The Continuity Booth
ITV 1 - TWW
If you're not included on these pages and feel that you should be, or if you'd like to make an amendment to an existing profile, click here to update us. Many announcers contact us every month, updating us on their career to date. Profile updates appear on the site within hours. Please do keep the information coming and help us maintain the most comprehensive reference of its kind.
A former actress who went on to become an in-vision continuity announcer for TWW in the 1960s and its successor, HTV West, from 1968 until around 1984.In-vision Anglia Television continuity announcer in 1968. Before that he announced for TWW in Wales and the West of England.
Continuity announcer for ABC Television, TWW (Television Wales and the West) in 1958, and one of the first announcers and news readers on Anglia Television from its launch in 1959. During his time at the Norwich-based station, Colin also interviewed for news programmes and was a quizmaster. After leaving Anglia in 1964, Colin worked as an announcer/news reader for the overseas service of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, and later that year moved to Tyne Tees TV in Newcastle as a continuity announcer and newscaster. As a freelance news reader, announcer, presenter and quizmaster between 1967 and 1975, Colin worked for several ITV stations, including Westward Television, Grampian and Border. He also worked for the BBC in Bristol, Southampton and London.
In 1975, Colin returned to radio (he had started his career as a disc jockey with radio stations in Africa), launching the new commercial Plymouth Sound station, where he presented The Sunrise Sound breakfast show for 18 months. In 1979, Colin moved to Nottingham's Radio Trent to present A Little Night Music each evening and Colin's Corner on Sunday afternoons. Between 1989 and 1996, Colin produced and presented The Golden Years on BBC Radio Nottingham, a request programme featuring the music of the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Colin has also freelanced as an actor, voice-over, narrator and speaker. His acting roles have included parts in Byker Grove, Coronation Street, Boon, Emmerdale Farm, Peak Practice, and the Tommy Cooper Show. In 2000, Colin starred as Chesney Allen in the theatre production of The Flanagan and Allen Story. He now lives in Nottingham with his wife, Judith, a former transmission loggist for Westward TV, where the couple met.
Former Tyne Tees Television and TWW announcer Adrian Cairns. He was Tyne Tees' first chief announcer, and the first voice to be heard when the station went on air in 1959. Adrian's relaxing style of presentation was his trademark and he was very popular with viewers in the North East. He left Tyne Tees in 1964 to join the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in a senior role, and stayed there for the next 25 years.
He remained in the world of television, frequently recording voice-overs for both TWW, and then Harlech Television, in Bristol, and BBC TV West. He retired in 1989, but continued to make the odd appearance on television, mainly bit parts in major TV dramas. Sadly, Adrian died in March 2003.
Iris Jones started her broadcasting career as a presenter on Granada TV's welsh-language programming and went on to announce at Wales West and North Television (Teledu Cymru) and moved over to TWW when that station took over WWN's broadcasting commitments in 1964. She has since appeared in many Welsh plays and television series, including the drama serial Pobol y Cwm.In-vision continuity announcer for TWW's Welsh service, Teledu Cymru, in the 1960s.
Peter was an announcer with TWW and Yorkshire TV in the 1960s before moving on to become one of LWT's best known announcers. Peter joined LWT from its start in August 1968 and was the first person to broadcast from the station's new television centre at Upper Ground, on the South bank of the Thames, when it opened in 1971. Lewis was promoted to become senior announcer in 1977 when the previous incumbent, Alec Taylor, left the company. Lewis stayed in this role (although mainly as a voice only announcer after 1983) until 1996 when he left the station to pursue his business interests as a management consultant based in the United States.
He was persuaded to return briefly in 1998 to record a series of in-vision links to mark LWT's 30th birthday. Peter was also an announcer on HTV West during the 1970s and 1980s. The Lewis family were well known to television viewers in the West - Peter's father, Bruce, was chief announcer at HTV's predecessor, TWW, and Martyn Lewis was famous as a local and then national news reader.
TWW's senior announcer and also a programme presenter. Bruce is the father of well known TWW, HTV and LWT announcer Peter Lewis. He also wrote probably the only book on the art of announcing, and, although out of print, this well thumbed book is still used as a reference source by several of today's continuity announcers. Bruce Lewis has now retired and lives in Wiltshire.Presenter and announcer for TWW.Presenter and announcer for TWW.In-vision continuity announcer for Wales, West and North Television (Teledu Cymru) and later TWW. With a theatre grounding behind him in repertory and tours, in the mid-1960s Ivor moved into television as a TWW announcer working at the Pontcanna studios in Cardiff. His theatre background had developed a mature authoritative voice and he became a favourite with the TWW audience on both sides of the Bristol Channel. When TWW lost the ITV franchise in 1968, Ivor returned to acting, becoming a familiar face in countless television series like Softly Softly and in situation comedies playing a wide range of different characters. He was in the Leonard Rossiter comedy Moon Over Soho, in an adaptation of Sweet William by Beryl Bainbridge and memorably the lugubrious railway employee in the comedy series Oh Mr Beeching starring with Paul Shane and Su Pollard. He was a feature player in the 1984 film Another Country and in 1985 joined the National Theatre cast for the play Pravda starring Sir Anthony Hopkins. Ivor died in 1999.One of TWW's most popular in-vision continuity announcers and also a news reader for the station.
Eccentric, jovial, avuncular HTV West continuity announcer and programme presenter on both HTV West and HTV Wales who also found fame on the national ITV network, first as the presenter of one of the many incarnations of 'Mr And Mrs', and, secondly as Nancy Kominsky's eager assistant in HTV West's almost cult-status 'Paint Along With Nancy'. Locally, he was well known for his 'Tinker And Taylor' childrens' slots. The 'Mr And Mrs' programme went on to be produced by Tyne Tees Television, and, most famously, Border Television, when the host was Derek Batey.
TTVRP contributor and former colleague Guy Thomas writes: "Alan was the most popular and best loved television personality in Wales and the West of England establishing himself as a versatile, all round entertainer and he was admired as much by his colleagues as by the large audiences he won for the television programmes in which he appeared.
"After working in his family's Cardiff electricity business and seeing active Navy service in the Mediterranean war zone he began entertaining in amateur variety bills, turning professional by appearing all over the country in pantomimes and music halls, including London's West End. He joined TWW as an announcer in 1959. His popularity started to rise with an afternoon 10 minute slot for children which he shared with a glove puppet (a kind of not too distant relation of Sooty) for a birthday greetings show called 'Tinker And Taylor'. TWW had a large audience for television quiz shows, most of them the idea of the Canadian TV personality Roy Ward Dickson. Alan became the ideal host for these shows, starting with 'Three Little Words', 'Try For Ten' and the blockbuster of them all, 'Mr And Mrs', which ran year after year. It is probably true to say it was the most popular programme series TWW transmitted, rarely missing the Number 1 spot in the ratings.
"For HTV, Alan began a series of programmes in which he learned to paint (his interest was already there) called 'Painting With Nancy' and the demand for the return of 'Mr And Mrs' was so great, the company, which had dismissed the idea of repeating their predecessor's liking for the quiz show format, bowed to the inevitable. The success was repeated and HTV also brought back, again with Alan, 'Try For Ten'. In 1982 Alan retired to open an antique shop in Bath and then went to live in Spain where he died in 1997."
Guy was invited to join Television Wales and West (TWW) in 1959 as the first news reader/interviewer at their newly opened Bristol studio before becoming anchorman of the nightly news magazine, 'TWW Reports', covering Wales and the West Country. He was presented with an Ambrose Fleming Award for his contribution to television, but says he prefers to remember his interviews with Marlene Dietrich, Jayne Mansfield and Miss World 1963.
Guy also filled in the odd gap in the continuity announcing rota at TWW when they were short staffed.
He freelanced from 1968, starting as a guest presenter of 'Westward Diary' in Plymouth, 'Good Morning Wales' for BBC Wales, as well as joining the BBC Two announcing team and a continuing association with the BBC 'Midlands Today' programme at Pebble Mill.
Guy pioneered the introduction of audio books for education, presented motor sports films for American television and the first of the popular music compilation TV programmes with a profile of Vivian Ellis. Frequent presenter of industrial films. Guy is now retired and concentrates on research for museum projects.
