photo from BBC website

This morning I spotted a tweet linking to a YouTube video of the whole of the 1985 Christmas Day programmes that Noel Edmonds used to do on BBC1 live from what was then the Telecom Tower, a variation on his Saturday teatime show The Late Late Breakfast Show with the slightly modified title Live Live Christmas Breakfast Show. Noel was holding court at Telecom Tower, Radio 1 DJ ‘oooh’ Gary Davies (with The Krankies) presented from a Virgin aeroplane full of children making it the first ever broadcast from a commercial flight. BBC presenters hosted bits from Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow, Cardiff and Northern Ireland, a bit like on Children In Need where they give regional presenters a moment of national fame, and Mike Smith arrived in style by helicopter to a village in Sussex to invite the residents to turn up and play various ‘wacky’ sports on the green. If that wasn’t enough they also found the time to be interactive 1980s style, (if you phoned in a dedication it would be available to read on Ceefax), and officially launch Comic Relief with a live link-up to Ethiopia. Pulling off such an achievement on live television wasn’t without its technical problems way back in 1985, but looking back at what they had to play with regarding 1980s technology it stands up as a brilliant piece of experimental television. When you realise how many people were involved in this task it is impressive enough, then it dawns on you that this was done live on Christmas Day. The pressure to get it right on the one day of the year that everyone is indoors and very likely to at that time of day have the television on must have been immense, and those poor people in the 1980s only had four television channels so potentially a quarter of the UK will have seen if they fucked it up and had to bring out the girl playing noughts and crosses with a clown.

The reason I mention it is of course because it was tweeted in tribute to Mike Smith, whose death at the young age of 59 was announced this weekend.

Despite being a long time fan of the superior medium of radio over television, it is actually television where I first became aware of Mike Smith. Although his stint as the breakfast show presenter on Radio 1 was on in the car to school, to me he wasn’t a radio person. Presenting Top of the Pops on occasion and being Noel Edmonds’s man-at-the-scene on The Late Late Breakfast Show made Mike Smith a star. ‘Smitty’ parted company with Edmonds following the tragic death of a contestant taking part in a daredevil challenge and went on to forge a career as a television ‘go to’ man. Regarded as something of a jokey poster boy for bland presentation, Mike Smith was a million miles better than he was ever given credit for while he was alive. Radio-wise, he rose through hospital radio and behind the scenes at BBC radio, moved to Capital Radio (the proper Capital Radio, meaning the London only station), and then returned to the BBC on the right side of the microphone. Eventually he took over the flagship breakfast show in 1986.

As I said though, it was television where Mike Smith shone. Whether presenting fluffy light entertainment fare such as the largely forgotten panel game That’s Showbusiness or ITV’s Trick or Treat with Julian Clary, to semi-serious documentaries The Really Useful Guide To Alcohol and AIDS: Your Choice For Life, he was a competent host who could turn his hands to anything. His television appearances lessened following his helicopter accident in the late 1980s, leading to the setting up of his aerial filming company responsible for most of the footage we see on news programmes.

In the series The Light Entertainment Story, an episode centred on radio personalities crossing over to television mentioned Noel Edmonds’s return to the big time with Deal or No Deal after a period in the wilderness. Mike Smith appeared on screen appearing genuinely upset at the way Edmonds had blocked him out of his life; when commenting on his former colleague’s comeback he said that he would have phoned to congratulate him if he had his number. This could have made him look like the bitter ex-star but it didn’t, he just looked genuinely upset at no longer feeling a part of something. Speaking to Chris Moyles on a documentary about the breakfast show, Smith admitted he missed radio.

To die at such a young age is a tragedy, to not have been given the chance to make the best use of his talent is a crime. We’ll never know what Mike Smith could have achieved, and that is the biggest tragedy of all.

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