John was originally an actor, as most BLUE PETER presenters were, and after an apprenticeship on the likes of Z CARS, he was plucked to join Chris Trace and Val Singleton in 1966, allowing the show to be presented by three people rather than two. Despite his appalling memory ("And at the front is someone I'm sure you'll recognise, the familiar face of, er, Rennie, er, um, Ronnie...."), Noakes was a natural in front of the camera and stayed on the show for twelve years, a period many consider to be the programme's golden age (not us, though - that golden age is circa 2003). Noakes was the logical choice if you wanted to someone to swim the Serpentine on Christmas Day or bomb down the Cresta Run at a hundred miles per hour, and he could do it all while providing furiously gabbled commentary. Indeed when Noakes left in 1978, the show went into a downward spiral for a few years and went through dozens of presenters trying to find somebody with that special Noakes magic. Oddly Noakes' departure wasn't considered worth putting in a Blue Peter Book, so he's there in book fifteen but was out the door by book sixteen - which is a bit odd, especially as even Chris Wenner got a send-off two books later.

Perhaps it's because Noakes still had some BP connections, fronting the spin-off show GO WITH NOAKES with his dog Shep. However he then fell out with the Beeb when they wouldn't let him use Shep in adverts for dog food, so he got another dog (Skip, fact fans) and did them anyway. He then retired from TV and started to sail to Majorca on his yacht. Alas it crashed on the way and, while it was fixed, he moved to another sinking ship (ho ho) TV-am, where he stood in for Parky on Saturday mornings for a few months in 1983, alongside Toni Arthur, probably the oddest breakfast combination until Sharron Davies and Rick Adams on The Big Breakfast. After making a tearful appearance on FAX to announce Shep's death, he then spent the next decade sailing around on his yacht and making the odd appearance on BP retrospectives, before making something of a comeback in the late 90s. He fronted BLUE PETER NIGHT in 1998 and returned to the show itself in 2000 to witness the opening of the Time Capsule, yet in both he came over as a bit of a miserable git - the moaning about how little he was paid thrity years previously didn't help. In 1999 he also fronted ITV's MAD ABOUT PETS, a vague Animal Hospital knock-off, but alas he wasn't much cop at it. John Noakes, then - a legend, but not as good as Matt Baker.

Let's take this opportunity to remember the television careers of the popular Irish singing group, given a surprising number of them have tried to make a career of fronting TV shows. In descending order of credibility, first comes Bernie, who presented Saturday morning miscellaney ON THE WATERFRONT in the late 80s, and was pretty good at it, all told. The 'front was an unusual Saturday morning show in that it was all pre-recorded and more an LE show in the style of Fast Forward rather than a Swap Shop-lite magazine show. Bernie was the 'glamour' element alongside Andrew 'Copy Cats' O'Connor, quirky Kate Copstick (who now works for The Scotsman, fact fans) and Terry 'who?' Randall, who we're guessing was more involved in the writing. Bernie then decided to move into acting, and after a stint on BROOKSIDE is now a regular on THE BILL.

Linda Nolan was also involved in children's television around the same time, assisting Stu Francis on his faux-Crackerjack CRUSH A GRAPE (as you all know, a Border Television Outside Broadcast), bringing the kids on and off and correcting Stu's cock-ups. Last, and certainly least, comes Coleen, whose ill-fated stint on THIS MORNING alongside Twiggy was probably the biggest mistake ITV ever made during the day (apart from dropping WIN LOSE OR DRAW). Anne and Maureen have decided to stick to singing, and you can see all five of them in Duggie Small's act to this day. Please note, though, that Paul Nolan, the "vision technician" who appeared on Blind Date and was given a job during the last desperate days of The Roxy, is not a member of The Nolans.

Denis has been involved in telly since the year dot, after meeting up with Frank Muir and beginning to write together for telly and radio. He's written jokes for most of the legends, including Lord Bob of Monkhouse's 60s sitcom THE BIG NOISE. Indeed, so revered was he for his writing skills that one night, having gone to see Spike Milligan's improvised play, Spike spotted him in the audience and shouted "What happens next, Denis?". He came to prominence as participant on various panel games on the radio, a la MY MUSIC and MY WORD, but didn't get his first starring TV show until he was well into his fifties, compering daytime staple LOOKS FAMILIAR. However in 1977 he approached LWT with the idea of putting together a compilation of out-takes from various TV programmes, and IT'LL BE ALRIGHT ON THE NIGHT became an instant success. A second instalment followed in 1979, but then Denis thought he'd exhausted the possibilities and assumed there wouldn't be any more. Michael Grade urged him to reconsider, and 25 years later, he's still at it. That said, the number of repeats each episode gets, he could well have packed it in years ago and few people would have noticed.

Denis has also written and presented a number of other similar shows, including THE LAUGHTER FILE, which seems to have been running almost as long as IBAOTN, plus various compilations of archive comedy to celebrate LWT's anniversaries. LAUGHTER OF A LIFETIME saw him choose his favourite comedy moments ("I've always been a Shandling man!") while PICK OF THE PILOTS was a six-part series in 1990 showing off aborted US series. Over the past 25 years, he's been joined in the out-take game by people like Terry Wogan, Paul O'Grady and the hateful Steve Penk, but Denis has got the wit to keep his shows effortlessly entertaining viewing, even though he's now in his eighties. We'd quite like them to repeat all of Denis' archive shows sequentially, actually - the Clipboard Collection, they could call it.

Barry started off as a newspaper journalist, and was happy enough doing so until 1972 when he was invited to spend a few weeks fronting a late-night regional opt-out. FILM 71 had started the previous year (hence the name) with a revolving presenter line-up and an intention to discover some new TV faces along the way. Barry was hired for a three week stint, with the option of another three if the BBC was satisfied. In the end he did nine weeks, and after a few more goes he landed the job permanently, just in time for the show to go national in 1975. At the same time he was also doing some work for Radio Four, notably co-presenting the TODAY programme for a bit, alternating with Desmond Languid, and chairing THE NEWS QUIZ. But it was the film review show where he made his name, and this gave him the opportunity to meet many of the big names (including Richard Burton, who fell asleep on him) and prodcued a number of documentaries about movie legends, including 1979's HOLLYWOOD GREATS.

In 1982 he left the show to become the new presenter of a revamped OMNIBUS, and producer Iain Johnstone came in front of the camera to take his place reviewing the week's films - which he did behind a desk rather than a comfy chair. Within a year, though, Baz was back, and he stayed there for another fifteen years. One brief excursion came in 1988, when after asking the Beeb for years if he could do something about sport, ITV hired him to front their coverage of the Olympic Games. Baz was paired with Elton Welsby, and each night at around midnight he'd show up and matily chat to people like Harvey Smith about the day's events, before buggering off home and letting Elton do the actual presenting work. Baz's constant moan (apart from the ones he did on his show) was about the scheduling of his show, and indeed he had a point, with it often seeming as if the Beeb's schedulers were attempting to liven up their job by putting it at a different time each week. In 1998, he was lured over to Sky, who were hoping to beef up their movie coverage, and fronted FILM NIGHT on Sky Premier. However his spell at Sky was short-lived as, after a brief relocation to Sky One (where his show regularly went out at midnight), he decided to retire, concentrating on a writing career instead. He's still in the Radio Times, but to be honest, it's better when he's not there because we get more Andrew Collins.