…grayblog…- separating the wanted from the unwanted

Saturday 6 April 2002

For some reason, I started

For some reason, I started thinking about local children’s TV classic Hey Look, That’s Me this morning. For those who never got to see this gem when it was broadcast back in 1978 or thereabouts, it featured a bloke called Chris Harris (now vanished from the public eye) who (allegedly) cycled around the south of England towing a pink caravan behind his bike. This caravan carried his Aunt Doris (played by Harris in panto-quality drag) who spoke with a highly amusing faux-Hampshire accent, and who seemed to say little more than “oh no! oh no, young Christopher!” and waggle her head from side to side making amusing noises with her mouth (brlrlrlrlrlrlrr!).
Obviously, the bike and caravan were actually carried around in the back of some BBC van, but when you are seven, you expect to see Chris out on the streets with his bike and caravan, looking for young people with interesting stories (as I recall, he did a piece about our local cub scout pack because it had an unusually high number of brothers in it – yes, it was that exciting).
The question is, where is Chris now? And what happened to the caravan? Does he still have it? Is it in some BBC warehouse somewhere? Could the series be revived??

This from TV Cream:

HEY LOOK, THAT’S ME! (late ’70s)
BBC SOUTH

REGIONAL COMEDIC perambulations hosted by Chris Harris which revolved round the travels in the South of England (the Blessed Country) of a bloke (Harris) on his bike, meeting people and seeing what stories they had to tell, etc. etc. George Lennan – “In about 1978 they held a go-cart derby, a downhill soapbox cart arrangement. The trailer-announcement thingy went ‘Hi, Chris Harris here, and do you know what? We’re holding a Hey Look Thats Me go-cart derby! Hmmm? We are!’ (he had THE most patronising manner, the brush headed cunt). Anyway I entered it in a home built classic Dennis the Menace style pram-wheels-on-a-crate affair but the event was won by some cocky little bastard who had a slick steel framed machine with a steering wheel and pneumatic tyres for fucks sake. His dad obviously made it. He took the trophy to the tears of all the genuine competitors like me. The following year they held it again, and I got my old man to build the coolest low slung formula one carty which he went on to win the mums and dads race in, the bastard. Best bit was when Chris Harris gave the old fella a bottle of Bolly which he was supposed to pop for the cameras. He put it in his pocket and walked off without saying a word. Oh no, the best bit was they had to abandon the event after that on police ‘advice’ due to several broken limbs and one lad landing in a coma after a vicious smash up. Happy days.” For convoluted comic effect (hopefully), Harris towed a small pink caravan behind the bike containing his Aunty Doris, who was played by Harris in drag. The Aunt’s voice sounded uncannily like that of Niggly Nelly, (wife of Nutty Noah). Matt Mullen – “Harris once filmed a bit in Lee on Solent, near where I lived at the time, and when broadcast claimed it was actually Bognor, 40 miles away, just to add some sort of credence to the story that he had cycled that ridiculous pink contraption all the way from Brighton to Bournemouth. Tosser. ” Good lord…

Class stuff.

graybo typed this at 10:10 am | | 1 comment

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One Response to “For some reason, I started”

Maggs says:
September 26th, 2004 at 10:18 pm
I took part in the 1979 Hey Look That’s Me Go Cart Derby. I have have some very good memories of the event, the best one being the Hey Look bicycle and pink caravan on display in a nearby school field. Some enterprising local lads un-hitched the bike and rode off on it hotly pursued by a BBC employee! I remember Chris Harris looking much older than he did on TV and quite subdued off camera. I believe that nowadays he does a lot of theatre work, no TV stuff at all.

If I recall correctly the 1979 Derby was won by a spoilt bastard on a tubular contraption that rode on two centrally mounted wheels once a decent speed was attained, the two outer wheels being there for decoration only, it broke all the rules and I’m sure it’s the same little shit who won the 1978 Derby as well.

I cannot see a similar event happening today with the “nanny” mentality that prevails, and would the residents of Underwood Road be so tolerant as they were a quarter of a century ago? Underwood Road Eastleigh is now a maze of speed humps ,chicanes and other traffic calming measures.