When I was a child, I recall that every morning we sat in the kitchen eating breakfast cereal. My mum had BBC Radio 2 on in the background, and Terry Wogan was the host.
In the late 1970s, Radio 2 was a very different-sounding station from the one it is today. This was during Wogan’s first period on the breakfast show, which ran from 1972 to 1984, and his Floral Dance era.
In 1985, Michael Grade overhauled BBC One’s early-evening schedule. EastEnders was introduced on Tuesdays and Thursdays, while Terry’s chat show, Wogan, aired on the other three weekdays. It became a staple of our early-evening television viewing. At about 15, I was probably waiting for the pop act that often appeared on the show. I recall not knowing who many of the other guests were.
These Wogan-branded mugs have been sitting in my cupboard for years. I must have acquired them during a childhood trip to London in the mid-1980s. There used to be a BBC shop near Broadcasting House on Regent Street, and I may have bought them there. Visiting it would certainly have been on my wish list.
It would have been the heyday of the chat show, and I imagine there was plenty of *EastEnders* merchandise around too. This is what I opted for.
I doubt the mugs are valuable collector’s items, but I don’t really want to use them because they are not replaceable. They remain in the cupboard, preserving a small part of the radio and television I grew up with.