Keith Chegwin - The National Student Magazine

Keith Chegwin

CELEBRITY

Cheggers chatted to magazine about his latest online experiment Cheggers Bingo, and his impressive telly credentials. Read the full interview below...

VHS
Keith Chegwin plays Fleance in Macbeth
DVD

Keith Chegwin Autobiography

Children's Film Foundation

The Tomorrow People

Shaun of the Dead

– Have you been on the website yet?

– Oh yes, I’ve been playing Cheggers Bingo, I was on your Cheggers chat yesterday.

– You’re joking!

– I was there.

– You were there?!

– Yeah I was.

– Oh you’re joking!

– …saying We Hey! At you a lot.

– Oh fantastic. I was late yesterday

– I know we had a nice little chat with Maria.

– Oh I had to go to a council meeting.

– Yeah how come you had to go off for this meeting, what was all that about?

– Oh god, there trying to build around where we are… and oh what’s the word, everybody in the village is up against somebody building a house and I was bloody nominated as like the village spokesman. So I went down to this meeting thinking, oh I’ll just say ‘I’m not too sure about it myself’, and then er, no it wasn’t that… it took like forty-five minutes to put your point across.

– So the whole village stands there and says we’d like to hand over to our representative, Cheggers.

– It was just like that. I turned round and said ‘this is like a gig’.

– Oh wow.

– It was very funny, so well I just got caught up, and I was racing back like a bloody idiot, and thank heaven for my wife.

– She did a wonderful job; she was a bit scared at first.

– Hmm, so much so that I’ve gone out today and I’ve got a laptop, a small laptop, and I’ve bought a 3G card for it. So what I can do is just stick the 3G card in, wherever I am on my laptop and bang I’m on the website.

– Aaaah.

– There you go!

– So how long has Cheggers Bingo been going then?

– Well it’s been going about a week and a half now.

– Really?!

– Well actually it’s probably about a week today, really.

– Wow and you’ve already got like a couple of hundred people in most of the games.

– Yeah god it’s been fantastic really. I thought it would be one of those slow little thingies that take off over the next twelve months.

– Yeah word of mouth would slowly ripple outwards.

– Yeah well I launched a thing a long time ago called Cheggers Bedroom, and what it was - it was TV on a PC, and nobody had ever done it before, people still haven’t done it, I was broadcasting live, 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, from my home.

– You are mad.

– I am. [laughs] I’m a bit of a techno bore actually and I’m really into building things, so I’ve built my own five camera live outside broadcast studio in my home.

– Oh wow.

– When you actually watch the video in the picture in the screen, that’s my studio. I do all the little tapes and edit them all and I put all the graphics on myself.

– Oh I see.

– Did you see your name check?

– No I didn’t, I saw you saying hello to the Radio 2 people, but I didn’t see ours.

– Oh god no! Oh bollocks.

– Was that this morning was it?

– Yeah I put it up this morning.

– Oh, we missed that.

– Oh damn it, I’ll put it up now as we talk.

– That’s me having a lie in that is.

– Oh you can’t do that. [laughs] I’ll tell you what…

– I was staying up late having Cheggers chats, that’s what it does to me. So what happened with Cheggers Bedroom?

– Oh yeah well that actually went potty, it took of and we got 350,000 viewers a day… and I don’t know if you know anything about technical web stuff.

– I’m learning by the day.

– Well cookies, not cookies, page impressions. What happens is you can go along to someone and they’ll say – oh we get seven million page impressions a day, well it means absolutely nothing, it just means somebody logged on, logged off, logged on, logged off.

– That’s it, cos that’s search engine results as well isn’t it?

– Because your computer technology would say, ooh he’s been on, we know him, leave it. So yeah we were generally getting more viewers than Channel 5, Sky Television and most of the satellite ones.

– Wow that’s a way of rubbing their noses in it.

– We were in the Independent newspaper, The Sun, The Mirror, Oh the BBC had it as their website of the week. Virgin Radio took it on board for a whole week as well. In fact it got so big that when Jonathon Ross did his New Years Eve TV show, they rebuilt Cheggers’ Bedroom, my bedroom at Television Centre to say what a success it was. Because it was one of the top five websites of the year and we only ran for seven weeks.

– Was it always going to be a short term thing.

– Yeah it was, I mean I’m a pain in the arse, basically what I do, I try things as a demographic trial, so what I do is it’s like this really. Cheggers Bingo is full scale but with what I do, I’m more interested in the demographic figures, how things work and whether people will interact with the site, er whether it will be… I mean I’ve got plans, to go live on the site, not right now but in a few months time, and the reason being that I’m putting the videos up as we speak, to gauge people’s reaction. I didn’t want a bingo site. I went to all the bingo sites, and they all said no we don’t want Keith Chegwin…

– Arrr.

– No, no it’s good! No because they didn’t like the ideas I had, it wasn’t just me. Its cos I said if you want me then you’ll need all these ideas as well, and they said no go away its just stupid.

– Oh but you got us in stitches with all those bingo calls.

– Hah, well that’s what they didn’t want. They just want to go like; you know one and two, twelve.

– But thats the best bit Keith!

– Oh thank you, number eleven, chicken legs eleven. That’s what you want.

– Oh I love the way you do number 57.

– [Parp]

– [ridiculous giggling]

– That’s great. What I wanted to do; and you know it sounds a bit over the top really, I just wanted it to be like a bingo hall.

– It’s brilliant you’ve got it exactly right …

– You can play bingo; you can chat to the man that’s calling the balls which is me later on in the evenings, erm, and then on the screen you’ve got a little bit of entertainment as well.

– Well I think it’s brilliant. These bingo calls that you’re coming out with, I’m not very familiar with bingo, I know you’re a big fan, are they genuine bingo calls?

– Nah, I make them up.

– So red raw sixty-four?

– Yeah red raw sixty-four, you’d never get that in a bingo hall.

– Erm, how did you come up with the one for number 56 Cheggers?

– Ooh, what is the one for number 56?

– [clears throat] Was she worth it? 56.

– [laughs] Was she worth it 56!

– What does that mean?

– I don’t know!

– [laughs] Oooh tickle me, number 3.

– Oh I was in the studio at home, and I just made them up.

– And number 69 is a bit dodgy as well I’ve got to say…

– Oh really what do I say for that?

– Your place or mine, 69.

– God, that ones quite nice. I have to admit it was making me laugh as we did it.

– Oh it really is brilliant, its so much fun.

– Hey, what I’m doing now, oh I’ll just do it, erm hang on, erm Radio 2, we’ll just bring that one down, and with a bit of luck, I’ll put your video up.

– Ace.

– Hang on, oh god what did I put it down as? I do so many, er hang on is that it, it could be… because I try and update them literally as much as I can.

– Yeah we were checking them yesterday and noticed it had changed two or three times.

– Yeah well actually I’ve been erm, oh god it’s not that one, sorry…

– Don’t worry.

– Hang on, hang on.

– We hey!

– We hey. Err, now… hang on… TV, it’s all very clever, I do it all from home you see, which is fantastic, erm whats the word, ooh there you go.

– I wouldn’t have figured you as being a web wizard.

– I can’t tell you, I’m so boring.

– Any technology that comes out you’ve just gotta check it out and understand it.

– Well I’ve got my own television edit suite at home and I’ve got my own recording studio, and it’s all wired and done by me, and I love gadgets, and can’t tell you. I’m a great fan of gadgets.

– Ah, well you’re a big kid aren’t you, that’s where it comes from isn’t it.

– Boys and their toys you see… Yep right that’s uploading right now, so you should be able to see that in a few minutes.

– Ah thanks. So I’d just like to talk a bit through your glittering career.

– Yeah go on.

– Now you started off on the Children’s Film Foundation, how did that come about, because you were about ten when you were playing Egghead Wentworth?

– When I was a kid, I was always one of those boring farts that used to come out from behind the sofa tap dancing with a cane, and my mum and dad were so annoyed by it I can’t tell you, and they couldn’t wait to go out of the house and let my grandmother look after me, and I could entertain her for hours with magic tricks and more. Bascially what happened was, to cut a very long story short, I entered a talent competition in Rhyll in North Wales, won it, got onto a well know television show of the era called Junior Showtime, and from there was spotted by an agent called June Collins, who is actually Phil Collins mother, who brought me down to London, and I auditioned for a stage show called Mame with Ginger Rodgers and I got it. I did the stage show for a little while because the licensing laws wouldn’t allow you to work so long in the west end and I went to stage school in London, and whilst I was at stage school I auditioned for all these films, and that’s how I got into the Childrens Film Foundation, but its quite funny how your past catches up on you.

– So it wasn’t a pushy parents situation…

– No it was completely the opposite, they didn’t encourage and they didn’t discourage, but there was no sort of pushy thing and in fact even nowadays they don’t treat my job seriously, I swear to you they don’t. I always remember my mum saying to me one day; you know you could have been a lovely policeman.

– You know there is still time to become a lawyer Keith.

– There you go, I think I have missed my vocation in life. That’s actually what my daughter wants to do; she wants to be a lawyer. She’ll probably fight on my behalf with a bit of luck, I hope she’s cheap.

– That would be useful to have in the family.

– Oh god wouldn’t it. But that’s how my career started, and whilst I auditioned for films and telly, and I was on things like Open All Hours with Ronnie Barker.

– Yes, the very first one. Can you remember your line from that?

– I can, have you got a frozen zoom.

– That’s correct!

– We hey! It was so odd, because when I was like twenty five, I was walking down the corridor of the BBC, and Ronnie Barker walked passed me, and I nodded at him in awe, and he got about ten foot away and he went – got a frozen zoom? He wrote that line, god how many years ago I don’t know, but he’d remembered what he’d written for me.

– Wow, because you’ve been involved in so many seminal TV moments and so many landmark programmes. I mean for me, The Adventure Game was enough, just appearing in one episode of The Adventure Game, I can hardly find anyone who remembers The Adventure Game and I thought it was fantastic.

– My god, well I can only just remember it.

– I struggle to remember, did you get got by the Vortex and end up at the bus stop in the middle of outer space?

– My god, you know I can’t even remember it.

– That show was brilliant.

– Yeah I think it was filmed at BBC Bristol, yes I think basically I got across the maze, there was a maze there, but it was a fantastic show to take part in, it was well ahead of it’s time actually.

– Yes, it was, there were all kinds of crazy dragon references, gronda gronda this…

– Oh yes exactly, I think it was basically taken off because the heads of television didn’t understand it.

– It was a bit weird.

– It was a bit too clever for people.

– And you were in The Tomorrow People as well. That’s always a big one.

– My gosh yes, and that’s on video now, its on DVD its on sale somewhere.

– And an appearance in Z Cars.

– Yes that was in fact one of the last ever black and white episodes of Z Cars, which tells you how long ago it was.

– So it now looks a little bit more dated than it actually was.

– Oh yeah.

– One of the things I really remember you vividly from is Crows Road on Saturday Superstore.

– Oh my gosh yes!

– That little Crossroads, sit-com piss take that you used to do, that was fantastic.

– Yeah, god, It’s such a shame really… gosh you’ve got a fantastic memory.

– I love my TV.

– Crows Road, I mean I’d forgotten until you mentioned it then, but yes it was like a kind of Dallas thing really.

– I’m a bit of a TV whore I’m afraid.

– Oh fantastic. There you go. But yeah, Saturday Superstore with Mike Read and Sarah Greene. I was very lucky, because I worked on Saturday mornings for gosh, 14 years. Well I worked at the BBC in total 14 years, and I had a fantastic time, doing Swap Shop, Saturday Superstore, Cheggers Plays Pop. And it’s quite funny now, because what happens is I’ll go out shopping and I’ll go to the supermarket and somebody about seventy years of age will come up to me and go ‘Hallo Cheggers’. Those programmes were nearly thirty years ago now, so when they were watching those shows they were forty and they were sitting down with two kids watching the programme. So now luckily my audience goes right across the board, which is brilliant for me.

– And it’s not going to fade mate, because you’re a national treasure, an absolute treasure.

– Arr thank you.

– Now, you’ve done so much morning telly, are you actually a morning person?

– Yes I am, oh gosh well I’m an all day person. I don’t sleep.

– You’ve just got the Cheggers energy twenty-four-seven?

– I’m really dreadful, I do not sleep and I don’t mind actually.

– Are you a coffee drinker? Or is this just natural energy?

– I drink water and Pepsi, for some unknown reason my brain just keeps ticking all the time really. I just love what I do; I enjoy what I do so much that I don’t mind putting in the extra effort for what I do. Do you see what I’m trying to say?

– Yeah. What do you reckon about Saturday morning kids TV these days?

– I think it’s very good but I think it’s a bit of a shame that its become so orientated with pop music.

– It seems very clinical to me.

– Yeah, it seems a bit too clean really, I mean I was a great fan of Ant and Dec.

– Oh they were good.

– Oh they were fantastic, they brought entertainment back to children’s TV.

– It was aimed for children but they didn’t talk down.

– It was an adult show, brilliant. I mean that’s the brief that I had for Saturday morning TV, our producer used to turn round to us and say, you’re not presenting a kids show – this is an adult show that hopefully the kids will get. And I thought wow that is absolutely fantastic.

– That’s the best way to approach it I think.

– There you go, so it was a great briefing for us; and it meant that on the show we would interview the politicians of the day, we’d have serious news items, there were no words you couldn’t use like ‘inconsequential.’ You could use big words, because the producer would say that if the kids don’t understand they’ll go away and ask, which is fantastic.

– Well quite.

– It was a really nice era to work in whereas I think TV nowadays, children’s television is a cheap cop-out, they say lets try and sustain the figures, what can we do? … I know lets get McFly, do you know what I mean, the current bands of the day, and it’s a bit of a shame really that they seemed to go down that route. Whereas Ant and Dec didn’t, what they did, and I know the producer extremely well because I worked with him on the Big Breakfast with Chris Evans a guy called David who I’ve always been in awe of as a producer, because he had stupid ideas. He’d come up to you and say I’ve got this idea, and you’d think oh here we go, and I’d go what is it David and he’d go bla bla bla bla, and you’d go… that’s fantastic. And then we’d do it, and that’s what he did with Ant and Dec. He used to go in with stupid ideas, they’d probably laugh at him, they’d do it and it would work.

– Yeah, well as well as doing lots of mornings, you very rarely also end up in a studio.

– Sorry say again.

– You’re rarely working in a studio, they usually send you out.

– Yes, most of the shows I’ve done have always been outside broadcasts, which I love actually. A guy called Roy Kinnear, an actor.

– Yeh, I remember him.

– Well he turned round to me when I first did the Children’s Film Foundation, and he said – the only bit of advice I’d give you Keith, he said that it doesn’t matter whether you’ve got four or five hours of television or two hours in a west end stage show, even if you’ve got thirty seconds, make it worth it. The reason being that people will watch you, and people will judge you; only on thirty seconds. Over the years, the things I’ve done, I’ve interviewed Margaret Thatcher, I’ve interviewed big people like, Bon Jovi, people never remember those interviews, they always remember that thirty seconds either where something went wrong or something funny happened, so it’s so true.

– Oh speaking of which…

– I really, if someone says to me I got thirty seconds worth of telly, I’ll go yeah I’ll do it, fantastic.

– One of the best things I’ve ever seen with you in a situation that went wrong was that escapologist on Star Search.

– [laughs] Oh do you know what, I can’t tell you, I have never worked on a show like that.

– That was brilliant.

– I have never laughed so much. It was the only television series, I’ll be honest with you, that I just couldn’t wait to get in and present, and in fact I got banned from rehearsals because the bosses of the show said look we don’t mind you having fun but you’re just laughing and taking the piss here.

– So if you’re going to do that, do it while it’s live.

– So basically I used to walk in the studio just seconds or minutes before the live show, and crew would then turn around and say ‘ act number seven’ – ‘what is it?’ – and they go ‘escapologist, you’ll love it’. But yeah you can’t beat that sort of scenario, you know escapologist gets into the sack, two members of the audience tie him up and he can’t get out.

– And you can hear him faintly whisper near your microphone, ‘they tied it too tight, they did it wrong’

– He says ‘they tied the knot too tight’, and you know what, you probably haven’t got time to write this but I was relaying that story to a camera crew I was working with, and we were travelling up to Knaresborough, to do some filming on Guy Fawkes night. So I’d told them the story about the guy in the sack and I didn’t think, I’m sure they didn’t believe me, anyway I arrived at this hotel in Knaresborough, the porter comes out of the hotel to help us with our bags, and there he was… the porter was Robert’s World of Magic.

– Wow, I’d forgotten he was called Robert’s World of Magic.

– There you go, but in fact he came back on the show with a guillotine trick, and said to somebody from the audience, stick your finger in there, and she said, ‘not fucking likely’.

– He’s right up there with Bob the tray.

– Aah fantastic. I have to admit Star Search was one of my favourite shows.

– Are there any shows on telly at the moment that you’d like to have a go at, shows you’d like to bring a bit of Cheggers energy to?

– Do you know what, no there isn’t.

– What about Deal or No Deal, would you elbow you’re old mate Noel out of there and…

– No, don’t get me wrong, it’s a fantastic show but I haven’t got enough time in my life to watch it, but it’s a brilliant show. When it first came on I thought ooh god I hope were gonna get a manual with this… maybe you could log on channel four forward slash how does it work mate. But I have to admit once you’re geared into it it’s a brilliant show, but an hour out of my day watching TV I just can’t do it, I’d be itching to do something else… but no I can tell you there’s no show on TV that I’d like to present. I shouldn’t be rude about TV, about the industry that I work in, but I think it’s become a little bit lazy. I mean I work in television and I sit down in the evenings and there’s nothing to watch and I think that’s a sad reflection on our industry. Yes you can watch your soap, yes you can watch your news, as long as its on at the right time and they stop moving it around… but there’s nothing really out there that I like I think we’ve gone into an era of like trivia TV.

– Well I think you’ve got it right with the web, because the whole interactivity of it all is just right for Cheggers.

– I think so, and TV is a bit dated as far as I’m concerned because, what people really want in their lounge and we’ve got the technology to do it, is a computer. This will happen in the future, it won’t happen now, you will sit there in your lounge… and TV manufacturers have actually incorporated the ability for TVs to actually do this, and that is you’ll be connected to the web, you’ll talk on a webcam to your mother about ingredients about you know how you boil an egg, you’ll be able to work on a word document, do an SMS text thing message if you want, and watch telly at the same time. That’s what we want for the future. I find that TV isn’t moving that quickly and it’s a bit of a shame really because the only interaction with the audience that they have is like press your red or green button to say yes or no. And I think that’s lazy, I really do think TV could incorporate their websites a little bit more interactively with the viewers at home, and therefore do a favour to the advertisers as well. Unfortunately TV is suffering with advertising but that’s basically because they just sucked everything off the advertisers but given nothing back. You really have got to work at keeping your customer satisfied, viewer and advertiser. The web will steal a march eventually, because you can do so much more with it, you can interact, I can ask you questions in the chat room, I can play you videos, and maybe in a few months time, if we do decide to go live which I’d love to do, I will talk to you as well.

– And we’d love to hear you. What does your son Ted think about your celebrity status?

– He’s totally oblivious to it, I think because he’s been brought up with it, it’s the norm, do you know what I mean.

– Yeah its not weird that dad is talking on the web to loads of strangers at eight o' clock every night.

– Yes, and when I go away and do GMTV for a week, it’s like oh see you in a week daddy – and I say to my wife, does he like watch me in the mornings, and she says – erm no not really. It’s just like that’s what daddy does end of story. And I’ve got a seventeen year old daughter and she is exactly the same, there’s no like daddy can you do this or daddy can you get me tickets for that. She just treats me like a dad. It’s quite funny, she’s never mentioned anything I’ve done on TV my daughter, yet the other day I was driving her back to London after a weekend and she said I’ve got to ask you, is that you on the Walkers crisps advert, and I said yes it is – Oh I’m really impressed with you now she said. Well there you go.

– You also appeared in Shaun of the Dead.

– Oh god I did.

– Didn’t you also appear in the short that came before it, that Simon and Edgar did?

– Yeah, do you know what, they cut a load of things together and cobbled a load of bits together, so I’m not too sure.

– Oh it wasn’t recorded specially?

– No erm, well yeah I did some bits and pieces for them, also they phoned me up out of the blue, and they started saying, you know, could I do this and that for them, because they know I’ve got a studio at home, and they needed things really pronto so I was literally able, they gave me a whole load of voiceovers to pictures to do, so I was literally because I’m a great fan of technology, they could send the pictures and I could do the voiceovers, then I could literally send them back via an ftp server and bang they got it. So yes I was part of it, but you know, more people have told me about the old films or small parts that I do in Shaun of the Dead or a small movie called Bingo! A few years ago…

– That was called House wasn’t it?

– Yeah, that was it House!

– Get it right Cheggers.

– Listen to me! But so many people have called me and said oh I saw you in Shaun of the Dead, I heard your voiceover when you were doing this and doing that.

– There was a nice little thing I saw you in recently that got repeated, Whatever happened to Harold Smith.

– Oh gosh yes.

– Lovely wig you had on.

– With erm Tom Courtney.

– Beautiful story, I didn’t see it when it first came out.

– Yeah it was funny because I worked with him when I was a kid, and it was so odd because I got the script through and I only had a small part in it, so I went up to Sheffield to actually do my bit, and I’d worked with Tom Courtney in a thing called the Chester mystery plays which was one of the first ever productions that the BBC had done in what they call colour separation overlay, they have a big green psyche and they can put the world in behind you. It was a three hour drama in which Tom Courtney plays Jesus, I played Cane from Cane and Abel, and a few others in this three hour epic, there were hundreds of people in it, but anyway I went up to the set of Harold Smith, walked onto the set, and Tom Courtney comes over and says ‘do you remember me?’ I thought that was just a lovely thing to say, he’s a nice bloke.

– I just want to talk briefly if you don’t mind, about you alcoholism.

– Oh god yeah.

– I just want to ask how you feeling about it these days, about the way in which you came clean in the public eye, and what perhaps you’ve given to the nation through that because you’ve kind of given the nation a vicarious experience if you know what I mean.

– Yes I know what you mean, its weird really, because I can say it now, because where are we now thirteen years of not drinking, in reflection, and I wouldn’t have said this around thirteen years ago, but it’s probably one of the best things that ever ever happened to me, because I look back at it, on that era of my life and I think my god – things can never ever be that bad ever again if I look after myself, and it was a great learning curve, god it sounds a bit twee doesn’t it, me saying that but it really did teach me the value of life, living, people, time and so much more and how much I appreciate life now, you know this sounds the weirdest thing ever, even today I get in my car and I go wow, I’m driving, it’s a fantastic feeling you know, and there’s so many things that I can do that I couldn’t do whilst I was drinking, but it was a bloody heavy period it really was.

– It struck the nation as quite a shock, because of your outgoing personality and the way everyone perceives you it was on of the last was anybody expected to see you on telly on that This Morning appearance.

– Yeah, that’s right.

– It was the polar opposite to everything you’re identified with and that is probably what struck a chord so much with everyone.

– Yes I think people didn’t really realise or appreciate it, you know I mean I hadn’t really been around for a while on TV or what have you, and although I sort of had my business life and I was doing things on that side, I’d never stopped working. The press had always said oh Cheggers erm whats the word…

– They say you’re bouncing back don’t they.

– Yes I know, they always say you’re bouncing back. But I was still working as I was drinking really, I then I went into three clinics and they tried to tell me and blame it on my family they tried to blame it on show business, every conceivable thing you could think of, but deep down I know, and I know now, it was my fault, I like the drink, I loved to drink, I wouldn’t give up drink, and what happened was, without really realising it, it took over my life, and I was like a hamster on a hamster wheel and I couldn’t get off. I’d hide bottles, I’d drink two and half bottles of whiskey a day, you know I’d do anything to get it, people tried to take my credit cards away but I’d still manage to get it. You know my whole life… I didn’t care about my family, my house, my home, my kids, my work, nothing… having a drink was more important than all of that really and then… it was quite funny because I’d tried to give up so many times, I went cold turkey and everything you can think of and that always frightened me because it was always like trying to jump Beeches Brook on a Shetland Pony, it was such a hurdle to get across, and then when you got on the other side of that, you still had more to cope with, life, but you know I went on Richard and Judy and ever since that day, which was the 5th of November 1992, that was the last time I had a drink, and actually the public were fantastic, I can’t tell you, wherever I went people used to just give you a little nod and go well done, I ended up in a lift in Northern Ireland and this feller says ‘eh Keith I’m a member of the AA as well, here’s my card if you want a chat while you’re away.’ They were bloody brilliant. My life for the past thirteen years, don’t get me wrong, you drop the bottle and people always turn round and say ooh life is wonderful now, it isn’t, life is difficult, but it’s better than looking at life through the bottom of a tumbler.

– Well I think the nation does take you very warmly to its heart, its difficult to explain what it is about you that’s caused that, because there were many people who have been on telly as long as you’ve been and they are just not there, not in the public eye, not in the public focus anymore, there’s something about your energy and your personality, that’s managed to grab people and stay with the nation, its very British as well.

– It’s fantastic really, but I think also, hopefully, I mean I’ve always treated telly as a hobby… that sounds a really weird thing to say.

– Oh no it’s great doing jobs that you enjoy.

– There you go, exactly that. But there are other areas of my life where I can earn money and you know I can drive a bus if necessary but when I’m doing TV I just have a fantastic time, I just have a bloody good laugh and enjoy it, and gone are the days, and you know this sounds awful, I used to worry what people think of me, I don’t now, and the other thing is if I go wrong – I go and do a job in television and people don’t like what I do, well its not my fault is it, its their fault isn’t it because they booked me.

– Quite right too.

– They know exactly what Keith Chegwin is like.

– Because you’re Cheggers, no-one can really have a go at you can they, because it’s Cheggers.

– [laughs]

– So one last question for you now really, what do you want to do when you grow up?

– [laughs] do you know what, we had dinner this weekend with my brother, and my wife said exactly the same thing, you know, god I wish he’d bloody well grow up. I always look forward to what I do, it’s like with the website I can’t wait to get up in the morning and see if anybody is in the chat room, what the figures were for people coming on last night and how many people were there and that sort of thing you know, and of course tonight at eight o’clock, I’m looking forward to doing a web chat. I’ve got a lot to look forward to really and there so many other things that I want to do, but there’s not enough hours in the day really is there.

– Well Cheggers you’re an absolute legend, and we love you for it.

– Oh thank you very much