Corn Street, Bristol on 1st August 1984. TV Star Chris Tarrant is pictured during a special ceremony to mark the 200th anniversary of the 1st Bristol to London Mail Coach.

John Palmer, a theatre owner from Bath, believed that the coach service he had previously run for transporting actors and materials between theatres could be utilised for a countrywide mail delivery service, so in 1782, he suggested to the Post Office in London that they take up the idea.

b

the BIRMINGHAM magazine

Fishing for Fame

Chris Tarrant: what you see is what you get.

By Ros Dodd

(article from roughly 1998)

WHEN he's tired, Chris Tarrant has a habit of lapsing into a Birmingham accent.

Although not a native of Britain's second city, he spent several years in Birmingham - first as a student, then as a television reporter and presenter.

'Down here in London they all think I'm a Brummie, but in fact I didn't go to Birmingham until I was about twenty,' he says.

One of his abiding memories of Birmingham is its fish market. A keen angler, he would pop along every Saturday afternoon to buy bait. 'We used to have a huge wind-down after Tiswas - a long, long lunch - but I would end up thinking "I'm going fishing and I've got to go and buy my herrings and my mackerel". And it'd be, "Oh hello Tarrant, come over here son, you know where the best herrings are".

'When I was in Birmingham last year I went in - and they were all there, the same lads. They were all a little bit older, a little bit balder and a little bit fatter round the middle, but they were like "Hello CT, come on over me old son".

'I was in there for about two hours. It was brilliant; we had such a laugh.'

Chris's years in Birmingham were 'great'. Unlike his experiences as a public schoolboy in Worcester, he thoroughly enjoyed his time as an English student at the University.

'University was when I discovered girls and beer,' he recalls with a chuckle. 'You were very repressed at boarding school, so it became a bigger issue than ever.'

Nevertheless, he emerged three years later, in 1967, with a good degree - but with no real idea of what he wanted to do with his life. For the next few years he 'drifted' from working as a security guard in West Bromwich to lorry-driving and then teaching English in an inner-city school in London. 'I never really had a plan,' he says.

Chris's big break into television came in 1972, when he was hired by Midlands network ATV in Birmingham. Rather cheekily, he'd sent letters to stations up and down the country saying: 'I am the face of the seventies and this is your last chance to snap me up'.

'You have phone calls that actually change your life for the next ten years,' he muses. 'One such call was the one from ATV Birmingham saying they had received my letter and did I want to come up for an interview? I was busy fishing and it was the last thing I wanted to do.'

Even when he was offered a job, he still couldn't tear himself away from his fishing rods. 'The fishing season ended on 14 March and if you find a copy of my first-ever contract with ATV you'll see it started on 15 March.'

Chris took his second life-changing call two years later. 'A guy called Peter Harris rang and said they were thinking about a new little kids' show on Saturday mornings. Was I interested? And that little show was Tiswas.'

The rest, as they say, is history. Chris's popularity as the presenter of wacky television shows has gone from strength to strength and since 1987 he's also presented the award-winning breakfast show on London's Capital Radio.

Now fifty-two and said to be worth £4 million, Chris's star shows no sign of waning. His newest television venture, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? - which returned to the screen in September - has proved a phenomenal success. Why has it grabbed the public imagination in such a big way?

'Because it's not a game show, it's a soap. Many people watch it who would not normally bother with game shows; certainly they wouldn't rush home night after night and rearrange everything. The money is relevant, but not that relevant. It's about people and their reaction under huge pressure and how they handle their twenty minutes of fame.'

As well as Millionaire and Tarrant on TV, Chris fronts the excruciating Man O Man, which involves men being dunked in a swimming pool by hostesses egged on by an audience of four hundred screaming women.

Doesn't he ever yearn to turn his hand to more serious television? 'No,' he says promptly. 'It never crosses my mind. I do have a brain and I use it in my peculiar way. I write a lot and the radio programme is quite an intelligent breakfast show; it's not just mindless DJ rubbish. I can't do funky talk.

'But there's no point pretending I'm suddenly going to become Jeremy Paxman or someone, because first I wouldn't want to, and secondly I wouldn't do it very well.

'When I started at ATV I was trying to be like every other ITN reporter. But I was just useless. So I tended to get the lighter stories - you know, the man who drank pints of beer upside-down or the man walking from Evesham to Worcester with a ferret down his trousers. And I really liked those people and related to them. I enjoyed doing those kinds of stories and I was better at it.'

So Chris Tarrant isn't a man with hidden depths then? He smiles. What you see, he says, is what you get.

'I have great memories of Birmingham,' he says. 'I suppose it was a very fast-developing period of my life - and everything that's happened since started in Brum.'

MY DIARY - CHRIS TARRANT

by John Kercher

The Mirror 13 December, 1997

A Day In The Strife: By Radio DJ & TV Presenter Chris Tarrant

I get two radio alarms going off by my bed and then the phone rings and the man from Capital Radio says in my ear, "Are you awake, Chris?" He says it without fail. Of course I'm awake, I've answered the phone! It's now my eleventh year of doing the morning shift at five o'clock and getting up isn't any easier.

I stumble to the bathroom. Thankfully, my wife and the kids are asleep. What I don't want is anyone up when I am. I'd go crazy. The radio show was once looking for a new weather girl and my wife, Ingrid, said to me that she could do that. So she could, but there was no way I could've coped with us having to drive to work in the same car. We'd have had flaming rows all the way there. I'm sure she's never forgiven me.

No breakfast, just a slug of coffee. On the first morning I did the radio show, Ingrid got up and made me a full breakfast. I couldn't cope. She's never done it since. I go up and kiss her and the kids on the head. They're fast asleep but they love to ask me later on in the day if I did kiss them.

The car comes to collect me. I scan all the papers looking for quirky little stories as I cruise up the A3. It doesn't matter what newspaper it is, I can guarantee that the crazy items are always going to be in the same place. I'll find the piece on the alleged alien landing on someone's lawn before noticing that Russia has been invaded.

I'm looking at my watch wondering if we'll arrive at the studio in time. I've only ever been late once and I started the programme from the car phone because an accident had held us up. Kenny Everett, God bless him, used to make brilliant 20-minute tapes which said things like, "Hello, sweeties, sorry I'm not here yet ..." and so on. They'd play it until he arrived. Perhaps I should do something like that.

I drive straight into the studio. It's marvellous. No make-up required. There are no pre-show meetings. Guns N' Roses play in your ear and you're off. Some records are selected for me and the oldies I choose the day before. I'm wide awake now. I might try and grab a bacon sandwich between records being played, but that's all. And gallons of coffee.

Might manage a dash to the loo. When I broke my leg it was agonising. I couldn't move. The average record lasts about three minutes and I could barely make it to the studio door in that time, never mind get to the toilet. I sat there for three and a half hours with my voice getting squeakier and me turning various shades of crimson.

I finish the programme, have a quick chat about the next day's show, and then rush out of the studio to a waiting car. I've got a couple of voice overs to do and, fortunately, the locations are nearby. I'll probably take a few calls on the car phone on the way.

I've got these voice overs down to a fine art. I won't have seen the script beforehand. I belt into the building and find about 30 people sitting there who have each written a word of the script. Perhaps that's an exaggeration. All I need say is something like, "The sale starts today. Be there!" Then I rush out.

I've got a meeting with Pete Waterman, the record supremo to discuss a record project to celebrate 25 years of Commercial Radio. Things like this can't be rushed and we need to cover a lot of detail.

I arrive at Harper Collins, my publisher. Because I've got a book out there are discussions about sales figures, a programme of interviews to be arranged and also outlining where I've got to do book signings in the future.

A short break to down a couple of sandwiches and a beer. I like the local pubs because while I talk to members of the public every day on the radio, this is the chance to see them in their natural habitat. I'm driven to the London Weekend Television studios where I'm recording a new series of Tarrant On TV. We tend to do a couple of shows each day for pre-recording.

I start doing rehearsals for the shows, going through the clips and making certain that everything is going to run smoothly. This'll last about one and a half hours.

Sometimes, my wife comes into the dressing room with our children and we all sit and have a chat. The kids go through my wardrobe and collapse laughing at some of my clothes saying, "You're not going to wear that, are you?" It can be a bit off-putting. Kids always laugh at their parents' clothes.

I'll have been taking phone calls and discussing things about my other business, the clothes chain, Made In Italy.

The studio audience is let in and I sit in the dressing room watching them arrive on the monitor and seeing what sort of crowd we've got for the evening. If only they knew.

After a bit of a warm up, we're filming the shows.

A drive to one of the Made In Italy shops where I've got to meet sales people and suppliers and maybe pose for some photographs.

I arrive home, ready for bed, but I'll sit and have a drink with Ingrid first. There was a time when the kids used to wander into the bedroom and say, "Who's that sleeping with Mummy?".

Tarrant 'most watched' on TV

June 2001

Chris Tarrant has emerged as the UK's most watched TV presenter.

In a survey carried out for Broadcast, Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? host Tarrant was revealed as having the greatest individual "exposure factor".

The result - calculated by the number of minutes per week a presenter has been seen by the "average' viewer" - also sees Weakest Link hostess Anne Robinson at number two.

Good Morning presenters Richard Madely and Judy Finnigan, last year's leaders, fell to number three.

The results, calculated by David Graham and Associates, were calculated from figures taken over the first 13 weeks of 2001.

Despite being on the screen for fewer hours, Tarrant came out on top for the number people tuning into his programme.

Robinson received a factor of 27 after 67 hours, while the Good Morning duo had a rating of 14.3 after 105 hours.

Tarrant scored an exposure factor of 37.1 after 43 hours on TV. Tarrant has jumped from 2000's fifth position. His increased profile can be attributed to his fronting popular entertainment programmes in peak viewing time.

As well as ITV's Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, one of the UK's highest rating programmes, Tarrant also fronts Tarrant on TV.

National Brain Fitness week (11th-17th Sept) has raised awareness of the health benefits enjoyed when the brain is kept active. Read on to find out how to keep your brain in peak condition throughout the year.

Fronted by Chris Tarrant, National Brain Fitness week (11th - 17th September 2006) was a great success, providing the latest advice on brain fitness. Supported by Heyday, Nintendo and The Science Museum, National Brain Fitness week aimed to help people understand how the brain affects everything they do – then take action to improve the fitness of their own brains.

Chris says, 'It's amazing to think how many people treat their body like a temple while neglecting the most important organ of all – their brain! I think that keeping your mind sharp and active is just as important and the reason I am fully behind National Brain Fitness Week.'

Chris Tarrant is one of the best-known faces on British television. His current high profile is very obviously attributable to the phenomenal success of the quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, but his career was already in great shape long before Millionaire ever appeared on our screens.

After leaving Birmingham University, where he read English, Chris worked for some time as a teacher. Despite having a respectable job, circumstances left him nearly homeless and for several months he actually had to live in a van near the school where he worked. Legend has it that he even received mail addressed to ‘161 GLO, Sprules Road, London SE4’, the number being the vehicle’s registration.

Eventually Chris tired of teaching and began to look for more inspiring employment. He set his sights on a television career, but his approach to job hunting was unorthodox to say the least. The trademark enthusiasm and energy that remain such a visible part of his style today were channelled into a letter writing campaign. Chris wrote to television companies insisting that he was “the face of the 70s” and pretty much threatening that they risked losing him and the fantastic opportunity he represented unless they acted quickly. Astonishingly, this bizarre and arrogant approach worked, and Chris was invited to audition for Midlands TV company ATV.

The rest, as they say, is history, but a couple of high points do bear special mention. In the mid-1970s Chris became a cult hero, fronting Tiswas on Saturday morning television. Although officially a children’s show, Tiswas achieved remarkable popularity amongst adults, and the show endured well into the ‘80s. Chris continued to enjoy great popularity when he moved to London’s Capital Radio, where he made the coveted breakfast show slot his own from 1987 to 2004.

RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2005

In 2005, the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show reached its 16th glorious year. The weather may have been mixed but that did not deter the thousands of gardening fans who descended on the historic site by the River Thames for six days of horticultural heaven.

After a preview day attended by HRH The Earl and Countess of Wessex and a host of celebrities from TV, film and music, the RHS medals captured the interest of exhibitors and visitors.

The Old Police House, designed by Penny Smith for Milly’s Fund, was given the Tudor Rose Award for Best Show Garden and awarded an RHS Gold Medal. The nostalgic cottage garden was a platform for the charity to raise personal safety awareness among young people.

Fryer's new rose 'Sally Kane', launched at the Hampton Court Flower Show on 4 July 2005 by Chris Tarrant, Russ Kane & Gareth Fryer.

SALLY KANE Frygroovy

Gorgeous large cream flowers, lightly tinged green with a warm hint of champagne that have a good scent, are supremely symmetrical, with a beautiful swirl of petals surrounding a high pointed centre. The rose was especially created in memory of model and writer Sally Kane, who tragically passed away from breast cancer in April 2004. Her husband Russ, young daughter and twin 6-year old sons feel that this beautiful new rose reflects many of Sally's extraordinary qualities - her outstanding beauty, her warmth, her elegance, her tenacity and the delight that she gave to all who knew her. The Sally Kane rose is a living testament to a very special, much loved and much missed young women.

Chris Tarrant: The all-rounder

Published: 12 September 2005

With his own production company now in full flight, Chris Tarrant can pursue his own interests... even if it means uncomfortably close encounters with polar bears. Raymond Snoddy meets the busy broadcaster who can't seem to stop.

A new magazine hit the newsstands last week with Chris Tarrant as its cover star, Chris Tarrant as its big interview, Chris Tarrant giving an editorial introduction and more than liberal dose of pictures of Chris Tarrant splattered across its pages.

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is the puzzle magazine to accompany the world's most popular televised game show, which he presents and which starts its 18th series this Saturday. The company behind the magazine, Seven Publishing Group, realises that Tarrant - or "the man himself" as he is described - has a widespread public appeal that has been a key to Millionaire's phenomenal success.

So too do ITV bosses. When ITV wanted someone to host its star-spangled show to mark the network's 50th anniversary this month, it turned to Tarrant, unquestionably one of the most familiar faces and voices in British broadcasting. The show, Avenue of the Stars (to be shown next Sunday), will be a tribute to the great moments of British entertainment and the stars who created them.

The programme will also feature memorable moments of comedy and drama such as Laurence Olivier's portrayal of the death of Richard III, John Cleese doing silly walks, an audience with comedian Billy Connolly and an example of Tommy Cooper's "Just Like That" brand of magic.

"It's another chance to give myself a bit of an edge, to try things. It would be very easy to say 'No. No. I only do Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.' I could go back into my cocoon. So once in a while it's good to extend yourself," says Tarrant who is still savouring the pleasure of not having to get up every day at 5am for the Capital Radio breakfast show he presented for 17 years.

The cast list for Avenue of the Stars is expected to include Ken Dodd and Lord Attenborough, two gentlemen well known for talking "just a bit", especially when they are on live television.

"Obviously being live you absolutely have to have a beginning, a middle and an end and make sure you come out to the second on time. If the bookings for Ken Dodd and Richard Attenborough are confirmed, that's a bloody nightmare. Doddy will still be going on when the credits roll," says Tarrant with a laugh. The show, tied in to this month's 50th anniversary of ITV, will name the first 100 who deserve to receive a "star" as chosen by a panel of judges that includes BBC chairman Michael Grade.

Tarrant extended himself a little more than expected earlier this summer when he went off to the far north of Norway to make a film about polar bears. As he approaches his 59th birthday next month, after a lifetime in broadcasting, he has decided to set up his own television company for the first time - Chris Tarrant Television.

He says he simply wanted the freedom to be able to do programmes that really interested him, such as ... middle-aged man goes off in search of polar bears.

"It's not about wanting to make more and more millions. It's because I want to control certain aspects of my new career," says Tarrant, who financed the production himself. He hopes ITV will schedule the programme over Christmas but, if not, then someone else will have the opportunity.

The television presenter has been fascinated by bears since childhood, and was impressed by the grizzlies he saw in Canada on a fishing trip. Tarrant found his polar bears all right but the encounter could have been a lot closer than desired. As he and his crew filmed a fine specimen from an inflatable boat they thought they were separated from the bear by deep ocean. It was only on the way back to the mother ship when the oars touched the bottom that they realised that they were on a shelf with only three feet of water. Instead of simply snorting in anger the bear could have rushed them.

"It could have been 'the posthumous award for broadcasting goes to Christopher Tarrant and crew'," he jokes.

He took a stills photographer to Norway and his latest book, Tarrant on Top of the World - in Search of the Polar Bear, will be published next month to go alongside previous publications such as Tarrant on Millionaires and Carp Tales.

The next Tarrant wilderness spectaculars will involve heading off to Rwanda in search of gorillas and, after that, pandas.

"What's happened if you like, is that I have been a wage slave for many, many years. I now feel I can take the time in my life to do things I have always wanted to do. Take a financial gamble and it will be all right because I am doing it from a certain position of strength," he explains

While he is enthusiastic about both Avenue of the Stars and polar bears it is sport, and cricket in particular, that rouses the real Tarrant passion. In fact, this interview was conducted on a Test Match day when Tarrant continued with a seamless account of his life and times while watching the cricket on a television set out of the corner of his eye.

Indeed, the greatest reaction of all from Tarrant came not when he was asked about the press or the future of ITV but when a young public relations woman had the temerity to switch from Channel 4 to Sky News. He threatened with mock seriousness to grab her by the arms and legs and throw her out the window if she did it again.

Tarrant, who played cricket at school and for his local team, was at Trent Bridge with his son Toby on the nail-biting Sunday when England just managed to win the fourth Test. The two also had tickets for yesterday's performance at the Oval.

"I like it all. I just love sport but I must say I just like sport at the sharp end. I can't really be bothered very much with amateur boxing or county cricket. I just like the real drama. The great sporting moments just grab at you," he says.

He has experienced over years of broadcasting the effect of sporting victories - and defeats - on the national psyche. On the morning after a great victory the callers to his radio programme are elated. More often they almost have to be scraped off the floor as, for example, when Brazil beat England in the World Cup.

Tarrant was in a similar bleak mood last week when he heard that a bid he was involved with for the commercial radio licence for the Solent region of Hampshire had failed and instead gone to Canadian-based international broadcasters CanWest.

He had failed to impress Ofcom, the communications regulator, with three previous attempts, in Manchester, Belfast and Edinburgh but really believed that the Solent bid had had a chance. It was financed by Celador, the company behind Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and apart from Tarrant himself had a line-up that included Sir David Frost, Esther Rantzen and James Moir, the former controller of Radio 2.

"Very disappointing. I would have thought we were superbly equipped to handle that region. We know it pretty well and I'm not sure a bunch of Canadians do," says the veteran broadcaster who heard the bad news a day late. He'd been busy making two editions of Millionaire back to back.

The group has been trying to win a licence only for a year or so and it's likely that it will keep on trying to impress Ofcom, the body that awards the licences.

Tarrant does allow himself just one barbed prod at the regulator. "With Jimmy Moir at the helm as well as me, there's probably something very strange about the selection process if we can't get a radio licence. Oh well. Onwards and upwards," he says, irrepressibly cheerful.

As for the rest of the time, things are pretty normal for Chris Tarrant. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? may be long past its 19 million peak but it can still rack up very useful audiences of around seven million for ITV, not to mention all the spin-off merchandising and the magazine.

Tarrant on TV is still bringing audiences clips of some of the wilder eccentricities of television from around the world. "I was viewing this very morning a quite appalling tape of a man cutting off his testicles. You have to watch it," he says.

Are you going to show it on Tarrant on TV?

"God, yes. God, yes, because it's fascinating and a lot of the time you are saying I can't believe this is going out on prime time television in Sweden or Tokyo," says Tarrant.

But isn't there a bit of irony involved when you say 'isn't this absolutely awful' and then go and show it yourself as entertainment?

"Of course, completely," replies Tarrant, without missing a beat before continuing: "My previous producer always said we were there to learn."

One lesson is that there is still no uniform television culture and that what is acceptable in various places - even within the European Union - vary greatly.

In Britain, for example, it would be impossible to show cruelty to animals but testicles being cut off are quite a different matter. Ploughing through the tapes from all over the word shows that Japanese television is still the most extreme, with Korean coming up fast, and now Holland is even more extreme than "the mad Swedes".

His unusual viewing habits have convinced him that however much maligned, British television is not bad at all.

"I know it's flavour of the month to say it's crap, it's tasteless, it's lowest common denominator, it's dumbing down but I tell you see a lot of the other stuff," says the man who knows.

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is back and Tarrant is contracted to do at least another year. It might even last longer than that because it is, he believes, a fantastic game. The key to its success around the world in 112 countries is its simplicity.

The Celador approach has been to insist that wherever in the world the show is aired "there will be basically a man like me in a suit who does all the stuff including often catchphrases such as 'phone a friend' in English in the Russian or Japanese version".

Celador says this is the thing that works and this is how you should do it. "I'm quite sure the Japanese version would like to put snakes down people trousers but they can't," he says.

The most memorable edition of the programme obviously involved the coughing army major Charles Ingram ,who was given an 18-month suspended sentence after being found guilty of trying to cheat the show out of a million pounds.

Tarrant says that he knew something was strange but couldn't work out what Ingram was doing. Most contestants who reach £500,000 in prize money pause for a long thought when Tarrant inquires whether they are going to take the money or risk losing £486,000.

"The only person of all the contestants I have shown a million to - and it's only relevant afterwards - who didn't even flinch was the Major because he knew he was going to play," Tarrant recalls.

The suspicions mounted when a young researcher was told to "fuck off" when he tried to visit Ingram's dressing room where a huge row was under way. Tarrant believes it was about the Major going too far and drawing suspicion on himself. A win of £250,000 might have passed off without arousing suspicion.

By 2.30am on the morning after the recording "a completely knackered editor" spotted the pattern of coughing from a member of the audience associated with correct answers, and by 4am the fraud squad was called in. "I think he has caught us all napping. Since then we have really had to tighten up a lot," says Tarrant.

Despite his new interest in polar bears, gorillas and pandas, Tarrant's career has been marked by long-standing loyalty to both people and programmes. He stayed at the children's programme Tiswas, which established his career, for seven years and at Capital Radio for 17. He has been doing Tarrant on TV, which he inherited from Clive James, for 15 years.

But what actually is it that he does that might explain his multimillionaire success?

"I never think about it. I clearly have something that is very marketable but I haven't tried to analyse it. It would probably be a bloody mistake," he says. He does not think he is much good at telling jokes. He would not claim to be an all-round entertainer doing the "song and dance stuff" like Bruce Forsyth. He specialises in telling larger-than-life anecdotes and essentially being himself.

The cheeky chappie of Capital Radio combined with the English honours graduate of Birmingham University?

"Half a brain cell," he laughs in response.

In 2001 he won a Sony radio award for his "unique relationship with his listeners". "Yes. That's the job actually, isn't it," he concludes.

He believes there is a sort of hiatus in commercial radio at the moment. The Tarrants, the Evanses and probably soon the Wogans and the Steve Wrights will shuffle off from the microphone and the fear is all the companies will think about is record rotation and focus groups.

"There is a danger that we will get away from personality-led radio because it's too expensive. The test of great radio is sitting in a traffic jam somewhere in London in the middle of the afternoon and remembering something that Kenny Everett said 20 years ago or something I said. I could not tell you a single record that Kenny played but I remember his jingles, his nonsense, his madness."

Is there anything in his career he regrets, apart perhaps from the row when an old picture of him in the back of a taxi with Sophie Rhys-Jones was sold to The Sun just before her wedding?

"No I bloody well don't. It is a case of what you see is what you get. I've had a bloody good run. I have thoroughly enjoyed myself and I had such a craic with people for 30 years," he insists.

Talking To Tarrant -Avid Magazine, July 2006

Lisa Gale turns the tables on Chris Tarrant, presenter of TV’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and puts him in the hot seat about the success of the show and his dedication to the Princess Alice Hospice

Eight years ago, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? took the world by storm and became an overnight television sensation. But did its presenter, the exuberant Chris Tarrant who recently hosted a spring ball at Painshill Park, Cobham, in aid of The Princess Alice Hospice, expect it to be the smash-hit it was?

“I think the success of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? took us all by surprise,” admits Chris, whose gathering of the great and the good raised £61,000 for the hospice’s Esher site. “We thought it would do quite well, and we knew it was a great simple-but-brilliant format, but I think none of us anticipated the sheer drama as each contestant played for life-changing sums of money before our very eyes.

Chris, who was involved in the ball for the Dig Deep Appeal to help upgrade the hospice’s clinical facilities, said Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? was not so much a game show as a soap opera.

“It seems to touch the spot in every country that it goes to. We certainly would not have expected that, eight years later, we’d still be going strong, have done nearly 450 programmes, given away nearly £49 million in the UK alone and be transmitting in excess of 115 countries around the world. It’s has been quite extraordinary.

“There have been so many best moments to choose from,” he continues. “Obviously the night that Judith Keppel became the first person anywhere in the world to answer all 15 questions and win £1m was just fantastic.

“But there have been so many strange, quirky characters since then, not necessarily always the ones who have won the really big money either. One of my favourite contestants was a guy called Colin Hallett, a window cleaner from Shoeburyness.

“There was also a wonderful girl from Dorset in the very first series, who used up all her lifelines on the first three questions and took home £500 before she lost it! She went out of the studio giggling with joy. The list goes on and on – and then there was of course the major .... !”

Chris’ television career took off in the 1970s, when the former lorry driver, security guard and teacher got a job as a newsreader for ATV in Birmingham.

A £25 pay rise, saw him leave the newsroom to co-present Tiswas.

He joined Capital Radio in 1984 and presented the award-winning Chris Tarrant Breakfast Show for the last decade until April 2004.

“I’ve been very lucky,” he says modestly. “I’ve been in the right place at the right time and perhaps my skill has been to recognise an opportunity for what it was and work my absolute hardest to make it a success. People always seem surprised that I’m pretty much the same on or off screen and perhaps that’s the trick of it. Probably what you see is what you get.

“People always say that the best shows I do are when I’m clearly enjoying myself,” he continues. “I certainly am and that probably does come through. I had 17 terrific years on Capital Radio and even on the most dreadful cold wet black mornings, I got a real buzz out of waking people up and perhaps bringing a smile to their faces while they sat stuck solid in traffic. Millionaire is a one-off. It’s probably the most successful television programme that’s appeared anywhere in the world over the last 20 or 30 years.

“I left the Breakfast Show on a high with a lot of really good mates still there and some fantastic memories. We travelled the world and I was lucky to meet just about everybody that I’d ever wanted to interview.

“But after 17 years of 5am alarm calls, it was time to move on. I also needed to touch base with my own kids as they were growing up fast and I was away too much. I’ve really enjoyed taking them to school these last couple of years. I do feel kind of guilty that I hadn’t done it for so long. I was just always away in the mornings before they woke up.”

Chris is a patron of The Princess Alice Hospice which provides free specialist palliative care to those with life-limiting illnesses, and their families, within the south west London and Surrey area.

“I’d been aware of the hospice for several years as I live just a few hundred yards away. But it was only when Neil Fox, my old mate from Capital Radio, came onto a celebrity edition of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? with Simon Cowell, playing for their chosen charity which was the Princess Alice Hospice, that I really sat up and took notice,” he explains.

“Neil told me about the sad death of his own father at the hospice but also talked in glowing terms about the wonderful care that not only his father, but also his whole family had received from the staff during those last few sad weeks. Then, when they asked me to become patron for the Dig Deep Appeal which will see a massive improvement in the facilities that they can offer the terminally ill in our own area, I felt I had to get involved. It seemed the least I could on my own doorstep.

“It has been an extraordinary learning process for me,” says Chris. “Talking to the nurses and the patients has been genuinely inspiring and puts everything else in all our lives into true perspective.

“It’s not just a question of easing the pain of the seriously ill, it’s equally about giving comfort and guidance, 24-hours a day if needs be, to everybody in the family who of course also suffer at these tragic times.”

When not hosting Millionaire, working on his other television projects or fundraising for the hospice, Chris is a keen angler.

“It’s just something that I’ve always done,” he enthuses. “My granddad started me fishing when I was four and I’ve been hooked on it ever since. It is completely obsessive and for me it’s a real escape from the world of mobile phones, faxes and emails.”

Last year, Chris made a film, which he financed himself about polar bears.

“They are the most beautiful animal on the planet and I’ve always wanted to see one up close,” he tells me.

“The resulting pictures were stunning and the whole film went out on Christmas Day on ITV. Obviously I’ve still got lots of commitments in the studio – I’ve just signed for another two years for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, then there’s Tarrant on TV and Tarrant’s Way, which I’m currently right in the middle of filming, and I hope to be filming the gorillas in Rwanda and orang-utans in Sumatra some time during the next 12 months.”

Me and My Motors: Chris Tarrant

The Sunday Times, May 2006

Chris Tarrant says he is not particularly enamoured of cars and he has good reason — he once lived in one for six months. That, he says, was enough to last him a lifetime. It was the 1960s and he had nowhere to sleep after walking out on his girlfriend, so he slept in his Mini van. “We had a screaming row and I stormed off. About 20 miles down the road I suddenly thought, ‘Where do I live now?’ “The Mini had blankets and a mattress and I parked it in the grounds of the school where I taught. The postman would deliver mail to the car door. The registration was 161 GLO and it became my pride and joy. A friend once sent me a letter simply addressed to ‘161 GLO, Sprules Road, London SE4’ and the postman knew exactly where to find me.”

Tarrant, 59, who today earns a reported £3.5m and hosts Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, laughs at the memory. “I used the showers at the school and the headmaster reckoned I was very keen because I was first in every day. The kids thought it was cool that ‘Sir’ lived in his car.”

Today Tarrant has more conventional uses for cars. When not being chauffeur-driven to the studio in London, he drives either his Mercedes S 500 or a Toyota Land Cruiser. “To be honest, I’ve become a bit boring with cars because the Merc and the Land Cruiser suit me down to the ground. I’ve tested Aston Martins and Bentleys, but I don’t see the point when I just want to travel from A to B in comfort.” His one indulgence is a personal registration that reflects his passion for fishing: CHU 8B.

It was the pursuit of a different quarry that encouraged him to take his driving test while still a teenager. “I wasn’t really that interested in driving, but I knew it was easier to take girls out in a car rather than trying to lure them home on a bus.”

Unfortunately his first set of wheels was hardly a “puller”, but the green Standard van did allow him to indulge his lifelong love for fishing. He would load up his gear and head off to the River Wye and lakes in Shropshire and Somerset.

Educated at King’s school in Worcester, Tarrant was a star on both the hockey and cricket pitch. He also picked up a reputation as a witty entertainer before moving on to study English at Birmingham University. After graduating and before training as a teacher he worked briefly as a long distance lorry driver. “It was a bloody great artic. I remember stepping down from the cab after work and jumping into my Mini. It gave me a real appreciation of the difference in size.”

Uncertain about his long-term future as a teacher — not least because he was living out of the van — Tarrant began writing letters to television executives seeking an audition. It was hardly a subtle approach; one of his letters reportedly boasted: “I am the face of the Seventies and this is your last chance to snap me up.” Birmingham-based ATV took him up on the offer and gave him his big break reading the local news in the early 1970s, before the launch of the Saturday morning show Tiswas in 1974.

Tiswas was aimed at children but became a hit with parents too. It helped launch the careers of Tarrant and buxom co-host Sally James, and included characters such as the Phantom Flan Flinger and the puppet Spit the Dog. “I think a lot of dads just tuned in to see Sally James’s breasts. We did sail a little close to the wind at times.”

With more money coming into his bank account, Tarrant moved up a gear with his cars too. After a series of Minis, including a Cooper S, he bought his first MGB. “I’ve never been a petrolhead but MGs were actually quite reliable and looked the business. All the flash lads had Lotus Elans or Triumph Stags but they ended up broken down at a garage.”

Tarrant bought his first Toyota Land Cruiser when he started his 20-year career with Capital Radio in London. “I think I’ve had six or seven since then. They are 110% reliable and I can just chuck my fishing gear, or the family, in the back and head off.”

On his CD changer

Dark Side of the Moon — Pink Floyd

Led Zeppelin II — Led Zeppelin

Smash Hits – Jimi Hendrix

Sticky Fingers — the Rolling Stones

Hell Freezes Over — The Eagles

TV celebrity Chris Tarrant pulled in the crowds - and swept the girls off their feet - when he lit up a road in St Albans last Christamas, 2006. He switched on the spectacular lights on the house in Beech Road, which has become famous for its lavish display every year in aid of charity.

Click above for the full story

Chris Tarrant wins weight in BBR wine

26 June 2007

Television presenter Chris Tarrant yesterday stepped onto the giant scales of fame at Berry Bros. & Rudd's London Shop at 3 St James's Street, to collect his weight in wine.

The prize donated by Berry Bros. & Rudd, was won by Chris at a charity auction to raise money for The Lord's Taverners, a charity which, since 1950, has been raising money to `give young people, particularly those with special needs, a sporting chance'.

The charity event raised £50,000 with proceeds destined to encourage young people of all abilities to participate in sporting activities.

Our giant coffee scales were erected in the shop in 1765 and records of customers' weights spanning three centuries still exist and are added to, to this day. Chris will be following in the footsteps of other famous figures such as Lord Byron, William Pitt and the Aga Khan whose weights are held in records at the shop.