Janine’s in touch by email. Can I do next week? I can only do Thursday. The week passes. The following Monday I’m told it looks like it’ll be Thursday 3 May. Wednesday, and a venue is fixed. A huge house in Highgate. “If you could arrive at the location by 5pm that would be great as we have to be out of there by 6.30pm. It is someone’s home and they hire it out to film crews now and then.”

I arrive at 5.10pm. This place is seriously imposing. Tiled floors, enormous ceilings and wall-to-wall sideboards. With sealed packets of chocolate mints on them. “You’ve come up in the world since your modest West London flat in the 1970s!” jokes Sophie, the director.

I sit down, and she begins to talk. As the filming lights come on, she gradually fades in the blur. Janine’s guarding the door to the room, which swings open of its own accord. I feel for her, as she’s dispatched to tell the home-owners to stop walking around their own house. 

And then we get into it. 

We start with Postman Pat, a show I’ve little interest in. I say a bit, the director then says, “Thank you.” I say another bit. “Thank you. Now I just want you to say …” and she tells me what to say. Phew, the cynical ’80s, eh? The ’70s weren’t quite like this. 

But we warm up, and while always rather stilted, we get into something that feels a bit more like a conversation. “I want you to say that American shows had a negative impact on British children’s programmes in the 1980s”. “Well, I don’t really think they did,” I reply, taking a stand mere minutes after disgracefully parroting back some guff she’s fed to me about a Pigeon Street episode I’d never seen (they open a vegetarian café, apparently). But, here, I’m salving some small sense of dignity. I’m not just going to say anything. Although I do then concede that perhaps buying in episodes ofHe-Man dissuaded British broadcasters from commissioning their own fare. I’m guessing that bit won’t make the cut, but my musings on Pigeon Street‘s eatery probably will.

Things are getting sticky, though. There’s a helicopter buzzing overhead, the family’s dog is barking, and worst of all, they’ve got the temerity to use their own creaking back door. “Surely there must be another way round they can use?” says the director. “Janine, can you ask them?”. “Well,” says Janine, “it’s after 6.30pm already. That’s probably their guests arriving. I don’t think I can”. I agree, but I don’t say anything. Who am I in this? “In fact,” says our slightly bristling researcher, “you really need to push through these”.

“Make your answers shorter,” I’m told. And then we get into talking about Grange Hill. I retread my Gripper comments from the ’70s shoot. We talk about Press Gang and I attempt – from memory – to quote Paul Cornell’s praise for it in the Guinness book. “Thank you”. Then, with everyone getting itchy, we talk about kids appearing as themselves on telly. I say some stuff the director really seems to like, and she wants me to expand. Meanwhile, I can feel the whole room is now of a-twitch.

Then it’s over. It’s 6.55pm. My cab’s been waiting since 6.25pm and now he’s threatening to go. Janine gets me to sign the release forms, and then – Jim Bowen-style – counts out cold, hard cash into my hand, before we race to catch the cab. But the front door’s locked and we can’t get out.

That’s how I ended up ruining your show again, everyone. Sorry.

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy being asked for my opinion on something, who doesn’t? But I wouldn’t have done it if there wasn’t cash involved. This is what renovating a flat in North London does to you.

If memory serves, it was the show’s researcher, Janine, who got in touch. She’d mailed me following up on my connection with TV Cream. Thinking about it now, I’m not quite sure how she got my address… I guess it doesn’t take much. 

After a long chat about children’s programmes in the 1980s (“What was The Adventure Game?”), my details were then passed on to the producer of the 1970s episode – Paul Dwyer. He called me the following week and quizzed me on production personnel from the decade. I flummoxed, but he seemed happy and asked if I’d be willing to go on the programme. For quids. 

It’s Tuesday, 17 April. I’ve told the team they can’t film in my flat (see above about renovating), so they end up using Janine’s modest but nice place in West London. I’m taxi’d there, and arrive to see a bean bag and a plate of homemade chocolate crispy cakes laid on. This is the 1970s. It turns out I’m a lot taller than Janine, and so the beanbag is dispatched and I sit on the floor – my head now safely in shot. 

I start chatting to Paul, and it’s all very amiable. We slip into filming, and continue in the same form. The whole thing feels pretty natural, apart from the odd prompt. “01?” he says, “811 8055″ I chirp back, already seeing myself squidged into a montage of other inglorious types doing the same (which doesn’t actually happen in the finished show). “Could you sing the theme tune to that?”. “No”. 

We go round the houses, and the crew seem to laugh at some of the things I’m saying. That’s dangerous, because it’s getting a little heady. I’m steadily becoming Rob Deering. I take a sip of water and spill some down my front. Joe Public won’t clock it. I talk at length about Gripper Stebson, trampling on topics that should be covered in the ’80s edition. I say the same things again in exactly the same way when the neighbours above make a noise. I make poor cracks about Roger Price. I don’t, however, badmouth crap CSO. I don’t ask what anyone was on when they made their shows. 

The results, as you will have seen, were heavily edited. In fact, happily I wasn’t in it all that much, only really covering for the times the production team couldn’t get anyone interesting to talk about a certain show. But, hands up, even on the day, I was a fat-necked, balding, smug twat. For money. 

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about the 1980s, because I’m in that too. In the meantime, I’m sorry for ruining your show.

Partly for contractual reasons, and partly because Oliver Postgate considers it below par, the one-off special hasn’t been seen since it was first aired in 1974. It’s being used in the documentary to illustrate a section on the increasing politicisation of children’s television during that decade, but although it will be nice to see some footage, it would be even better if BBC4 could see fit to give the entire show a long-overdue repeat.