Tag: Gyn Freeman

Alan Titchmarsh opens a Children in Need project – Marie Phillips

Photos by Marie Phillips, no reproduction without permission.

The photos show gardening and talk show presenter, Alan Titchmarsh, opening a Children in Need project, before sharing tea with the children involved.

It was Ulverley Green Special School in Olton, about 1996. CIN had paid for the equipment for a play area and raised plant beds. We took some cowslips for them. Alan was, as ever, brilliant and spent so much time with the children and mothers, although he did get told off for eating the pansies on the tea tables. He was just demonstrating that they were edible, but some of the mums thought it might encourage their kiddies to eat some plants which were not!!  He was mortified and very apologetic but made a lovely speech to officially open the Project. I drove him there and must have scared the daylights out of him because he made the return journey with Gyn Freeman and the film crew – hee! hee!

Gyn Freeman, Radio WM photocard

Copyright resides with the original holder, no reproduction without permission.

Thanks to Stuart Gandy for making this photocard available.

Gyn Freeman was a presenter on Radio WM at BBC Pebble Mill; she was part of the 206 team with the late Stuart Roper.

Here are some comments from people who worked with Gyn:

Pete Simpkin: “Gyn and I had at first a ‘love-hate’ relationship…she worked in London supplying tapes of items to all the local stations and we both regarded this as a chore …….when she arrived in Birmingham to work with the late Stuart Roper we got on very well and I still treasure a recording of a live show from a Birmingahm canal where I was being instructed how to operate a canoe and was scared witless on air with only her cooling words from the bank to keep me going!”

Marie Phillips: “Gyn is my very best friend. We met when I was Children in Need Co-ordinator and she was co-producing it. We came to realise that her job was to report the projects we funded and mine was to protect the “good stories” from being exploited. We came to a very happy compromise and worked so well together.There are so many stories from the various CIN programmes – when we got stuck in the lift, “Dicky Heart and the Pacemakers” and so on … We forged a close friendship which continues and long may it. She has a formidable intellect and such a wealth of stories and we are never short of a laugh. Gyn is simply unique.”

Viv Ellis: “I loved working with her – she made me get sawn in half (by a magician) on Children In Need one year!”