Cheerio, Cheggers

Let the Saturday morning good times roll!

December 2016, and January of this year, were bleak times for those of a certain age, with the passing of TV, film and music stars that meant an awful lot to an awful lot of people.

I’m hoping that 2017 isn’t about to follow a similar pattern. The brilliant musician Chris Rea had a near miss, collapsing on stage recently – fingers crossed for him that he’ll still be Driving Home For Christmas... or at least getting a lift.

This was followed, all too quickly, by the news that TV presenter Keith Chegwin had died, at the age of 60. “Cheggers” was the ever-exuberant member of the line-up that presented Multi-Coloured Swap Shop on BBC1 on a Saturday morning.

In the late 70s and early 80s, there wasn’t exactly an overload of TV for kids, so the arrival of the lengthy extravaganza of music, entertainment, interviews and fun was essential viewing for scruffy oiks like myself, even if it did mean having to get up and make sure I’d had breakfast first (those were the house rules!).

You can keep your anarchic Tiswas. Swap Shop was good, clean, fun. Along with Noel Edmonds, Maggie Philbin and John Craven, Chegwin bounced onto the screen every week with a seemingly unstoppable energy, cheeky smile and occasional inability to speak through the giggles.

I loved that show. True, they were simpler times, and the complications and frustrations of being a grown-up were still ahead. But even then, I knew I was watching something special. When each episode ended, there was a tangible sense of loss. No more fun with the TV gang until next week.

Of course, Cheggers continued to entertain once Swap Shop got the chop, joining the follow-up (and not as good) Saturday Superstore, before fronting his own very noisy and over the top quiz show, Cheggers Plays Pop.

From the remembrances of colleagues and friends, it seems that the Cheggers you saw on the TV wasn’t a magical TV persona that was switched off when the cameras did – he was the same funny, friendly, natural guy in real life too.

After struggling with alcoholism, he reappeared on the Big Breakfast, before going on to entertain and charm on shows such as Dancing On Ice, Celebrity Big Brother and Masterchef.

If you’ve got five minutes to reminisce, look up the single released by the Swap Shop team, under the guise of “Brown Sauce”, on YouTube. “I Wanna Be A Winner” is a joyous celebration of Chegwin in his heyday.

Edmonds paid tribute to his “first real telly chum”, saying “The greatest achievement for any TV performer is for the viewers to regard you as a friend and today millions will be grateful for Keith’s contribution to their childhood memories and like me they will mourn the passing of a friend”.

Cheers, Cheggers. And in answer to the often-asked question “Where on earth are you, Keith?” – He’s making me, and many others, smile. Still.

Surely that’s the only obituary anyone wants.

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in The Mail, on the 15th of December, 2017. The version used on their website was re-titled as "Cheggers was a friend to millions". Not arf.

In case you're too damn lazy to look it up yourself, here's that Brown Sauce video is full lousy quality:

Mmm... grainy and blurry, but you get the idea. Looks like a lot of fun was being had miming along.

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