Guy was born in May 1931. He was invited to join Television Wales and West (TWW) in 1959 as the first newsreader/interviewer at their newly opened Bristol studio before becoming anchorman of the nightly news magazine TWW Reports, covering Wales and the West Country.
…Shoesmith, Peter
Peter was an actor (1958 – 1966) and then a newsreader at TWW (Bristol) and Tyne Tees TV in Newcastle. He was a BBC TV network announcer (1969).
…Bailey, Earle
Earle was an in-vision Anglia Television continuity announcer in 1968. Before that, he announced for TWW in Wales and the West of England.
Lewis, Bruce
Bruce was a presenter and news reporter for TWW.
Hockin, Bruce
Bruce Hockin retired from his job as HTV News anchorman in 1996, but still holds the record as ITV’s longest-serving newsreader, with more than thirty continuous years in the job.
He started his television career with HTV’s predecessor, TWW, and moved over to Harlech to front the west of England regional news magazine Report in 1968. HTV later changed the programme’s name to HTV News but Hockin remained in the main presenter’s chair, working with numerous co-presenters over the years, including Jan Leeming, Alison Holloway, Richard Wyatt, Sue King, and Patricia Yorston.
Hockin had a particular interest in crime busting, and for many years fronted the HTV West version of Police Five. After officially retiring from the company, he continued to write and present the weekly Crimestoppers slot. Although retired, Bruce is president of the Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service. Bruce has been known to make occasional broadcasts on there himself! Bruce also serves as a director on Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, and Avon and Somerset Crimestoppers boards. He is also a patron of the Skin Cancer Research Fund.
Staffer, Maureen
Maureen was one of TWW’s most popular in-vision continuity announcers. She was also a newsreader at the station.
Taylor, Alan
Eccentric, jovial, avuncular HTV West continuity announcer and programme presenter on both HTV West and HTV Wales who also found fame on the national ITV network, first as the presenter of one of the many incarnations of Mr and Mrs, and, secondly as Nancy Kominsky’s eager assistant in HTV West’s almost cult-status Paint Along with Nancy. Locally, he was well known for his Tinker and Taylor children’s slots. The Mr and Mrs programme went on to be produced by Tyne Tees Television, and, most famously, Border Television, when the host was Derek Batey.
Former colleague Guy Thomas told us: “Alan was the most popular and best-loved television personality in Wales and the west of England, establishing himself as a versatile, all round entertainer and he was admired as much by his colleagues as by the large audiences he won for the television programmes in which he appeared.
“After working in his family’s Cardiff electricity business and seeing active Navy service in the Mediterranean war zone he began entertaining in amateur variety bills, turning professional by appearing all over the country in pantomimes and music halls, including London’s West End. He joined TWW as an announcer in 1959. His popularity started to rise with an afternoon 10-minute slot for children which he shared with a glove puppet (a kind of not too distant relation of Sooty) for a birthday greetings show called Tinker and Taylor. TWW had a large audience for television quiz shows, most of them the idea of the Canadian TV personality Roy Ward Dickson. Alan became the ideal host for these shows, starting with Three Little Words, Try for Ten and the blockbuster of them all, Mr and Mrs, which ran year after year. It is probably true to say it was the most popular programme series TWW transmitted, rarely missing the number 1 spot in the ratings.
“For HTV, Alan began a series of programmes in which he learned to paint (his interest was already there) called ‘Painting With Nancy’ and the demand for the return of ‘Mr And Mrs’ was so great, the company, which had dismissed the idea of repeating their predecessor’s liking for the quiz show format, bowed to the inevitable. The success was repeated and HTV also brought back, again with Alan, ‘Try For Ten’. In 1982 Alan retired to open an antique shop in Bath and then went to live in Spain where he died in 1997.”
Alford, Sally
Sally was born in Weston-super-Mare, in November 1940. She is a former actress, who went on to become an in-vision continuity announcer for TWW in the 1960s and its successor, HTV West (spring 1968 – c. 1985).
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