Gone with Noakes & Cracking Sallis

With so many big stories dominating the news recently, it was easy to miss the sad passing of two significant people who helped to make being a kid, and an adult, joyful.

With increasingly bitter political campaigning and the horror of terrorist attacks filling our TV screens, websites, social media and newspapers, the recent deaths of John Noakes and Peter Sallis received limited coverage. Both deserved much more.

Noakes brought his give-it-a-go bravery and sense of humour to children’s TV show Blue Peter at the end of 1965 and packed a mind-boggling array of adventures, stunts and things made out of coat hangers into his 12 year tenure on the show.

No-one presented the programme for longer than the Yorkshire lad, and his arrival heralded a move away from the refined tones and comfy middle class style of Valerie Singleton and Christopher Trace.

By the time I was old enough to be making the show an essential part of my week, Lesley Judd and Peter Purves were partnering the ever-optimistic Noakes, along with his lovingly disobedient best friend, a cheeky sheepdog. The pairing was TV magic, and cries of “Get down, Shep!” still bring a smile to those of us fortunate enough to have tuned in during the ‘70s.

Highlights of his time on the show included the legendary baby elephant incident, a bobsleigh accident that left him black and blue and the truly terrifying climbing of Nelson’s Column in the days when Health & Safety meant making sure you’d put clean underwear on. Watching it now is still white-knuckles inducing.

Following up his time on the BBC’s flagship children’s show, we were treated to more of his action man antics in “Go with Noakes”.

The wonderful Peter Sallis had already known success before he first appeared in Last of the Summer Wine in 1973. The show ran until 2010, and he appeared in all 295 episodes of the gentle comedy show as the flat-cap-wearing Norman Clegg.

Although Cleggy was a quintessentially philosophical Yorkshireman, Sallis was in fact born in Middlesex and grew up in London. His adopted accent served him well, and he lent it (for the princely sum of £50) to an unknown stop-motion animator and his cheese-loving character, Wallace.

Sallis went on to voice the wide-mouthed inventor for more than 20 years, as the adventures of Wallace and his highly-intelligent dog, Gromit, went from small screen success to large. Surely no-one can have taken a bite of their lightly grilled bread of a morning without using the catchphrase “Cracking toast, Gromit!”

It’s impossible to imagine Wallace being voiced by anyone else, and maybe Peter’s passing is also the end of the wacky genius with a taste for cheese and a propensity to attract disaster.

Whilst both Noakes and Sallis are no longer with us, the pleasure and happiness both of them beamed into the living rooms and hearts of children, and grown-ups, for more than half a century will continue.

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 9th of June 2017. You can view the version published on their website here The print version was renamed as "Ode to joy of 70s TV icons".

Arguably, both Noakes and Sallis deserved a full article each, but I suspect turning my column into a weekly obituary section might be taking my respect for entertainers a little too far...

(CD A-Z: I'm not massively into classical music, but I do love "Spielgel Im Spiegel" by Arvo Part. Simply beautiful. Beautifully simple.)