Farewell to 'him off the telly'

RICHARD Whiteley was said to be the most-seen face on British TV behind the telly test card girl Carole Hersee. His 10,000-plus appearances brought him fame with the daytime audience which included the Queen who liked his avuncular style, but also a cult celebrity among students who rather enjoyed his dreadful jokes and painful puns.

Not surprisingly given his TV exposure, his biography was called Himoff!...The Life and Times of a TV Matinee Idol, in reference to the remark which greeted his every move: ''Look, it's him off the telly."

Instantly recognisable by his loud ties and stripey jackets, the straight-talking Yorkshireman became a household name having presented the Channel 4 cult words and numbers game show Countdown since it first went on air in 1982.

However, his claim to fame was probably not the quickness of his brain. It was more his clothes sense and appallingly but popular sense of humour.

At the last count he owned 528 ties and 186 jackets with many of the ties having been sent in by fans and viewers (he did, though, only wear the nice silk ones).

Whiteley, who was a well-known figure in North Yorkshire as he had a home at East Witton near Leyburn and was a patron of the Yorkshire Dales Festival of Food and Drink, presented the show with maths boffin Carol Vorderman and a popular feature of the show was his frequent anecdotes and puns often met by groans from fellow guests and audiences.

He did not miss an episode for 23 years until last month when he was taken into Bradford Royal Infirmary with pneumonia.

His long-term partner Kathryn Apanowicz also had a TV career with a part in the BBC soap Angels before appearing in EastEnders and Emmerdale in the early 80s.

In Himoff there was remarkably little information about either his childhood or his private life. It barely mentioned his brief marriage in the 1960s, by which he had a son, James.

ABOUT Himoff's lack of detail he quipped: . "There's no sex in this one but if I do another book I'll try to remember some. Someone asked if it would be X-rated but my sex doesn't go up to X, more to G."

Born on December 28, 1943, in Baildon, Bradford, a six-year-old Whiteley was delivering newspapers through local letter-boxes handed to him by an old man named Stubbs on a bicycle.

Whiteley attended Giggleswick public school near Settle in the Yorkshire Dales before attending Christ's College, Cambridge. He only got, in his words, "a crappy third", but he still made his first real steps into the media as editor of the student newspaper.

His former English teacher Russel Harty encouraged him to move into television and he became a trainee with ITN in 1965. In July 1968, he joined the new Yorkshire Television. He was present for the station's opening night which was a disaster. It was pre-recorded, and all the crew watched it go out from a swanky hotel in Leeds - but Whiteley was somehow broadcast in negative with white hair and a black face.

His first assignment at YTV was a Leeds United European Cup football match - this was despite him never having seen a live football match before.

He became Yorkshire TV's political editor and then the presenter of its nightly Calendar news programme.

In 1982, Channel 4 was launched and Whiteley became the first face to be seen on the new station as Countdown was the first show screened.

His first words were: "As the Countdown to a brand new channel ends, a brand new Countdown begins."

The idea for Countdown was thought up in France, where it was called Des Chiffres et Des Lettres, and Yorkshire was trialling it as a filler for when Calendar was off the air. But more than 3,500 shows later, Countdown is still on screen.

"I'm convinced that in a world that changes so often people need an anchor point. News At Ten was one, so is Countdown at 4.30pm," he said.

In 1984 he was one of the first journalists at the scene of the Brighton bombing as he was at the seaside town's Grand Hotel at the time it happened.

Another claim to fame was the feat of interviewing every Prime Minister since Harold Macmillan.

He hung up his microphone in 1995 after a record 27 years as the news anchorman at Calendar. But by regularly hosting both Calendar and Countdown on the same evening, he was nicknamed "Twice Nightly, Whiteley". He was quick to retort: "It's more like Once Yearly Nearly."

IN later years Whiteley made it on to the big screen with a cameo role playing himself as the presenter of Countdown in the 2002 film, About a Boy, which starred Hugh Grant and Rachel Weisz.

A BBC project was Richard Whiteley Unbriefed, a chat show in which he wasn't told the names of his guests in advance. After he told producers he had never watched EastEnders, they sent on red-headed Patsy (Bianca) Palmer as the first guest. "I thought she was the Duchess of York," he said. "I told them to throw anybody at me and I'd do my best. Certainly it worked in terms of ratings and audience interest."

Other TV highlights among his record 10,000 appearances during his colourful career included a notorious bite from a ferret - a moment that has been screened around the world on clip shows - and receiving a ''Gotcha'' award from Noel Edmonds.

He had also appeared on Through the Keyhole, TFI Friday, Faking It, A Question of TV, Celebrity Sleepover, Fat Friends, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Mrs Merton, Blankety Blank, This is Your Life, Songs of Praise, The Priory, It's Only TV... But I Like It, Have I Got News for You and Shooting Stars.

Away from the bright lights of the studio, Whiteley's hobbies included the more peaceful rural pursuits of walking and looking at views from the windows of country pubs. He was also a keen horseracing fan.

He held the honorary position of Mayor of Wetwang in East Yorkshire and spoke out about issues affecting North Yorkshire.

IN December last year he launched an attack on plans to axe free parking in the Market Square in Leyburn, asking who exactly had "woken up one morning and thought this would be a good idea?"

He was also a willing supporter of a number of rural events and would regularly open summer fetes and fairs, while being ready to lend a hand with worthy local causes.

Other causes he regularly supported included the Greenside Ladies' Choir, based at Scruton, North Yorkshire, whose chosen charities he would often back.

He was also among a number of supporters backing a bid for a new radio station in Northallerton.

He blew the whistle in July last year for the famous Flying Scotsman locomotive when it made its first passenger run between York and Scarborough, since being saved for the nation.

As if to stress his down-to-earth, humble roots, he celebrated his 60th birthday not at some posh showbiz joint, but at the Blue Lion pub, in East Witton, in the Yorkshire Dales

Musical doyen Sir Tim Rice, rock star Rik Wakeman, entertainer Richard Digance, Carol Vorderman and others were among those who partied into the small hours in the village pub near the North Yorkshire country retreat of Mr Whiteley.

The event made headlines when a police patrol took exception to some of the revellers' cars which were parked along the village green and issued parking tickets.

At the time, befitting his wordsmiths' background on Countdown, Mr Whiteley joked: "They were apparently causing an unnecessary obstruction, but the officer who issued it couldn't spell 'unnecessary'."

Last year, he was awarded an OBE. The Queen is said to be a fan of Countdown - "I do believe my sister watches it after the racing," Princess Margaret once told him - as was the late Queen Mother.

Whiteley - who was passionate about Yorkshire although stressed that he was not "a professional Yorkshireman" - maintained that he had never done any real work (as in got his hands dirty) but had helped give a little pleasure to as many people as possible.

By saying this, he did himself an injustice although it's perhaps unfortunate that his image of a dreadful punster wearing garish ties was probably stronger than the regard for his achievements. He admitted as much when he lamented: "It's a bit sad to be known for your jackets and ties rather than your witty and incisive remarks."