A North East man was among hundreds of audience members surprised live on Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway at the weekend.

Owner of Carfresh Valeting,  Andrew Newton was sitting with his wife Jill Newton in the audience at Television Centre in London on February 24, when he was surprised by the ITV presenters.

Ant pounced on Andrew, whose clips of him cleaning dirty and unreadable road signs across the region have been viewed thousands of times on social media.

The Northern Echo: Andrew and Jill Newton on Ant and Dec's Saturday Night TakeawayAndrew and Jill Newton on Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway (Image: ITV)

To his shock his van, which he thought was at home on his Prudhoe driveway, was outside the London studios where Jordan North, Capital FM's new presenter and University of Sunderland graduate was cleaning a mucky 'Television Centre' sign.

The Northern Echo: Jordan North with Andrew's van cleaning a signJordan North with Andrew's van cleaning a sign (Image: ITV)

But it wasn't the only surprise for Andrew, who just minutes later discovered he was one of 400 hand-picked audience members winning a 'Takeaway Getaway' holiday.

"I am still on cloud nine and cannot believe what happened," Andrew said.

"My wife applied for tickets last February and had told me about it, so I was quiet excited. We then had a Skype interview with the producers who wanted to know more about us then I heard nothing about it since.

"Little did I know we would be invited to the show a year later. All throughout the year, the producers and my family were all in the know about surprising me on the show and even had a group chat on Snapchat called 'don't tell, Dad'. 

"It was apparently hard to organise how to get me down to London without causing suspicion, as my wife knew I would want to stop and clean signs on the way but the show needed my van, so my wife told me she got a brilliant deal on train tickets. But there was a worry that some neighbours or people would think my van was stolen from my house if they saw it on a recovery truck - so my son had to meet the producers away from my home.

The Northern Echo:

"Before going to the show, throughout the day, I could tell my wife was very nervous as the producers were telling her to keep me away from the studio where they had transported my van from the North East to and were filming with it, while I was just wanting to go around London and sightsee and go into bars.

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"I was so shocked to even talk to Ant, never mind seeing my van and business on national TV then the night got better with the holiday. I haven't decided where to go yet but I will be taking my family.

"I just love helping out my community and I am very passionate about car valeting, I didn't expect any praise or award for it but I am honoured."

Andrew's videos show him power-jetting or scrubbing road signs before surprising viewers with a satisfying end result. He racked up hundreds of thousands of likes in the days after starting his account in September 2022.