The bear that made £1billion: Children In Need turns 40

Jeremy Vine in stockings and suspenders, newsreaders belting out Abba, chef Ainsley Harriott doing the Full Monty. Youngsters In Want has introduced tv viewers all method of eye-popping highlights through the years.

Tomorrow night time marks the fortieth anniversary of the star-studded extravaganza, which has raised greater than £1 billion to assist kids and younger individuals. Right here, BETH HALE appears on the highlights and the vital work it is nonetheless doing together with your assist.

ROOTS THAT STRETCH RIGHT BACK TO RADIO

Youngsters In Want can really hint its origins again to 1927. The radio enchantment, billed because the BBC Christmas Fund for Youngsters, aired on Christmas Day and lasted simply 5 minutes, elevating greater than £1,300 for 4 kids’s charities.

In 1951 it turned referred to as Youngsters In Want Of Assist. Nevertheless it wasn’t till 1980 that Youngsters In Want turned a full-scale enchantment on tv. Offered by Sir Terry Wogan, Esther Rantzen and Sue Lawley, it raised greater than £1 million.

Sir Terry continued to current the present till 2015, when he needed to pull out owing to ailing well being. He died two months later, having stored his battle with most cancers a secret, leaving thousands and thousands of followers in mourning.

GRUMPY BEAR IS GIVEN A FACELIFT

Pudsey Bear has definitely had a facelift for the reason that stuffed toy first appeared in 1985.

He was created by designer Joanna Lane after she was requested to revamp the charity’s monochrome emblem.

Wanting a mascot, she went searching for a teddy bear, discovering one within the props division ‘nearly as massive as me’. Her personal upbringing in Pudsey, West Yorkshire, supplied the inspiration for the bear’s title.

A darker shade of brown, with buttons spelling out BBC and sporting a purple bandana, the unique Pudsey was a sorrowful-looking factor. However he proved in style and returned the next yr, having been given a brilliant new coat of yellow fur. His picture was up to date through the years.

NEWSREADERS’ razzmatazz

In an evening crammed filled with sketches, musical numbers and quick movies, many highlights have come from a usually critical supply: the BBC information presenters.

Susanna Reid strutted in skintight Lycra to Mamma Mia! in 2008, did some boogying to Beyonce in 2009 and went gaga to Girl Gaga in 2010. 

And who can neglect when Fiona Bruce confirmed her very sultry facet performing All That Jazz from the musical Chicago in 2007? To not point out when the newsreaders did The Rocky Horror Image Present in 2002 — starring Jeremy Vine in fishnets — and their model of Strictly in 2011.

FAMILY FARE WITH LASHINGS OF SAUCE

Youngsters In Want has lengthy had a cheeky facet. In 1998 superstar cooks Ainsley Harriott, James Martin, Antony Worrall Thompson, Brian Turner and Tony Tobin whipped viewers right into a frenzy by performing The Full Monty. It noticed them strip all the way down to purple satin thongs, then simply hats to guard their modesty.

They weren’t the primary. In 1983 even Terry was left speechless when actress Joanna Lumley stripped all the way down to her black lingerie.

Her impromptu striptease got here after the duo promised that swimmer Sharron Davies was poised to strip in Plymouth — just for the hyperlink to come across ‘technical difficulties’. Joanna determined to take her place.

MOMENTS TO TREASURE

For memorable moments with a heavy cringe issue, look no additional than Katie Worth and her then husband Peter Andre belting out A Complete New World in 2005.

Extra appetisingly, royal Zara Tindall joined two of her Workforce GB Olympic eventing group, Nicola Wilson and Tina Prepare dinner, to carry out Gangnam Fashion in full horse-riding outfits in 2012.

This yr, Countryfile presenter Matt Baker’s rickshaw problem has been confined to pedalling in gardens due to coronavirus.

GOOD CAUSES YOU HAVE HELPED

Youngsters in Want helps greater than 3,900 native charities and group tasks that work with kids and younger individuals going through a variety of disadvantages reminiscent of dwelling in poverty, sickness or incapacity, and people experiencing misery, neglect or trauma.

This yr it launched numerous devoted Covid-19 response programmes to assist organisations offering assist to the younger throughout the pandemic. To this point, £19.6 million has been allotted particularly to assist charities offering important assist.

The tales shared are sometimes unhappy however may be uplifting. In 2017 we met Harry, a softly-spoken 11-year-old who was bereft following the dying of his little brother, Bobby, six, in a highway accident.

Bobby’s dying outdoors Harry’s faculty gate left him so frightened he missed almost a yr of faculty. However viewers discovered of the friendship Harry developed with Joan, from the Liverpool Bereavement Service, which helped him to regain his confidence.

The identical yr, viewers met eight-year-old Ted, slightly boy with Stickler Syndrome, which meant he might solely see mild, darkish and shadow. Nonetheless, he informed viewers he beloved to learn.

The charity serving to Ted get pleasure from his ardour was Dwelling Work, which supplies ‘contact to see’ books for individuals who have visible impairments.

CHANGING CHILDREN’S LIVES FOR EVER

The movies displaying kids in want of our assist are a key a part of the telethon. However we do not at all times see what occurs subsequent.

Karen McAlister, now in her 40s, featured in an enchantment that ran throughout the 1996 telethon. Karen was within the care system when, as an adolescent, she turned a volunteer for a brand new organisation advocating on behalf of kids in care, Voice Of Younger Folks In Care (VOYPIC).

Because of funding from Youngsters In Want, the charity was in a position to proceed serving to her after she left the care system, offering her together with her first job at a time when her disrupted education meant she had to surrender on A-levels. She was filmed telling viewers: ‘I’ve misplaced a variety of my childhood. I do really feel that I misplaced a variety of my innocence.’

She has now gone full circle to assist different younger individuals going through related circumstances.

Having labored her method as much as change into assistant director of VOYPIC, getting a level and a masters in social work alongside the way in which, she is now engaged on her doctorate and is head of younger individuals and household companies for homeless charity the Simon Neighborhood in Northern Eire.

‘That first funded put up modified my life,’ says Karen. ‘Whenever you develop up like that, you bear in mind the way you felt if you had been lonely, you bear in mind what it was like when the door closed and also you had been by yourself. I believe that drives me ahead to make sure that we’re giving youngsters the most effective likelihood we probably can.’

HITS THAT TUG ON OUR HEARTSTRINGS

Youngsters in Want has generated 16 High Ten hits and 7 No 1s, together with a star-studded cowl of Lou Reed’s Good Day in 1997.

This yr’s single, a canopy of Oasis’s Cease Crying Your Coronary heart Out, options stars together with Kylie Minogue, Cher and James Morrison, and is launched on Friday.

HOW THEY KEPT GOING IN LOCKDOWN

There isn’t a stay viewers for tomorrow night time’s present due to coronavirus social distancing, however there shall be loads of stay link-ups all through the night.

The hosts are Mel Giedroyc, footballer-turned-pundit Alex Scott — tipped to be the brand new host of A Query Of Sport — comic Chris Ramsey and actor Stephen Mangan. There shall be particular editions of Strictly, EastEnders and Physician Who.

Musical performances embrace Shawn Mendes, Cinderella: The Musical and the ‘massive bubble sing-along’, a compilation of movies from across the nation of individuals singing alongside to McFly hit Happiness.

• Youngsters in Want will air on Friday night time from 7pm on BBC1.

By Esther Rantzen 

Standing subsequent to Sir Terry Wogan in a darkish, barrack-like lodge in West London in November 1980, I ready to embark on the mammoth process of presenting one of many longest studio programmes the BBC had ever made.

Earlier than us had been six sophisticated hours of movies, interviews and — we hoped — pledges from viewers. Might we pull this off?

TV screens shivered into life with the opening titles and the ground supervisor began the countdown. ‘5, 4, three . . .’

Terry and I stared into the digital camera about to learn the opening phrases: ‘Welcome to the BBC’s Youngsters In Want . . .’ when our autocue script rolled backwards and disappeared, leaving a clean display screen. It was a type of moments the place you’re feeling the one selection is to faint or run.

However, in fact, my panic solely lasted a break up second. I used to be standing subsequent to the best ad-libber within the enterprise. And so the programme started.

We informed tales of susceptible kids who wanted assist, we stored rating as viewers responded of their thousands and thousands, and, on the finish of the night, Terry and I half-lay in our chairs, exhausted, thanking everybody for his or her wonderful efforts.

The primary Youngsters In Want telethon had raised an unprecedented £1 million.

It began when producer Mark Patterson noticed a charity telethon on American tv. It was chaotic, harmful — and raised thousands and thousands of {dollars}. He prompt we strive our personal.

Now that Youngsters In Want is a part of the material of our lives, it is obscure what an enormous, courageous resolution that was. Aside from state events, no person had tried to make a programme on that scale earlier than. It stays essentially the most memorable night time of my profession.

A couple of years and several other telethons later, Mark known as. ‘Esther, we’ve to discover a method for Terry to have a bathroom break and alter his garments. Have you ever an concept?’ I had simply attended a Barnado’s occasion celebrating kids of braveness. How about doing a model for tv? The ensuing section ran for seven years.

Of all of the programmes I’ve offered, this was my favorite, and the viewers’, too, at all times elevating essentially the most cash.

No marvel; the kids we featured had been extraordinary. Some saved their households from catastrophes, reminiscent of home fires. Some had survived unbelievable sicknesses and but had been decided to assist others, serving for example to all of us.

Youngsters In Want has grown exponentially through the years, however its mission continues to be the identical: to fund essential work with kids and younger individuals. I do know the distinction it makes.

I’m so grateful to have been there at first and so glad it has endured. It is cheering to know that, even in these difficult occasions, we nonetheless have the compassion and generosity to make fools of ourselves, bathe in baked beans and do something we will to lift funds to assist the nation’s kids in want.