WHAT'S MY LINE — almost without doubt the oldest television panel show in the world — comes to the end of its present, slighly shortened, run next week.
Letters from Odd Jobsters continue to pour in in their hundreds and it's tempting sometimes to select some really wild ones; but I think the Panel would be in an even greater state of revolt than they sometimes are at present!
I remarked, the other night, how impressed I was with the number of people who made new livelihoods for themselves by discovering some little gap or other in the community that was not being filled.
From my unscientific researches it would seem that 'women do this far more often than men. One such was Angie Phillips from Chessington in Surrey, who got fed up going to the shops and carting back huge unwieldy bundles of nappies for her baby son Michael.
First she thought what bliss it would be to have them delivered. Second, and more important, what (profitable) bliss it might be for other housewives. Whereupon she persuaded her husband to help her out with his van and set up an evening and night delivery service that has now got her more than three hundred customers.
It makes a four-day week at present but, if it keeps going the way it is, she'll soon be a nappy tycoon, a swaddling magnate certainly someone who has worked her way up from the bottom.
Customers, of course, are not always reliable (it's not always the plumber who's the one at fault). Recently, she made an urgently-requested late night delivery, only to find the customers were out then she got there. She stamped back to the van in a fury, slid open the door, slung the bundles of nappies in the back and closed the door, whereupon the van drove off, never to be seen again.
Thoughtful hubby had, meanwhile, reversed direction and was parked on the opposite side of the road, waiting to take her home.
RECENTLY, on the same programme, I discovered two singers unknown in that capacity to large sections of the present generation. I refer to one of the biggest hits on current American TV — The Equaliser otherwise known as the actor Edward Woodward.
The other was that dynamo from Coronation Street Mike Baldwin, in reality, of course, actor Johnny Briggs, who actually made his professional debut as a boy soprano in La Boheme after having attended Drama School as a youngster.
He even obliged by giving us a few bars and brought the house down. Edward had made several records some years ago, which were a great success.