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How a telephone call changed the career of Mike Neville. Peter Cook who worked with the televison star on “Look North“ in the 60’s talks to Mr North East.

Ask anyone in the North East to name their most popular personality and the chances are they will come up with just one name - Mike Neville.

Yet this genial host of TTT nightly magazine programme North East Tonight is the first to admit that had he not been on hand to take a telephone call way back in the 60’s, things might have been very different for the lad from Wallsend. But lets start at the beginning.

In the beginning there was this young 15 year old office boy who harboured dreams of becoming a journalist or an actor. The Daily Mail in Newcastle gave him a chance to realise his first ambition when he they took him on as a junior editorial assistant after he had lied about his shorthand speed.

“They soon sussed me out” he grinned. “But at least they kept me on as a general dogsbody”

National Service put paid to his journalistic career when he applied to join the Signals. “So in true army fashion I ended up in the Pay Corp in Cyprus for two years rising to the dizzy heights of corporal - guard commander every third night - real heady stuff.”

After demob in 1957 Mike became “the world’s worst insurance agent”.

“I was given the job because the local inspector knew my mother. The insurance book had £20 debit on it when I took it over and within ten weeks I had turned that into a £200 loss because I didn’t go out when it rained.”

About this time he had developed a keen interest in the theatre and had played a couple of bit parts at the Newcastle Playhouse. The owner, Donald Gilbert, was sufficiently impressed to offer the young Neville a full time job at £5 a week.

“I was earning £8 as an insurance agent and it didn’t make much financial sense, but I jumped at the chance.”

After two months he joined the Redcar Repertory Company playing in the New Pavilion Theatre on the seafront. “Every time the tide came in it flooded the dressing room. My first part was in “Small Hotel”. I was 21 and had to grey my hair. The first night was freezing cold, it was in the middle of January, and on stage we were out numbered by the audience, so the leading man went out front and asked everyone to sit in the front row.”

Mike then moved on to the Royal Theatre at Blyth to take parts in what he describes as four dreadful plays including “A girl called Sadie” which went on tour. “ A different town every week all over the country.”

It might have been a bad play but it kept him in work for nine months. The tour ended at the old Hippodrome in Stockton. “We were called down by the management to hear those immortal words “sorry folks” and that was it “ 
During the tour he had become friendly with a delightful young actress called Pam, but now they were to go their separate ways and Mike was out of work for the next three months. 

He was offered a six weeks season in Perth and then Harry Hanson – he of the famous Court Players – offered him a job in Bridlington and the first person he met there was – Pam and from then onward their friendship blossomed
When the Bridlington show ended it was another three months spell on the dole for Mike. “Twenty nine bob a week, talk about the high life “. 

At this time Tyne Tees Television was just setting up and Mike approached Bill Lyon-Shaw the station’s controller who gave him a part in Jack Haig’s children’s programme “Happy Go Lucky” Afterwards he went upstairs and met producer David Croft of Dad’s Army fame who had a vacancy for a policeman walk on part. “You don’t look much like a policeman” he told me. “Oh, stop messing about” I replied in true Kenneth Willaims style. It must have impressed him because I got the part and he wrote me into the series.”

Mike recalls those days with great affection.” I met some wonderful people at City Road, Arthur English, Mollie Sugden, Hugh Lloyd, Graham Stark. But my policeman part came to an end and I found myself back with the Hanson Court Players “ Which brings us to that important telephone call. Pam took the call. TTT were looking for an announcer. Would Mr Neville like to meet Adrian Cairns the Senior Announcer in London. Would he just! “I sped down to the capital and two days later I heard I had got the job. It was a close call. I had precisely £1 in the bank, but now I had permanent work, and to celebrate Pam and I got married.”

After two years the station decided to produce a nightly magazine pro-gramme called Newsview and I was to present it. I was never so scared in my life, I had never done this type of work before.”

But just how successful Mike was at his new job is reflected in an approach he received a couple of years later from the BBC in Newcastle. Frank Bough who had fronted “Look North” since its inception was leaving for London and the news editor wondered if Mike would like to front the programme. “It was an offer I couldn’t refuse and I accepted thinking I would be there for no more than a couple of years.

It turned out to be 32 years during which time Mike made the programme his own, and in 1991 he was awarded the MBE for services to broadcasting.

North East Tonight with Mike Neville won the prestigious Royal Television Society award for the best regional news magazine six weeks after going on air. Eighteen months later, the programme won The World award at the New York Film and Television Festival. In October Mike was 64, he and Pam have been married for 37 years and he has no plans to retire.

“Because the National Lotterey hasn’t fallen my way yet”.  Its not a long way from Wallsend to the centre of Newcastle, but in career terms, it has proved to be a long, winding and very successful route for the television star they call Mr North East, and long may it continue I say.

This article appeared in the November 2000 edition of Now & Then Magazine
www.nowandthenmag.co.uk