of television”. “Watch out Spider-Man!” he’d helpfully holler, “It’s the Green Goblin!” before side-stepping out of the picture and allowing the animation to crank up again.

Christmas isn’t Christmas without some sort of ice-skating special, and though The Magic Planet (an ice extravaganza about an astronaut who lands on an alien planet and falls in love with their queen) wasn’t a patch on Runaround on ice three years ago, it filled the brief adequately.

And so to 12.15am and our first film of only three on ITV today: the made-for-TV The Capture of Grizzly Adams. Following was The Royal Year, an hour of highlights from the Queen’s foreign visits this year. In fact, ITV seemed to be very much in love with the royals throughout 1983, devoting their TV Times Christmas edition to a dreadful front cover painting depicting an imaginary scene of Charles and Diana plus sprog bedecking a Christmas tree. Additionally the paper also ran a cut-out and keep royal scrap book over several editions.

After the Queen’s speech it was big movie time with Superman. This good-natured effort from 1978 boasted quite an incredible cast featuring Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Gene Hackman, Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard, Terence Stamp and Susannah York. Remaining buoyant ITV followed this up with the Bullseye Christmas Special, and again we had quite a cast list to conjure with: Jim Bowen, Eric Bristow, Kenneth Kendall, Anne Diamond, Judith Hann and special guest scorer Anne Aston. If it wasn’t enough to have this ex-Golden Shot-er back on the telly, than surely the sight of Kenneth Kendall stepping up to the oche made this truly one of the highlights of Christmas ‘83.

After all 10 minutes of the day’s news it was A Royal Concert of Carols at 6.35pm, carols from a hospital choir at a concert in aid of the Malcolm Sargent Cancer Fund for Children. Commendable, yes, great telly, no. Interestingly the programme was directed by David Liddiment, ITV overlord in waiting.

And so it was 7.15pm and finally LWT got in on the act. Firstly it was a run of the mill edition ofBruce Forsyth’s Play Your Cards Right, which was then followed by ITV’s big number this year,Jimmy Tarbuck’s Christmas All Stars. Tarbuck’s first Christmas show for the third channel in 10 years was basically just another reinvention of the Beeb’s Christmas Night with the Starsformat. Fittingly Bruce Forsyth showed up here as well, prompting Tarby to remember wistfully his first TV appearance on Sunday Night at the London Palladium in 1963, when Brucie had been hosting. Included in the programme was a pocket-sized edition of Game for a Laugh with the four tricksters still in fine fettle. Cannon and Ball were there too (who had just graduated to their own Christmas Special which went out on 17 December), whilst Robert Wagner, Stephanie Powers and David Hasselhoff (amongst others) contributed via a satellite link.

Our last film today on ITV was Revenge of the Pink Panther, the last fully fledged film in the series (Trail of the Pink Panther made after Peter Sellers’ death being a collection of outtakes thrown into a new plot). ITV then surprised us with a second ITN News today (still only 10 minutes though) winding down the night with The King’s Singers in The King’s Christmas, and at 11.45pm sub-M*A*S*H effort, House Calls (“the staff at Kensington Hospital throw a Christmas show”). All in all this had been one of the stronger Christmas Days on ITV.

And beyond the Day itself could be found some of our favourite Christmas stalwarts with theGive Us A Clue Christmas edition (guest stars: Jane Asher, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Jilly Cooper, Russell Grant, Tracey Ullman and – incredibly – Bob Geldof), The Spy Who Loved Me and Eric and Ernie’s Christmas Show all falling upon Boxing Day. Notably, here too was Minder with “Christmas Bonus”. This series would play one of the most notable roles in the TV scheduling wars in just a few years time.

So what had BBC1 laid on this year? Christmas Day started off looking awfully familiar with those persistent Raccoons followed by the usual carol services. Our annual 10.20am church visit this year came from The Mint Methodist Church in Exeter. At 11.20am “make way for Rolf Harris, little convict Toby and YoYo the dancing koala – all star attractions in this Australian family film” said Radio Times. The Little Convict mixed cartoon characters and live-action backdrops – an unusual inclusion for sure. Ziggy’s Gift followed with music by Harry Nilsson, but singularly failing to set everybody talking on Christmas Day. And then, as if things couldn’t get any more perplexing at 1.05pm it was Glitterball, from The Children’s Film Foundation (as seen on Screen Test). Even Radio Times had to concede “technical skill and imagination help to offset a low budget.” Despite being a TV premiere there was nothing remotely Christmassy about it, making it a baffling contribution to the day.

Come 2pm and we were able to orientate ourselves once more with Top of the Pops ‘83. Featuring a gaggle of Radio 1 DJs this year saw the restoration of the two part Pops with a second edition going out on 29 December. At 3.15pm Sabina Franklyn, Roy Kinnear, Ruth Madoc, Patrick Moore, Beryl Reid and Freddie Starr filled in the blanks, and then we were back into another film:Treasure Island.

The third annual Christmas Jim’ll Fix It rolled along at 5.35pm with the bejewelled one this year fixing it for an 11-year old to be a Hi-De-Hi! yellowcoat, two pupils from a school for the blind to ride at the Horse of the Year Show, an 8-year old Father Christmas and – quite usefully – an item on cracking walnuts. Catching everyone off-guard at 6.15pm, BBC1 threw another carol service at us before getting on with the business of Christmas Specials proper. As ever, The Two Ronnies put in an appearance, however they were followed by something quite exciting: a new episode of All Creatures Great and Small. This was the first time the cast had been together since 1980 when the show had been apparently packed up for good. All of the actors felt quite happy upon returning, although Carol Drinkwater was still smarting from the adverse press reaction she had received during the making of the original series when it had come to light she was having an affair with Christopher Timothy. “I got a name based on lies which I still don’t think I’ve lived down” she said, before adding “And it was wonderful to work with Christopher Timothy again [on this new episode]“. Steady on, Carol!

At 9.35pm Only Fools and Horses rightfully graduated to a Christmas Day episode and did not disappoint. In “Thicker Than Water” Del and Rodney’s father (played by David Jason look-alike Peter Woodthorpe) returned to Peckham, looking to fleece his sons. At 30 minutes this was the best thing on all day. From these peaks, however, BBC1 bottomed-out again with a boring David Niven film Better Late Than Never, and bidding fare thee well to Christmas Day, The Spinners at York.

Overall, ITV had probably aced it this year, despite having nothing comparable with the best of the Beeb’s offerings, they had laid on a stronger schedule.

Of the “minority” channels, Channel 4 had a half-hearted crack at it bringing us a Father’s Day Christmas Special (middle of the road sitcom starring John Alderton which was so cheap that he wore his own clothes and brought in pictures from home to dress the set) and Twice Knightly (The Barron Knights’ “unique entertainment special”). The Snowman was trotted out for its second year on 29 December, this time with an introduction by David Bowie. Meanwhile, on BBC2 we found a channel that couldn’t even be bothered to start until 2pm (so, no Christmas Story from Play School again this year). Highlights of their day were a Christmas Henry’s Cat(always great fun) and one of The Marx Brother’s best films Duck Soup (which BBC1 would trot out on New Year’s Day 1985). Despite this, it seemed that as ever, there was to be no Sanity Clause on BBC2.

“Eric Morecambe has gone, but the laughter he left behind is still ringing in our ears.”

Christmas 1984 saw the end of one great telly tradition, and the start of another. In May this year Eric Morecambe collapsed after a charity show and died, thus bringing down a rather final curtain on the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Specials. Nevertheless, this Christmas they appeared on both BBC1 and ITV with Ernie Wise Introduces The Morecambe and Wise Classics on New Year’s Eve on the Beeb (a retrospective clip show), and Bring Me Sunshine – A Tribute to Eric Morecambe, OBE on ITV (being a tribute concert from the London Palladium featuring a wide range of stars from Michael Aspel to Mike Yarwood). Who said that death was good for the career? This was the first Christmas Day slot the duo had landed for four years.

And as for new traditions, at 11.05am, in that post-Christmas Morning Family Service slot came The Noel Edmonds Live Live Christmas Breakfast Show. This one would run and run in various guises for the next 15 years.

So here we are, then, a Merry Christmas 1984 style. BBC1’s line up this time round was pretty good, and the omens were favourable when finally Play School was back on Christmas Day, albeit now on BBC1. Carol Chell and Brian Jameson did the honours. The chirpy Christopher Lillicrap followed on with Busker’s Christmas Story before just under two hours of religion. Firstly the BBC Welsh Chorus with Born in Bethlehem and then that Morning Service. This year it came from Fisherwick Presbyterian Church in Belfast.

As mentioned already at 11.05am came Noel Edmond’s Christmas Day debut. In a format spun-off from the popular Late Late Breakfast Show Noel stayed in the HQ (which was famously the Telecom Tower) whilst Mike “Smitty” Smith went on the road with the roving OB unit. Mixed up in all this was the usual capering and stunts (although without any fatalities) and the BBC “hollycopter” which threatened to drop in on viewers’ homes. Yes, perhaps the whole thing was unappealing, however it was a massively confident initiative by the BBC to lay on a 90 minute live programme as complex as this one on arguably the most important day in the telly calendar. It’s of no surprise that they then chose to bung on hoary old Blue Murder at St Trinian’s afterwards and put their feet up.

At 2pm, this year’s Top of the Pops Christmas Special dispensed with the DJs altogether and instead the featured acts presented. Thus we had Culture Club, Jim Diamond, Duran Duran, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Howard Jones, Nil Kershaw, Thompson Twins, Wham! and Paul Young. There would again be a twin programme as Top of the Pops Review of 1984 went out on 27 December, but still with none of the Radio 1 gang involved – instead Lenny Henry hosted.

After The Queen at 3pm came one of the definitive Christmas Day films, Mary Poppins. This filled in the afternoon nicely, perfect fare for the day. After a quick news summary at 5.25pm, it was time for some Light Entertainment. Christmas Blankety Blank found the superbly laconic Les Dawson hosting. Earlier in the year Dawson had taken the role over from Terry Wogan, with some apprehension: “I was a little doubtful when it was first suggested and that is why I insisted on doing two pilots that never went out before making a final decision.” However, Dawson had quickly gone on to ensnare a regular audience of 12 million and conceded himself, “it took about a month to win the critics over – and it was very satisfying when it happened.” This year’s Christmas line-up of celebs conformed to both the quality threshold and seating plan laid out by numerous episodes before it. Starting at the back row from left to right there was Russell Harty, Ruth Madoc and Derek Nimmo. The front row went: Suzanne Danielle, Ken Dodd and Lorraine Chase (the latter surely the quintessential Blank guest, only to be rivaled by Sandra Dickinson).

Our first sitcom of the day rolled in at 6.05pm. Hi-De-Hi! was still doing great business for the BBC, despite the absence of Simon Cadell. This episode represented the last in the present series. Then it was, as we have come to expect, The Paul Daniels Magic Christmas Show. Amongst the usual bizarre cast list could be found – liking it, but not a lot – Robert Maxwell. John Sullivan then landed his second Christmas Day in a row with the Just Good Friends’ Special. This was a mammoth effort running at 90 minutes. Whilst never as enjoyable as Only Fools and Horses (which this time managed only a showing on Christmas Eve, “Diamonds Are For Heather”, and that was a repeat) there was still much to like about this series once you got past the awful Paul Nicholas cocktail bar theme. Adding a sense of familiarity back into the evening, The Two Ronnies followed.

After the news came the welcome inclusion of Wogan into the Christmas Day line up, supplanting Parky from his regular slot. El Tel chatted to Freddie Starr, Dame Kiri Te Kananwa (always to be rolled out somewhere at Christmas time), Elton John and Victoria Principal. This was an amiable enough line up and nicely scheduled as an undemanding night cap. To end the day the Beeb stuck on the Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis farce Some Like it Hot. After some of the dodgy line ups of previous years, 1984 showed a rather more confident BBC, assured that its homegrown programmes could do the business. It’s interesting to note that the most modern film shown by the channel today had been Mary Poppins from 1964.

Outside of Christmas Day it is worth noting that the first run of the children’s programme The Box of Delights came to a conclusion on Christmas Eve. This was a superb adaptation (if ill-disciplined) of John Masefield’s book and would for many signal the end of the line for this sort of quality children’s drama on the Beeb. The other highlight of Christmas Eve showed up in the shape of an old man, sporting ill-advised leisure wear and the coiffure of Catweazle: “Dear Jim, please … can Father Christmas come in the summer? Say we shall go to the ball? Let me ‘Sing in the rain’ with Tommy Steele?”

BBC2, of course, remained as snooty as ever with Charlie Chaplin films, a Noel Coward play and Pavarotti at Madison Square Garden.

By comparison it was a fairly rum day on ITV. The TV-am mob were out in force at 6.25am forGood Morning Britain’s Christmas Party which saw the company once again digging up the “sick kids” format, with Roland Rat phoning children in hospital. The morning continued, up to the Christmas service, devoted to younger viewers, with Cartoon Time, Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends and Emu at Christmas featuring the dreadful Grotbags and the even more dreadful kids from the Corona Stage School.

This year’s Christmas Morning Service came from St George’s Cathedral in Windsor , and was followed by The Little Rascals Christmas Special – an updating of the characters made famous in films of the ’30s and ’40s, as if anyone cared. Come 1.15pm and here was ITV’s most audacious attempt to steal the Beeb’s thunder for some years; Top Pop Videos of ‘84 blatantly trampled on TOTP’s ground, thoughtfully finishing up at 2pm when the real thing was about to start on BBC1.

The requisite ice extravaganza featured, unsurprisingly, Torvill and Dean in an hour of repackaged highlights from their career. Dull stuff, indeed. After the Queen at 2pm ITV rolled out “The James Bond Film” – incredibly this was again The Man With the Golden Gun which featured in their Christmas Day line up of 1980. Things finally started to look up come 5.30pm with Give Us A Clue back on Christmas Day. By now Parky was the host, and this year’s guests were Julia McKenzie, Spike Milligan, Nicola Pagett, Wayne Sleep, Julie Walters and Bernie Winters. A curious and eclectic selection, but entertaining surely. As mentioned above the tribute to Eric Morecambe followed at 6pm, and ran for a tremendous 150 minutes. A marathon by any standards, and rather overstaying its welcome.

By 8.30pm we were back on track with the enjoyable Raiders of the Lost Ark – finally a commendable film on ITV. Mirroring Wogan, Des O’Connor popped up at 10.45pm, and then we were into the dregs of evening with “The Christmas Night Thriller” Home for the Holidaysstarring Sally Fields. After the relative triumphs of last year, ITV was back in the doldrums.

Channel 4 meanwhile succeeded in being both utterly impenetrable (black and white French film Jour de Fete) and bawdily populist (See How They Run, a Ray Cooney farce starring Derek Nimmo and Christopher Timothy). A most perplexing turnout, as ever.

“I’ve never known a year like it. Talk about hectic … To be honest, the fuss that is sometimes made when we’re playing the theatres scares me. It’s like The Beatles.”

15 years ago might not seem like a long time. However, take a look at the stars rolled out for 1985’s Christmas telly, and you are taking a glimpse into a light entertainment firmament that you probably thought died out at the end of the ’70s. TV Times’ editor Antony Peagam ponders “what are the TV blockbusters this holiday fortnight” before alighting upon “Christmas Day’s Minder on the Orient Express, The Best of Morecambe and Wise (Christmas Eve) … and of course, the galaxy of talent that’s due on screen in a host of specials: Freddie Starr, Cannon and Ball, Mike Yarwood, the Grumbleweeds,Copy Cats, snooker-man Dennis Taylor … and Des O’Connor”.

To our sophisticated eyes, it would be difficult to compile a more derisory line-up. Yet over at the BBC, things were only slightly better as Noel Edmonds, Terry Wogan, Kenny Everett, Les Dennis, Dustin Gee, Ruth Madoc, Les Dawson, the cast of Only Fools and Horses, Terry and June, Bob Monkhouse, The Two Ronnies, Paul Daniels, and Keith Harris were pulled from the top drawer of entertainment. For those of us who recall Christmas ‘85, it is sobering to reflect that five out of the 17 wheeled out now ply their trade in the comedy afterlife.

So to Christmas Day and the BBC began – as usual – catering for the kids. Fresh from TV-am, the BBC announced (rather tongue-in-cheek) that they were “thrilled to present one of the most sensitive performing artistes … in a sparkling celebration of his historic move to the BBC”.Roland’s Yuletide Binge’s guest list (including Russell Grant, Frankie Howerd and Jan Leeming) confirmed that the Beeb hoped to retain the rat’s anarchic disregard for popular mainstream telly. Noel followed up at 11.55am with the latest in his seasonal Surprise Surprise-type Christmas extravaganzas. However, this would be the last time he’d trade under the name ofThe Noel Edmonds Live Live Christmas Breakfast Show.

Top of the Pops Christmas Party counted down the top selling records of the year in the company of (amongst others) Dead or Alive and Billy Ocean. The presenters were studiously billed by Radio Times in alphabetical order. Our contemporary understanding of the egos at force at Radio 1 during this time casts new light on this seemingly insignificant fact. Yet someone had to get (nominal) top billing. Congratulations then, to “ooh” Gary Davies who could gleefully show off his Christmas edition of Radio Times for years to come.

After Pops and the traditional look in on Her Majesty, BBC1 then unveiled a classic afternoon/evening schedule that ensnared viewers for the remainder of the day. A celeb packedChildren’s Royal Variety Performance was followed up by a quartet of bonafide hits: All Creatures Great and Small, Hi-De-Hi!, Only Fools and Horses and The Two Ronnies took us right through to 10pm. Unsurprisingly the Beeb had a clean sweep of the Christmas top 10 ratings this year. However, this was a watershed Christmas in many ways: being the last in which EastEnders would fail to pay an important part in their Christmas strategy, and providing us with the last decent Only Fools and Horses special for 11 years (the great jewel caper “To Hull And Back”).

BBC2 – as usual attempted to offer up an alternative to BBC1. American nostalgia dominated the schedules with Fred Astaire’s The Man in the Santa Claus Suit and Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane bookending the daytime broadcast. Kane was BBC2’s opening salvo in a season of films dedicated to the great man who – incredibly – only died in October of that year. Gyles Brandreth and Hinge and Bracket were the minority channel’s entertainment powerhouse in the early evening with the be-sweatered one’s comedic A Prize Perfomance. Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Film Buff of the Year (when was the last time “buff” was used on national telly?) and French filmDiva ensured that the more sober viewer had a watching alternative to take them through to the end of the day.

TV-am began your ITV Christmas morning in 1985. This was to be an inauspicious start to a schedule that – although trying hard – was to be resoundingly beaten by the BBC. “The James Bond Film” Moonraker momentarily lit up the schedules at 3.05pm (perfect post-turkey viewing), yet instead of attempting to string together hits, ITV followed this with a seasonal episode of Name That Tune (in which “one lucky contestant … could take home £1250″).Coronation Street was oddly apportioned 35 minutes at 6.10pm and then we were straight intoFresh Fields Christmas Special. As a series that had never truly caught the public’s imagination, here was proof that ITV would never be able to outgun the competition when in came to Christmas specials. At 7.30pm, ITV rolled out their ace card: heavily billed and adorning the Christmas edition of TV Times Minder on the Orient Express was comprehensively outgunned by Only Fools (broadcast at the same time) by almost 5 million viewers. At a stroke,OFAH became a national institution and last orders were called on Arthur and Tel who – arguably – never recovered from this humiliating defeat. Des O’Connor struggled on gamely at 9.30pm with top guests(?) including “Alan King, and Willie Tyler and Lester”, yet here was to be all the proof needed to confirm that 1985 was again not to be ITV’s year.

Like BBC2, Channel 4 looked overseas to fill up its Christmas day schedule. French comedies, an off peak Marx Brothers film (At The Circus), Buster Keaton and Douglas Fairbanks allowed us some respite from the Big Two’s packages of hit after hit. Channel 4’s only homegrown contribution to the day’s festivities was a The Mind of David Berglas Christmas Special. Afforded a status denied most other dime store magicians, this really was Paul Daniels-esque stuff (who was missing his first Christmas for some years) albeit in a more cerebral setting. The late lamented Graham Chapman guested on this one. Could you ever see him helping out the Beeb’s be-wigged conjuror?

So a resounding success for the master of the schedules – Michael Grade. This was a year in which the BBC had an abundance of “hot property” and ITV a litany of mediocre stars that believed their own hype. As to who uttered the quote that began this year’s log? Well, would you believe that the performer aligning himself alongside the Beatles was none other than ITV’s star property Bobby Ball? Obviously, big changes were required on the third channel.

“Anything can happen in Last of the Summer Wine and Christmas is no exception – especially when Compo is persuaded to clamber on to Nora Batty’s roof disguised as Santa Claus.”

Just over one year old, and EastEnders is already important enough for Radio Times to feature as the cover star for their Christmas Number. This was the year in which a combined figure of 27.87 million – adding together its first transmission and subsequent omnibus repeat – tuned in to watch Den carve up that old bird, Angie. If Christmas TV ‘86 is to be remembered for anything, then let it be for the spark which sent EastEnderssupernova.

Besides this, there is little else memorable in the festive offerings served up that year. ITV was pinning its hopes on the unlikely trio of TV Times cover stars Torville, Dean and Dumbo the Elephant. The icing skating duo graced “one of the biggest sets ever made for television”, whereas Dumbo was to be shown on British television for the first time ever. If this was ITV’s “A list” then it is no surprise to find that there is little else for the commercial channel to crow about. The theme of this year’s 3-2-1 Christmas Special is – TV Times informs – unsurprisingly “pantomime, and the inspiration is Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows.” What else can we look forward to this Christmas on ITV? 12 months on and this august channel is still trying to convince us of the phenomenon that is Cannon and Ball: “they continue on the road to becoming Britain’s most successful double act – but they live in fear of one day finding the magic has gone. ‘We’ve no idea what makes the act work’ says Tommy Cannon. ‘We don’t know what we’ve got. And, frankly we don’t want to know. We’re both afraid that if we analysed it, it would go away’”. Obviously at some point they succumbed to the temptation.

The BBC’s policy over this festive period seemed to be an attempt to repeat last year’s trick, but with added soap. So we got Christmas specials of such hardy perennials as Last of the Summer Wine, ‘Allo ‘Allo, Just Good Friends and (predictably) Only Fools and Horses. For those of you looking for real comedy though, best seek out Channel 4’s welcome, but intriguing decision to re-screen Do Not Adjust Your Stocking.

Just before plunging into the Christmas Day schedules let’s take a moment to observe with derision ITV’s A Christmas Night of One Hundred Stars; which featured (amongst others) Stu Francis, Michael Kilgarriff, Roger DeCourcey, The Copy Cats, Norman Collier and (get this) Gordon Honeycombe.

Honeycombe turns up too on the Christmas day edition of Good Morning Britain. By now something of a tradition, presenter Anne Diamond gushes that “working on Christmas Day is something we all want to do. No one wants the day off because we consider ourselves to be a family programme and the Christmas morning show is probably the most family time of the year”. A quadruple dose of religious programmes then followed on STV, ensuring that – at least – ITV’s Scottish viewers will be reminded of the true meaning of Christmas. This, then was incredibly followed by the first in a new series of Trang Trang, a Gaelic programme for young children and then to compound matters it was over to ubiquitous Scot’s kiddies presenter Glen Michael to patrol the wards of the Children’s Hospital in Edinburgh. Thankfully after this the Scots reverted to the ITV Network for the remainder of the day, and by lunchtime were indulging in Disney’s Rob Roy – The Highland Rogue and a 2pm dose of pop courtesy of Ark Royal – The Rock Show. The rest of the day alternated from film to TV special, with Dumbo providing post turkey entertainment and Never Say Never Again, premiering just in time for the mince pies at 6.30pm. The final film premiere of the day was a Peter Ustinov Poirot film, thus ensuring that this was an ITV light of home grown talent. Only Barrymore’s Strike It Lucky and A Duty Free Christmas represented traditional Christmas day specials of “well-loved” programmes.

Meanwhile, Channel 4 presented an eclectic schedule that – this year – has an emphasis on music. Thus, we are able – if inclined – to catch snatches of Wagner, Benjamin Britten, pianist Vladimir Horowitz and Eric Clapton. BBC2, similarly presented a musical Christmas. It was a particularly late start this year for the Beeb’s minority channel as we were forced to endurePages from Ceefax until 12.20pm. Once underway though we are offered high sea adventure with Judy Garland in The Pirate, Mahler’s Symphony Number 5 in The Christmas Day Concertand a portrait of “America’s greatest living composer” Aaron Copland. In between these musical treats of course were the usual mixture of vintage Hollywood and European art movies.

Once again though, it was BBC1 who ruled Christmas Day telly. As mentioned the schedule was eerily similar to the previous year – so we got Roland Rat in the morning and a dose of Noel Edmonds at lunchtime (this time under the aegis of Christmas Morning With Noel). Top of the Pops Christmas Party was back again at 2pm (this time directly up against ITV’s own pop offering). Billy Ocean was back too, and so was Gary Davies, but this time it was Simon Bates who gleaned top billing due only to his alphabetical prowess. And then just as before, BBC1 began banging out the hits, this time starting at 5.25pm with The Russ Abbot Christmas Show. We were then served up Just Good Friends, EastEnders, Only Fools and Horses, Miss Marpleand a second dose of the Albert Square soap. The clever scheduling of EastEnders displayed a canniness that many did not believe the BBC possessed back in those days. The subsequent clean sweep of the ratings (EastEnders achieving seven million more viewers then the number two watched programme that Christmas) signified a television future in which the playful antics of Del Boy and Co would play second fiddle to the anguish emitting from our favourite soapy streets and squares.

“Will the Liverpool canniness of Sheila and Billy Grant be enough to counter Lancashire bluntness from Jack and Vera Duckworth or Yorkshire commonsense from Matt and Dolly Skilbeck?”

No, unfortunately this isn’t a Christmas super soap pitting against each other the warring families of the Close, Coronation Street and Emmerdale Farm, rather the byline for 1987’s 3-2-1 Christmas special. OTT would love to know who won this “battle of wits”.

So 12 months on and had ITV learned the lessons of the previous couple of years? The Christmas TV Times cover seemed to indicate that the answer was “yes”. A Santa-Claus Bet Lynch could be seen handing Hilda Ogden a present as the tag line proclaimed: “Be sure to share Hilda’s last Christmas on Coronation Street“. Whilst the ITV soap had still not found the courage to run a traumatic story on Christmas Day, here – by virtue of Jean Alexander deciding to call it a day – they had stumbled upon a story big enough to compete with last year’sEastEnders rip-snorter. Such was the popularity of Hilda Ogden, that even the insipid, emotionally cloying, story of the char-lady leaving to live with “Dr Lowther” was able to draw in the Street’s highest ever ratings of 26.6 million. Hilda’s farewell represented the final dismantling of the series’ pivotal triumvirate of strong females: (Ena Sharples and Elsie Tanner having departed some years previously) and it was perhaps fitting that so many should bid farewell to the last vestiges of the “old Street“.

A survey carried out in 1987 sought to capture kids’ favourite heroes. An almost exclusively American list told us that The Centurions, She-Ra, Spiderman, Rambo, Inspector Gadget, Mr T, Dangermouse and He-Man were the height of playground cool – each character befitting of their own Grandreams Christmas annual. Yet Christmas Day’s kids telly was still resolutely uncool, with the BBC failing even to stick Roland Rat on Christmas morning. Elsewhere, there was little change at the Beeb, which was obviously still confident of trashing the opposition. So “hello again” to Christmas specials of Only Fools and Horses, Hi-De-Hi! and Last of the Summer Wine (“it’s a recipe for chaos” proclaimed Bill Owen of that year’s hilarious storyline). In 1987, vaguely popular, but resolutely un-Christmassy Dear John even got itself a slice of the action as the BBC pinned its hopes on comedy favourites.

BBC1 felt content just to tinker a little with the Christmas day schedules this year. So, Noel found himself shunted even earlier this morning, with a decidedly off-peak 9am start time for hisChristmas Morning with Noel. Still broadcast from the Telecom Tower, the recipe remained unchanged. As way of compensation, however, he was awarded a second bite of the cherry at 11.45am with another 45-minute helping. Radio Times was keen to inform us that we could phone Noel with our “Christmas dedications” on 01-436-8622, not a telephone number that has found its way in to the popular pantheon of phone-in programmes. A welcome Christmas day repeat of Porridge concluded the morning schedule with – perhaps – the first watchable programme of the day. Present and correct at just after 2pm, we found Gary “just great great, tunes” Davies manning the helm for the Pops‘ Yuletide bash. This time though, Davies was to be displaced from the top billing by Mike Smith. Still, it was nice to see that Smitty had been able to find another Christmas Day TV home after having been dumped by Noel 12 months earlier. After TOTP – as in previous years – BBC1 rolled out the big guns. So, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom followed EastEnders at 3.10pm, and then Russ Abbot was back to take us into the early evening. Familiarity might breed contempt, but if it ain’t broke don’t fix it: so, Only Fools, The Two Ronnies and Miss Marple led us through the evening yet again, until finally In Sickness and in Health provided a slightly morose end to the day. These first Christmas day schedules without Grade played it safe, yet tellingly there were signs of ageing. Just 12 months ago such a line-up would have been a ratings smash, yet here they did not prove even a match for Dennis Norden’s bunch of old television off-cuts.

“This is the fifth year I’ll have got up to work on Christmas morning, but it’s well worth it”, trilled Anne Diamond in ’87’s TV Times Christmas Number. “Last year, more than 16 million people shared their Christmas with us,” (although we should point out: not all in one go Anne), “we have become part of the festive tradition.” In actual fact, due to an ongoing industrial dispute all TV-am had to offer was a rag-bag of imported programmes and a mere snatch of the normal fodder (Anne being so keen to come into work, she broke the picket lines). After that, ITV turned over its schedules for the next 90 minutes to a variety of religious Christmas messages, but – after that – we were suddenly plunged into a deluge of Disney productions. Mickey’s Christmas Carol was followed up with a Christmas Day repeat of Dumbo (from last year). A break from the saccharine of Uncle Walt’s creations came in the form of one of Moore’s best Bonds: The Spy Who Loved Me. After a 10 minute interval in the company of Her Majesty, it was back to the films, as two more Disney productions (Alice in Wonderland and Bedknobs and Broomsticks) ensured ITV had dished out – effectively – five films back to back. Next, ITV unleashed its strongest evening line-up for years. The phenomenally popular Blind Date kicked off at 6.45pm, followed up Hilda’s farewell in the Street. The aforementioned It’ll Be Alright on Christmas Night was next and then at 9pm a Julian Mitchell scripted episode of Inspector Morse. After that it was all over for ITV. But the decision to concentrate their efforts on the early evening seemed – in retrospect – a canny move.

BBC2 and Channel 4 once again chose to concentrate on providing viewers with an alternative to the traditional, populist fare. As before, BBC2 presented a schedule weighted in equal measure toward Hollywood nostalgia, and musical presentations. So Crosby crooned “White Christmas” one more time and Garbo was the subject of a two-hour documentary broadcast at 8.35pm. Echoes of Mahler and Elgar also emanated from our televisions. Amidst this rather traditional mixture, BBC2 broadcast a one-off short Robert Louis Stevenson adaptation: The Story of a Recluse, “an entertaining tale of a gambler, a young man, a pretty girl and the games they all play”.

Channel 4, meanwhile, was entering its first Grade Christmas, and a more populist, eclectic mixture than previous years re-positioned the channel as a more modern alternative. The Story of Abba provided a bright and breezy wake-up for morning viewers, but was rapidly followed by rather more atypical Christmas viewing. For those who persisted with the Christmas Oratorioand The Mysteries: The Nativities, your reward came at 4.30pm with the climax to series 14 ofCountdown. Gyles Brandeth and Carol Thatcher propped up Dictionary Corner as Richard Whitely hosted 45 minutes of the “tense and thrilling final”. The Queen’s speech at 5.15pm was followed by the consolidation of a real Christmas tradition (now in its fifth year) The Snowman. This was real “comfort food” television. Then the mood changed again as Channel 4’s evening schedule presented a diverse offering. A Mozart recital, a Sean Connery movie, Paul Simon singing American Gospel music, the then wildly popular The Golden Girls, a compilation of the best bits of that year’s The Last Resort and then your dad’s favourite: Dire Straits: Live In ‘85 at Wembley Arena ensured there was almost something for everyone (just so long as you were young, or wealthy). In retrospect, the line-up proved somewhat representative of Channel 4’s changing demographic. Appealing to the young and upwardly mobile would serve the channel well, ensuring its continuance and prosperity. Christmas is a time of security and well being after all.

“Cilla Black introduces another selection of lonely young men to similarly placed young ladies.”

Behind a traditional Christmas cover, Radio Times revealed an ailing BBC line up. This year every single Christmas special was to be trounced by those AntipodeanNeighbours. 18.7 million viewers might seems small(ish) potatoes compared to the previous year’s Coronation Street, but this was not bad for a decidedly unseasonable episode of a cheap Australian import. Only that consistent ratings behemothEastEnders (going through something of a dull patch at the time) was able to surpass the Ozzies. Add to the mixture three of BBC’s more regrettable comedies (namelyBread, Last of the Summer Wine and ‘Allo ‘Allo), and you had one of the least creditable top fives of the decade.

ITV failed to build on their soapy success of the previous year, and rather let the BBC off the hook. But it all began so promisingly. The triple allure of Michaela Strachan, Tommy Boyd and Bernard Cribbins kicked off a festive and rather old-fashioned looking TV-am. Christmas this year fell on a Sunday, thus allowing the usual team of Anne and Nick a rare Christmas day off, and also providing ITV with an excuse to contain all of their usual standard Christmas fare within the umbrella of the weekend kid’s show Motormouth. Broadcast from Disneyland, it seemed that ITV was picking up from where it had left off in ‘87 with agreeable, curly-mopped Scouser Neil Buchanan leading the festivities. As we careered through the morning, all seemed pretty standard, with even ITV’s attempt at a lunchtime pop anthology making a re-appearance (this time under the tutelage of French and Saunders). For most viewers though, the fun started on the third channel at 2.15pm with Bullseye Christmas Special. Special guests Les Dennis, Marti Caine, Roy Walker and the Birmingham Cathedral Choir ensured, earthy, but wholesome fun. The game shows kept on coming as Cilla and her lonely hearts found themselves curiously scheduled during the early afternoon. The Empire Strikes Back (for many the strongest of theStar Wars trilogy) was next and certainly made for an agreeable afternoon film, yet still there was nothing thus far that seemed in anyway truly “seasonal”.

Things would get worse before they got better as ITV attempted – yet again – to stage a big Christmas day extravaganza. This time around the “stars” included Anita Harris, Bonnie Langford, Julia McKensie, Paul Nicholas and Colin Wilkinson(?). Coronation Street and Dennis Norden had performed well for ITV in ‘87, and must have seemed like a couple of sure bets. To an extent they were, but the law of diminishing returns saw each drop 6 million viewers from their previous year’s performance (enough to send Alright on the Night plummeting out of that year’s Top 10). 90 minutes of drama took us into late evening in the form of London’s Burning. Never one of ITV’s premier dramas, it was able to pull in only 10.3 million viewers. One More Audience with Dame Edna followed at 10.25pm, and then the game was truly over as ITV decided a triple bill of oldish, unexciting films would finish off this rather insipid day. Appropriately, the next day’s Bond film was the dreadful Octopussy.

BBC1 was slow to start: scheduling a stream of indifferent TV programmes (of which the highlight was The Pink Panther). After a trip to Paisley Abbey, it was off to keep our annual appointment with Noel. Scheduled this year at 11am, Christmas Morning with Noel maintained the same “well loved” format as previous years. Whilst Edmonds might not adhere to many people’s definition of “high art” (or indeed entertainment), what followed truly represented the televisual nadir of 1988’s Christmas broadcasts. The positively ITV-esque line up of Joe Bugner, Bernie Clifton, Annabel Croft, Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards, Gil (biddy-biddy-biddy) Gerard, George Lazenby and the Fat Boys ensured that the regrettable It’s a Charity Knockout was to be as cheap as Stuart Hall’s jokes. Even his beatific demeanour must have been affected by such a pot pourri of has-beens and never-has-beens. The misery continued at 1pm withEastEnders rather thrown away in an early afternoon slot, losing 5 million Christmas day viewers in the process. At 2pm, Gary Davies found himself the unfortunate “bit in the middle” between “Bruiser” Bruno Brookes and Anthea Turner for BBC1’s Top of the Pops Christmas Show. Those of us making the dinner could to listen to the great man’s efforts to keep the warring twosome apart via a simultaneous broadcast on Radio 1.

After the Queen one would expect BBC1 to kick things up a notch – and to an extent they did. The TV premiere of Back to the Future, provided nostalgic high-jinx and fun packed science fiction and was swiftly followed by the reliable Trotters. In previous years, the Beeb had seemed keen to sustain the momentum of Christmas hits right through the early evening. Strangely, this year Only Fools and Horses was followed by A Christmas Celebration (a Songs of Praisespecial with Cliff Richard and Sally Magnusson). Things seemed to take a turn for the better at 7.15pm with a Christmas day helping of Bread. Retrospectively derided (and rightly so), it is worth remembering that – at the time - Bread was seen as a refreshing, intelligent sitcom, unafraid to explore “real” emotional issues. “Bitter sweet” comedy was obviously the flavour of the day, and the Boswells – in their mighty Coman/Howitt incarnation swept aside all before them (with the exception of the Beeb’s two big soaps). Russ Abbott followed at 8.30pm and then – bizarrely – the Beeb followed ITV’s lead and had an early night. Silverado and Carousel closed out the day. Blackadder’s Christmas Carol had been broadcast just two days earlier and surely would have proved a more popular and appropriate swan song to BBC1’s 1988 Christmas Day schedule.

Unbelievably – on the big day – BBC2 only broadcast nine programmes, didn’t even get out of bed until 10am and even then just stuck a couple of films on. It wasn’t until 2.10pm that BBC2 transmitted something homemade. As always the emphasis was on music and Hollywood nostalgia. This year though none of that opera stuff or classical music. The bulk of the day was taken up with a five hour 20 minute broadcast of that summer’s Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Concert from Wembley Stadium. This surely must have represented the apotheosis of the television charity concert. Following this, a WNET/BBCTV co-production offered an insight in to Hollywood during the death of the silent movie. Zoë Wanamaker and David Suchet lead a respectable cast through a rather overlong, nostalgic drama. With that BBC2 promptly returned to bed leaving us with only a couple of films from the collection (one Italian, one nostalgic) with which to amuse ourselves with.

Perhaps sensing that it was BBC2’s turn to present musical entertainment involving Dire Straits, Channel 4 regressed somewhat to present a schedule more akin to those broadcast during its earliest years. Although some of our recent favourites remained (most notably The Snowman and a Christmas day outing for Channel 4 smash Treasure Hunt), we were subjected to a barrage of (comparatively) high culture. Mozart, spiritual debate, ballet and a documentary on the restoration of York Minster’s South Transept roof provided an alternative to the stilted line ups on the other channels. This truly seemed to be the season of charity concerts though, and Channel 4 could not resist leading us out of Christmas day with a little politicking – rock style – as Bruce Springsteen, Sting and company boogied on down on behalf of Human Rights Now!

“We both knew immediately Oswestry was just right. I mean there are times when Kilburn can fit the bill and others when it just has to be Thames Ditton.”

The inexorable decline of Christmas Day telly (which seemed to have been precipitated by Grade’s 1987 departure from the BBC) continued unchecked as we entered the last Christmas of the decade. Half-baked and undercooked, the respective covers of the TV Times and Radio Times’ Christmas numbers (Des O’Connor and an insipid carol singer) indicated that there would be little cause for celebration.

Hyped TV specials of Run the Gauntlet and Whose Line is it Anyway? were indicative of this year’s meagre pickings. Clive Anderson – in particular – seemed unknowing of the muted reaction his programme would receive (“The show is destined to provoke arguments” he opined “because it’ll spur some viewers on to staging living room versions.”) The comedy writers seemed more attune to the risible Christmas telly spirit with old war horse Johnny Speight cogitating that “Alf (Garnett)’s view on Christmas is becoming rather sour. I mean what has he got? And whatever became of the Christian bit?”) This year our Christmas telly was undeniably weary.

BBC1’s early morning kiddies’ line-up was marginally notable for the inclusion that Harry Nilsson vehicle Ziggy’s Gift again. As ever, Noel was up at 11am to provide us with an of hour of heart-warming gift-giving to “very special people all over the world”. Oddly, from 12pm to 2pm it was regional opt out time with Scottish viewers subjected to the pleasures of The Singing Kettle and Beechgrove Garden. Gary “and now the sloppy bit” Davies found himself bringing up the rear behind a diminutive longhaired pretty accompanied by a soon to be GMTV celebrity correspondent. Yes, Bruno Brookes was back and this time with his latest clinch Jakki Brambles. After The Queen, BBC1 repeated their odd trick of rescheduling new editions of previous year’s hits in earlier slots. This year’s Bread lost 2 million viewers as it entered its rather ill judged Hill/Bickley era. Unable to beat off the Trotters this time, the Boswells still notched up a creditable 16.5 million viewers. Conversely, Only Fools and Horses achieved far higher ratings then the previous year even though it was now broadcast at the earlier time of 4.05pm.

And so in to the traditional late afternoon procession. Russ Abbott gave us “Phantom of the Opera as you’ve never seen him before”, and then it was time for the seasonal film premiere. With only Jim “Nick Nick” Davidson for competition, Crocodile Dundee cleaned up with over 21 million viewers making the Paul Hogan movie the day’s most watched programme. Miss Marplewas – as in 1987 – coupled with In Sickness and in Health, both succeeding in injecting a dose of murder and drunkenness into our festive reverie. The rather weak Clockwise was the somewhat anonymous choice with which to close the day. Riding on the back of the cinema popularity of A Fish Called Wanda, this weak Cleese runaround was indication enough that it was time for bed.

Timmy, then Ulrika guided us through our ITV early morning, and then after a brief regional diversion we arrived at ITV’s attempt at innovation for 1989. Obviously designed as a Noel Edmonds beater, The Other Side of Christmas attempted to combine something of the spirit of that programme along with elements of the upcoming Telethon ‘90. Broadcast from the Arena in London’s Docklands, Anneka Rice faffed around some Glaswegian midwives and mothers at the Royal Maternity Hospital (somewhat invoking the spirit of Christmas telly past in the process), whilst the cast of Coronation Street preached about homelessness and David Bellamy escorted 23 children to Lapland. A truly awful programme that took us from mid-morning to lunchtime. Happily, something of a treat followed, with the best (and most festive) Bond film of them all. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is a charming, Milk Tray kind of a film wholly appropriate for Christmas Day. A deluge of films were broadcast on the third channel this day taking in The BFG, Raiders of the Lost Ark, All Night Long and Hard Country. As in 1987, ITV seemed keen to save their ratings gold for a concentrated spurt later on in the day. In 1989, “ratings gold” for ITV meant Strike It Lucky at 5.40pm, a compilation of old comedy clips hosted by Jim Davidson (who seemed to have the monopoly on ITV seasonal clip shows), and the ever dependable Coronation Street. This year’s big storyline saw a poodle permed Deirdre Barlow come to the realisation that Ken was up to no good with Weatherfield Gazette colleague Wendy Crozier. Though the Street was attempting to capture lightning in a bottle, this storyline was solid but lacked the drama of the infamous Ken-Deirdre-Mike love triangle. Worse still, it further convoluted the already unbelievable interconnected plotlines between the three characters and precipitated the belief that a big story was essential at Christmas. The tepidAfter Henry effectively ended the run of “hits” as ITV reached – again – for its video collection to see out the rest of the day.

As with the other channels, BBC2 seemed to have decided that the previous year had been a failure and looked to 1987 to provide the template for success. Thus the combination of old was fully restored, the day beginning with a slice of Cinematic nostalgia with a double bill of Buster Crabbe as, firstly, Buck Rogers and then Flash Gordon. After that we swung from Beethoven’s Choral Symphony to the perennial Fred Astaire, to Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe. 3pm saw the first foreign film of the day, and then – at 5pm- it was time for the day’s big production: Aida from The Met. By the time we had endured the Danish film Babette’s Feast, a Bookmarkdocumentary on Wodehouse and a Henry Fonda film, there could be no denying that BBC2 had re-established the rather timeless schedule that had seen it through most of the decade.

By way of contrast, Channel 4 seemed a little docile and formless this year. Beginning with the anonymous The Channel Four Daily there was little structure to what followed. A hotch potch schedule gave us a lunch time showing of the Olivier Pride and Prejudice, and a 15 minute slot in which Dame (even then) Judi Dench advised us somewhat confusingly that “the greatest birthday of all is really the birthday of us all.” Yet another charity gig followed: this time an operatic shindig in aid of the Armenian Red Cross. The Snowman was back at 5.30pm and then time for another short opera - The Little Sweep at 6pm. Brookside made a rare Christmas outing at 8pm with Jimmy and Sinbad up to no good, and then the “first in the run of classic episodes” from Cheers was broadcast at 8.30pm. Channel 4’s Olivier tribute continued withRichard III (last seen on BBC2, Christmas Day 1982) and then there was just time to fit in another quick opera before a song or two from some more concerned artistes. Sting might have been missing this time around, but reassuringly Mark Knopfler had made it to the Prince’s Trust 88 Rock Gala, ensuring that this would – as ever – be a bloated occasion, resting on the once creditable reputations of a bunch of ageing performers. The comparisons with Christmas TV at the end of the decade are obvious, but apt. Whilst 1989 might not have been a complete write-off, there seemed an urgent requirement for fresh ideas as we left the ’80s behind.