Someone sent me this fantastic PDF from 1979 yesterday. Unfortunately I can't add it here. Anyway, it's from the Daily Mirror showbiz pages, and amid the stories about Leave Him To Heaven and the final of Rising Stars (whatever that was - a sort of late Seventies X Factor probably) and an Eric & Ernie cartoon strip, is a fantastic picture of that year's - and perhaps the only ever - Miss Children's Television contest.
Look! There's Newsround's 'Lucy', Ragtime's Maggie Henderson, Crackerjack's Jan Hunt (who must have been at least 40 and was famous for getting the words to songs wrong on that singy bit they used to do in the show), the scandalous Tina Heath, Maggie Philbin and Floella Benjiman, Flambards star and Playschool irritant Carole Leader, Wildtrack's Su Ingle, and Stopwatch lovely Susan King, lumpenly shoehorned into unflattering Miss World one-piece swimsuits complete with sashes. No outstanding figures there that I can see. It's great though. I wonder who won?
But I wonder. Were they forced into it by their bosses? Or perhaps they thought they were striking a blow for women's lib (there's a dated phrase) or do you think they just enjoyed it? Do you think perhaps, that because they were kid's TV presenters it was inappropriate? More so than Konnie Huq getting her norks out for FHM?
But the point is: can you imagine this happening now? I don't know the names of enough kid's TV presenters to complete a fantasy line-up, but still, it would never, ever happen today. Even if it was suggested, there would be a demand that men did it instead, just to prove that sexism is dead, blah, blah, blah. Or perhaps some might do it, but in ironic fashion. Shame.
Why must the modern world be so po faced? Don't you wish it was still 1979?
