…COMIC RELIEF DAY.
The entire country donned their red noses, all except me, who didn’t have a proper one.
Mum had tried to make me a homemade one, but it was absolutely rubbish and
kept falling off, so I quickly got rid of it.
[My form tutor] had also made one himself, out of an eggbox which he had then coloured red with a felt-tip pen, and which looked hilariously bad.
They had been selling them at school but there were none left.
There was a special assembly which was based around all the teachers having
to do forfeits if they didn’t know the answer to a general knowledge question.
They could either have a forfeit done to them or pay 10p to Comic Relief.
It was a bit of a flop because some of the teachers didn’t understand the rules and
the forfeits were hardly that bad: popping a balloon, for example.
All day people were wandering around in funny clothes and make-up, and they
all looked UTTERLY STUPID.
There was nothing funny about PE, which was football outside in the mud, and I
hated it from start to finish…
I was allowed to watch some, but nowhere near all, of the telethon on BBC1 later.
A good deal of it is currently on YouTube, from almost near the start. What a bizarre choice from “Radio One listeners” for the 10th best comedy sketch of all time.
And what a ponderously-paced, refreshingly low-key affair the whole programme now seems. The “here’s what this evening is all about” bits last a good 10 minutes or so. Look, there’s Jimmy Perry sitting in front of a black screen introducing AN ENTIRE EPISODE of Dad’s Army. At one point almost all of BT’s London exchanges fall over. Michael Palin does a great bit of Vercotti, which his diary suggests he only thought up a few hours earlier. Then you’ve all those mini-sketches, including Philip Schofield and Andy Crane acting (!) at a drinks party (!), plus Valerie Singleton and Geoffrey Palmer – together at last.
It all left a mighty impression on a jaded 11-year old. As it still does on a still jaded 36-year old.
Twenty-five years ago today 
Another one here who failed to get hold of a red nose so went down the home-made route, including a ball from our mini-pool table with some double-sided sellotape on it. I think the following year they did say they’d underestimated the demand for noses and made something like twice as many. It was a proper big deal, the first Red Nose Day, there was something really special about a programme that never seemed to end – although telly did seem longer in those days, I seem to recall we were only allowed to watch until 9pm and, given it only started at 7.35, we’d have barely seen any of it. Even 85 minutes seemed really long in those days. Nowadays an episode of Splash is longer.
In 25 years’ time, hopefully no-one will have a clue what Splash! (don’t forget the exclamation mark) was.