First it was Kay Burley, then former TV producer and Channel 4 and Sky exec Jacquie Lawrence publishing a novel, now Monkey hears another telly type has taken up the pen. Entertainment and comedy PR guru Julie Pickford has written a memoir, following some encouragement from Father Ted’s commissioner Seamus Cassidy.
Fear not Jonathan Ross or Hat Trick, it’s not about her time working on BBC shows such as Have I Got News for You or Ross’s axed BBC1 chat show. Instead Pickford has turned back the clock to her teenage years in her diary novel 1976 Teen. It looks back to a time of “no mobiles, no emails, gmails or apps. In fact, no internet. No Starbucks, Ikea, Botox or Sky. Terrestrial 1, Digital 0. Computers were the size of a house and tablets were in a bottle. Pods were for peas, birds tweeted, pads were scribbled on and apples were eaten. Phones were in red boxes attached to pavements with queues outside. Sundays were shut and photo shopping meant going to Boots. Selfies existed, but took a week to develop. TV went off at night. Climate change was just the view from your window. No one bothered with Hallo’ween and McDonalds was exotic.”
Monkey has come over all nostalgic. Appropriate then that Pickford now works for UKTV, owners of classics channel Gold.
