Three for joy: Reunion of Magpie presenters after 29 years apart | Daily Mail Online
Three for joy: Reunion of Magpie presenters after 29 years apart
For a generation of children in the 1970s, they were the cooler, trendier alternative to the BBC’s conservative Blue Peter.
Inevitably, these days the jawlines are slacker and the hair less luxuriant.
But the years rolled away when the three main presenters of ITV children’s classic Magpie were reunited.
Like old times: The presenters of 1970s Magpie - the Blue Peter rival - meet up again
Jenny Hanley, Mick Robertson and Douglas Rae fronted the teatime programme together for three years, pulling in audiences of as much as 10million.
They have remained in occasional contact but all three of them got together for the first time since 1980 at a fete in the Surrey village where Rae lives.
Miss Hanley, now 61, was asked to open the fete and decided to organise the reunion by contacting Robertson, who grew up in the next village.
Prime: Rae (left), Robertson and Hanley
The trio greeted each other with hugs before spending the afternoon chatting about old times.
Miss Hanley said: ‘It is so lovely to see the guys again – as if we last saw each other only yesterday. We worked together for three and a half years and got on so well together back then, and clearly still do now.’
Robertson, 65, said: ‘It is great to see Jenny and Douglas again – we used to really look out for each other.’
Magpie was first broadcast in 1968 and was initially presented by Susan Stranks, Tony Bastable and former Radio 1 DJ Pete Brady.
The show’s mascot was a fat magpie named Murgatroyd. It had rock-based theme music which used the old rhyme about the bird ‘One for sorrow, two for joy’.
Bastable and Brady left Magpie in 1972 and were replaced by Rae and Robertson. Miss Stranks left in 1974 after which Miss Hanley joined.
The only other change came when Tommy Boyd took over from Rae in 1977. All the presenters were invited back for the last episode in 1980.
In her heyday, Miss Hanley’s angelic blue-eyed, blonde look won her a legion of fans, while Robertson looked a bit like a pop star.
Their image was in contrast to Blue Peter rivals such as John Noakes and Peter Purves.
There was tremendous rivalry between the shows with many children branding the BBC’s show as too ‘goody two shoes’ and ‘worthy’.
Magpie concentrated more on pop music, fashion and fun than its public service rival, but still ran charity campaigns and offered viewers badges for good work.
But Rae, 61, who is now a film and television producer, revealed that the rivalry was sometimes friendly, describing how he had a brief fling with Blue Peter star Lesley Judd.
They kept the relationship secret for fear of causing controversy.
‘Lesley was very pretty and, when I met her at a charity function I asked her out for dinner,’ he said.
‘She accepted and we had a bit of a fling. That was the most daring thing I could have done then.’