LYNNE ROWLANDS

Did you ever visit Paenmorfa School in Prestatyn North Wales and torment the school Dinner Ladies?

Regards Lynne Rowlands

I love these bizarre memories, Lynne. Yes indeed I did visit the school with Carol Vorderman (who of course came from Prestatyn) when we were making Go Getters for CITV in 1987! I remember a mad morning with the dinner ladies and the kids went nuts!

Cheers Timmy

Robin Cooke

I've great memories from when I was on your show during the "Bonnie Scotland" week!
I was "Wee McRobin frae Clwyd", collected dead insects, and I brought in a massive tartan Pinky Punky for your competition that was as big as me! I remember you using it to bash one of the TV-AM presenters round the head!

From my mother getting chatted up my Les Dawson, to Magic taking a liking to my ear (he just pecked and pecked at it - my ear was red raw), the whole experience was unbelievable. You were as much of a fun character in real life as you were on screen, and it was just the best thing to be on your show and meet you!

I still rate my Wacaday experience as my claim to fame.

Thanks for the memories, A fan has come home to roost! Nice one, Timmy! Bleeeeurgh! Robin Cooke

Robin, It was Lorraine Kelly on the telly who got the Malletting with your Pinky Punky! Hope the dead insects are a bit better now! Timmy

SARAH

You never know who you'll meet at an airport. The pilot of the shuttle was a wideawaker who told Timmy how he's been to the equator and watched the water going down the plug hole. from the same chap who showed it to Timmy on Wacaday. "Does anyone here know Timmy Mallett....?" he asked.

Also on the flight Timmy met Sarah and her mum. Sarah had been on Wacaday as a phone in competitor,

have a listen to Sarah's memories!

PHILLIPA WRIGHT

Hi Timmy,

I was on your show when I was 16 sharing my appreciation of Spandau Ballet. I won a competition that you set and I was so excited about being 'On Air' with yourself on Piccadilly Radio. I remember you asked of my thoughts on Duran Duran. I said I hated them!

My Dad was worried about reprisals!
Phillipa

Hi Phillipa,
Tell your dad he needn't worry!

DAVE SHIELDS

Hi Timmy,

my memory of wacaday is being on your show!

It was a little embarassing at the time, but now I can look back and laugh. why was it embarassing? well, this was the year you had been to south africa. we played mallets mallet and I won! yay! you gave me an ostrich egg as the prize and I, being the good boy, and show off, that I am, stood on it and it never broke. Little did i know disaster was to strike. I picked up the egg and promptly dropped it, smashing it into pieces! I think no-one knew quite what to do! But it was all ok, the ostrich came on in the break and "layed" me another on, so all ended well.

Thanks for keeping me and my brother entertained throughtout those long summers and boring weekends. We used to get up really early and sit in our pyjama's n duvets waiting for you to start! He was always so jealous of me, because i got on the show and he didnt! It's also kept my family in stitches for the last 15 yrs or so, and probably for the next 15 as well!

thanks again timmy, I think you are my claim to fame

Dave Shields (aged 24 1/4)

Hi Dave, I remember the ostrich egg incident! Boy did we laugh about it afterwards. And it's EGG-STREMELY fortunate we had that spare ostrich egg just in case! Look after it, they're lucky!

Cheers Timmy

JONATHAN JAY MARKANDAY

when I was 12 years old I was one of the reviewers for his "Hit and Miss" segment on Timmy on the Tranny at Piccadilly Radio. Timmy referred to us as "the ugliest looking panel" he had ever seen!
I hassled Chris Whatmough until he brought me on as a joke telling Frenchman named "Pierre Parfait." Obviously, this turned stale after a few weeks and I brought on a partner, Louise Scott (whom I had a crush on) and we became Pierre Parfait and Cherie Chantal! After Louise left for bigger and better things (O Levels), I replaced her with two school chums and formed a jingle-singing group named:'The Tree Fellers". I really only remember one song vividly: To the tune of "A Taste of Honey"

"I bought a brand new Radio, and tuned into the Timmy Mallett Show.. .....a waste of money! I wasted some money of mine." They were all along the same vein (Insulting Timmy) We were with the show until his final party. I stayed with Piccadilly until I left for the United States in 1988. I too was one of many who had a crush on "Germy Gerry" but what could a "painfully ugly" 12 year old do except adore from afar...or rather from behind the glass which separated master Control from Visitor Seating. These days, I am an actor and screenwriter dividing my time between LA and Chicago. Keep up the good work.

Jonathon (Jay) Markanday

All that acting and singing on Timmy on the Tranny has clearly set you on the path to greater things Jay! Brilliant!

PAUL BEAVERS and GEOFF MEGA

At Oxford United's open Day Paul Beavers came over to say hello! He was one of the young jinglers on Timmy on the Tranny at Radio Oxford .

here we are together and have a listen to Paul's memories!

Geoff Mega makes kitchens but he started out as 1980's rock star and got his taste for show business from appearing on Timmy on the Tranny at Radio Oxford! Listen to Geoff's extraordinary story!!

JOE CAMPOS - CHICAGO

hi Timmy,

Some of my fondest memories from when I was a kid was waking up and watching Wacaday with my brother.

I am not from the UK, however my Dad was stationed in Scotland during the late 80's/early 90's so I was fortunate enough to have been exposed to Wacaday. When we moved back to the US it was shortly before Wacaday went off the air, so I missed the last bit of it. And of course no one over here had ever heard of it, so no one ever knew what I was talking about when I would tell them about how awesome Wacaday was.

My two favorite memories of the show was the Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Pokadot Bikini bits, Pinky Punky and Twin Peaks. I wore two hats like that for a good while after that. I wish I could have seen more of the show or better yet been on it. But while I was in Scotland, I never missed an episode.

-Joe Campos, 21 Chicago, Illinois USA

Dear Joe,

Thanks for your fabulous email!
So glad to know that Wacaday's influences have touch the US as well! Good on you, Joe!

HEIDI BIRKETT
I was on Michaela's first ever Wide Awake Club playing the game George!

I had to hold up the right coloured paddle to answer the question. There were several paddles to choose from red and green etc and Michaela asked me questions like....
"What colour are baked beans?"
I did ever so well and was top of the leader board for ages with 11 points until a girl from Devon got 13!
It was a brilliant day coming in and meeting my heroes. But the best thing of all was the breakfast... We sat in the canteen next to the canal and you could eat as much as you like, go back for seconds if you like and it was all FREE!

And now I've met Timmy again and been able to tell him all about the best day of my childhood!

JAMES LUPTON

James was on Wacaday few years ago playing Mallett's Mallet. He's due to marry this summer! Bet they show this photo at his wedding!

DAVID INGRAM
hi, I was on the wide awake club in 1983/84 on a game I think was called SPLAT. we all got blue tee shirts with the word SPLAT across the front, and one of the prizes I can remember getting was a wall clock with the picture of an egg in an egg cup, the game comprised of answering questions, in two teams, which I think were regional, and when you got a question wrong a large chickens egg, which was above our heads cracked open and rubber chickens and the like fell out.

I have been telling this to my own children but I cannot find any record of it. I have searched a number of sites already. so please could you help me track this down as I would be very thankful. yours,
DAVID INGRAM.(aged 10/11, back in the day, from Belfast)

Dear David,

Here's your answer from Arabella!

Splat was one of the last Saturday morning programmes produced on TVAM before Nick Wilson took over from Anne Wood.

It was made of of 4 different segments (soap - a brilliant childrens improvised soap - laughter, something and something, that stood for SPLAT) Anyway I produced the segemnt he is talking about - it was a quiz called Crack It, and was full of endless puns of breakfast and eggs. I think there was a scrambled eggs round etc. James Baker was the quizmaster!!!!!
Everytime you got a question right, there was a mechanised chicken that laid an egg, except it was always going wrong - sometimes it laid 2 eggs and sometimes none at all.
It should be revived immediately!!

ADRIAN CHADWICK

Dear Timmy,

As a kid growing up in the United Kingdom during the 80’s I was, of course, a massive fan of yours. From the Wide Awake Club with Tommy Boyd and Michaela Strachan to your very own gig on Wacaday I loved it!!

The time you were in Germany singing ‘Bler-Bler-Bler-Bler-Bler-Bler-Blermany’ always stands out when I think of my childhood. My Dad used to keep budgies and when he bought a cockatiel I was delighted, I bet you can’t guess what we named it?? That’s right… Magic! Great days indeed – many an hour whiled away on the way to the seaside playing Mallett’s Mallet with my younger brother on the train! I even had my picture taken with you once at Supa Snaps in Crewe!!

Anyway, the real point of my e-mail is not to reminisce but to say thanks. I came across your website and thought, there’s a man who deserves a pat on the back! So thanks for the memories Timmy, they remind me of brighter and more innocent days when Bermuda shorts and fluorescent socks were warn with gusto!

Cheers Timmy Mallett, keep up the good work.

Dear Adrian,

Great letter! thanks!
I remember that photo at Supa Snaps. As soon as you mentioned it, it brought a smile to my face!

SUSIE WILLIAMS
I think I was on the show the Summer of 1991 when I was 10 yrs old! It was the Kenya one and I was dressed as a Zebra, or at least portayed a zebra, name of Susie Williams, and the other contestant on was a boy called Daniel Bart O'Kane who I believe was about 8 years old.

The first thing I remember was the call back saying that I'd got to be on the show, and when the lady on the phone asked me to sing the Wac-a-day theme down the phone I had to send my mum out the room because I was so embarrassed!

The next I remember was being at the tv:am studio and just taking in all the sights and surrounding and just being in awe of everything! One of the producers introduced me to Daniel and we just talked and talked about how happy we were we got chosen, then they called us into the Wac-A-Day set and we saw Timmy, we were just so excited, it was like a dream come true!

I think when I was on it it might have been when the Disgustin' Custard game first started (during which, Magic sat on my head), and also we did the Are We Nearly There Yet-T song!

Fabulous day, fabulous memory, and at the age of 24 I'd still love to do it all again! Only this time I wish I wouldn't be so nervous! At one point you could see just how much my hands were shaking! But it was a fab time and a fab memory and a fab programme that SHOULD be brought back!

Thanks Timmy and co., you made my childhood dream come true

Yours adoringly,

PS: Give Pinky Punky a huuuuuuge kiss from me! I still love that little guy!

LEANNE KING-SMITH
I was on the phone in the Ski Slope game. I was about 13 or 14 years old, and I'm now 30, and still get called Wacaday from old schoolmates!

I called my little skier Adelle, after my sister. It was hilarious when she plopped into the gunk below. I was meant to be on it one week but hung the phone up thinking you were going to ring me back, only to hear you shouting down the TV at me to speak to you. Then you called me a nutter.

You sent me a goodie bag for the mix up which had a Wacaday pencil case, book, stickers and Leprechaun statue in it. So, instead I appeared on the show the next week and had a great time, although I always wanted to appear in front of the camera but never got to.
You are so much fun and a really nice bloke. Since meeting my husband 7 years ago, I found out that that he was one of the carpenters that made the Wacaday set. Strange eh??

ANDREW FROM AUSTRALIA
I watched WAC when I was on holiday in Scotland in 1985. I still recall the theme song (which an English colleague got stuck in my head this morning at a meeting). I lived in Australia (then, and I still do), and Australia hadn't gotten the cartoon Transformers yet. I saw the first couple of episodes while I was on holdiay and have been hooked since. THe worst part was that I could never figure out what channel WAC was on and my Gran was no help (she only watched the news and never had a TV guide). One or two days I missed WAC and I was so distressed (there's not much that's fun to do in Prestwick for a 10 year old). Then to make matters worse we came back to Australia and there was no more WAC and no Transformers (still my fave show to this day and I'm 30 now, since we eventually got it here too). Thanks for the memories and for making that holiday fun. Utterly Birlliant stuff.

SEAN IN BATH
I was a big fan of Wacaday.

I remember sometime in the 80s (I think 1987), Timmy went to Bristol where I lived at the time. It was on the Bristol Downs either at the Kite or Balloon Festival.

Was crowds of kids with parents around him and I *think* he were giving out stickers and whacking them with his mallet. There was so many people I couldnt get to the front and was very upset - I was only five after all!

Also made a "Wacaday" on the beach while on holiday in France, sent it in and it was shown on TV! TVAM kept sending me stuff like car stickers for months after!

TINA THE ACTRESS!!
I am 29 years of age and it seems like yesterday I used to come down in the morning of my school hols and watch you and eat my toast trying to see if could the beat the kids who played mallets mallet...This is one of our best warm up games for my acting college course!
My and I chums got bored of the same old warm up games so I suggested mallets mallet... Best idea I ever had! everyone got very excited.

So now instead of 2 people playing the wonderful game there are 20 of us and our tutor starts off as you then the first to mess up then takes over and so on and so forth...

Are you coming to Bradford college at all it would be cool if you did!!

lots of cuddles Tina
P.s How about you take over GMTV as you might liven the show up no end!!!

Dear Tina,
A bunch of wacky actors and actresses hey? or is that wactors and wactresses? Brilliant!
I'd love to come to Bradford college. keep an eye on the gigs page for all the upcoming dates!

JOHN WILDING
Now I remember! Wasn't the exterior shot for Auntie Boney Kneecaps' cottage taken at a home in the village of Derwenlas near Machynlleth? I went on holiday to that area just before it was on the show, and I remembered seeing this home with a big tree with a star on the top. I'm sure that was used as the Aunty Boney Kneecaps exterior.
I remember because I stayed in Pennal where "Owain WACdwr" lived and went to church!

Dear John,

Wow - I'd forgotten about that - but yes, you're right!

Auntie Boney Kneecaps' cottage was the setting for a very different series of Wacaday in October 1988... There was no Mallett's Mallet (we played a game called Mallett's Mess instead) and it was all hosted from a specially built cottage set (the first time we had done a special set!).

It was great fun though and we had a great time filming all the location stuff in Wales - including that great gag falling off the platform at the train station with name that's longer than the platform!

Here's a picture of Aunty's cottage...and there's more on this and everything Wacaday on our 20 Best Bits page!

Sue Houghton

Hi Timmy,

Big fan of the Wide Awake Club! Kept my kids enthralled of a Saturday and Sunday morning.
Wac had a pen pal club and my son Russ then aged around 10 was invited down to the studio along with us, his mum and dad to meet, for the first time, his penpal from Basingstoke - Matthew I think his name was. We were put up in a hotel over night, wined and dined, then the following morning taken to the studios. We met all the crew and were made to feel so at home - like a big party really. The cast played games with all the kids involved, we met Duncan Goodhew too.
I have the video tape of the programme still and I'm sure Russ has the plastic lunch box he was given on the day, though he's almost thirty now and wouldn't admit it!

Russ must've got the taste for television because he's now a camera operator for Sky TV.
Best wishes

Sue Houghton

Sue,
What a brilliant story! I shall watch out for Russ - glad to see that WAC gave us another telly nut! I wonder where penpal Matthew is now?
cheers Timmy

Fuad Omar

Hi Timmy! Youu really revolutionised Children's TV and Wac (and Wacaday especially) were utterly brilliant!

My Wacaday memory is ... I was on Mallett's Mallett! When I was 10 (I'm now 29) I remember waking up early and TV-AM sent a car to pick me up from Harrow, I was so chuffed! Arriving at the studios, meeting the team behind TV-AM and Elvis Costello who was there that day and then of course meeting YOU and Magic! It was awesome meeting you and I will never forget the whole experience.
I still have the episode with me on it - I lost and got the Wacaplaster on my nose and threw my arms up in the air to announce "Go Bots go Botty!". You and Magic were and always will be, fantastic, so thanks for every memory, for being the best thing on the telly and making early mornings worth getting up for.

Good to see you on 100 Greatest Children's TV Programmes, we should have a reunion with everyone on Mallett's Mallett and the presenters of Wac (I still have my grey tee shirt too), now THAT would be something!

Best of everything and thanks for helping make my childhood amazing,
Fuad Omar

Hi Fuad,
The idea of a reunion is a brilliant one. Finding everyone who was on the show might prove a little tricky! There were probably over a thousand people who played Mallett's Mallet on the show and quite possibly more. Where are they all now?!
cheers Timmy

Jo the Barmaid!!
I was on Wacaday when I was about Nine dressed as a pirate with an eye patch.
Magic flew into me and nearly knocked me off my stool! I won Mallett's Mallet and got a Wac Sac!
And now I work behind the bar at the Vansittart Arms in Windsor and Timmy came in for a drink!!! It was brilliant!
To meet again after all these years was a dream come true!

Jo

Jo,
You're still a little pirate!
love Timmy

Rachel - the bed maker!

Hi , I was on wide awake club when I was 10, did the 'bed making competion' Was really great at the time and soooooo exciting. Never ending stick now though, still got my t-shirt too and met few famous people on there to.
Also never got to say thank you to TVAM for putting us up in the hotel,it was great, at that age i'd never stayed in a hotel let alone a posh one.

I was so embarrassed on the show, timmy asked the 3 contestants where we were all going on holiday that year,and me , i said no where! didnt occur to me to lie.....never lived it down.
I lost the video,which someone did for me,any chance of getting from archives,please?

Regards and bring it back i say!!!!!!!!!!! i know my kids would love it too!
Thanks Rachel 30 1/2 yrs

Byron Law - 21
I loved the WAC and Wacaday and remember getting up on weekends and school holidays to watch them. There really is no show that has come close since. I'm glad I was lucky enough to have been born in 1983 so I could grow up with the best kids show there was.
My memory is of watching Timmy go to the Berlin Wall after it had come down and clipping a bit off and putting it into a little plastic bag. It was both interesting and great fun.
My other memory is the kissing of that stone in Ireland and the little cartoon that followed it.
I'd love to see Timmy on the screen again I cheered him on when he was on weakest link. I'd love to see Timmy back.

Kevin
My best memories of Wacaday were when I used to turn it on every morning without fail and then Timmy would tell us what we had to wear but it was always something crazy like a pair of wellies or a plaster. Utterly brilliant! Also, fifteen years on I still remember the song 'magic goes to norway, norway norway, magic goes to norway, nutty norway!' Such a catchy tune. Brilliant!

Bob the Astronomer!
I appeared on Mallet's Mallett when I was about Nine years old, when we were still getting hit over the head with the mallet. I had just been given a telescope for my birthday, so when Timmy asked me what my hobbies were, I replied 'Astronomy' (BIG word for a nine year old!). When He asked me if I had seen anything with it, I replied 'No, it's too dark at night'. Meaning too cloudy, of course. This comment was enough to reduce the entire crew into a laughing fit, and I was subsequently used as a clip for Sunday's 'Pick of the Week' on the David Frost show. Incidentally, I won Malletts Mallett, receiving as a prize the Hits Album 6. Only thing was I didn't have a record player. D'oh! Oh, and Timmy was really cool to all us kids, but Michaela Strachan was a cow. Bob

Dear Bob,
You had us in stitches with this one! It was recalled at the WAC reunion recently and everyone remembered it! And now you've sent it in! Brilliant!
Keep up the star gazing and enjoy the wacky memories at the wacaday website!

Simon Feek
Dear Timmy, Could you please help resolve a rather heated argument we had in the pub last night. I swore blind that one of the games you used to play on kids TV was called Bonk and Boob! Am I having flash backs to another type of “show” or is everyone else wrong and the game did exist?! Many thanks again and good luck, All the best, Simon Feek

Dear Simon,

Thanks for your great email...

Well you're right. There certainly was a great game on the Saturday Morning Wide Awake Club called Bonk n Boob! It was a spelling game and there's a photo of the Bonk n boob device in the WAC annual! Click here for more...

Dylan Stuart
I just want to say how great is was to see you at Warwick a couple of weeks ago. When I think back to when I was a kid, watching you in the school holidays will be one of my true lasting memories, along with Tony Hart.... ....And I had no idea you studied at Warwick (like me), or could paint (that one with the helicopter on the Timmy website is ace). you are such a modest, down-to-earth guy. Anyway, It was fantastic to meet you, you are everything an entertainer should be. Keep up the good work mate, you are a person almost everybody my thinks is very, very cool. Bleugh!

Kazza
Feeling very nostalgic at the moment having just been looking at the site! I thought I'd look Wacaday up after it being shown on the top 100 kids programmes the other day. As for memories.. well, I remember 'Itsy Bitsy' etc being played on loop at a radio roadshow in 1990, those plasters used to scare me (I have no idea why!) and we used to play Mallett's Mallet in school at breaktimes using A4 files as the Mallet. Ow. I can't ever imagine getting up early just to watch a TV programme now, I suppose you don't appreciate things until they've gone!

Dear Jim, I enjoyed the fun night at Southampton Uni too. Are you in the pictures on the Wacagig page? Your jealous friend is referring to the Mallett's Mallet gismo which we introduced because we liked the idea of a machine type thingy - it wasn't very reliable which made it very funny. It was just to ring the changes.

Dear Barry, You must be the only person who I didn't get to meet, because I stayed until the all 1500 had been bonked on the head! Don't worry, there may be another opportunity before you know it.....

Yours, what are we?

Timmy

Timmy's birthday is actually 18th October - and don't you forget it!

then you played at the kings I think and you wacked my on the head with you malett I was really chuft then I got a t-shirt and you signed the back of it I also still have that.

I was hopeing you would at to my collectiong by writing back to my letter to say that you got my e-mail. I'm now 16 years old and still a good fan.
Hope your ok and lifes a FAB
Love no.1 Fan

No problem Matthew. It's on it's way to add to your other Utterly Brilliant Timmy Stuff!

Thank you Michael, you'll find the Wacaday theme tune on the Wac--A-Downloads page, as well as the Mallett's Mallet sound effect. It makes a great addition to your emailing pleasure to mallet your emails around the world!

Great idea Carl! send in (or email) your wacsnaps wideawkers and we'll put them on NOW!

PS - BLEEUUUURRRGGGHHHH!!!!! XXXXXXX

To all who have appeared on Wacaday, I salute you with a big "Blah!" and as many of us hang up our plasters and go onto far less meaningful lives such as doctors, nurses and other life savign careers, just remmeber you'll never be alone. There will always be a special place for all of us in Timmy (our God's) heart.

I'm now going to dig out my video and wipe my weeping eyes!
Thank you again...

Schools out bleugh
Wacadays in yeah
Run run run to the tv
If mum dont let us watch it we'll get pinky punky to come and bash her on la tete
(and then like the rocket countdown )
BLEUGH BLEUGH BLEUGH BLEUGH BLEUGH BLEUGH BLEUGH BLEUGH BLEUGH BLEUGH BLEUGH-OFF!!!!!!!

I remember sobbing into my homemade pinky punky for months when wacadays and tv:am finished. Infact I dont think I stopped crying till my mum went out specially to buy 'how to be utterly brilliant' which my dad has recently thrown away (I am fuming) do you have any Timmy? sometimes even now i suddenly feel a wave of sadness wash over me as I remember me, age 5, burning my toast, for the last time..................

please put wacadays back on the tele Timmy......
Why dont you sell plasters???

I have to say that wacadays was and still is the best programme ever made........ Since then I have had no faith in childrens television, and for a year I watched and archeology (or it may have been history....) programme because I then thought that the man presenting it was '(TIMMYYYYYYYY!!) using a fake name.

bleugh bleugh bleugh!!!
BRING BACK WACADAYS!!!!!!!!
From Jules R

Dear Jules, Lovely letter, thanks so much. Was the history programme that thing with Tony Robinson, when he wasn't being Baldrick? I was once asked for my autograph by a lady who was convinced I was Tony and "haven't you done well since you worked in the paper shop?" I couldn't let on could I? So I signed it Tony to keep her happy!

Hey Stephen, that's what you call a SPEC tacular show!