Gus Honeybun... Your Boys Took One Hell of a Beating: A Love Affair in the Lower Leagues

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Gus also has hundreds of children to take care of. “That’s who we think people have when people say they have got Gus, we think it could be one of his many offspring.” Apparently there were all sorts of code words and names, things that signalled different people. It's just a nice little story really to think that it was used in that way. Lots of young people didn't realise that was going on at all." It was, however, central to Westward and TSW’s presentation and one thing it gave us are personalities that were effectively our friends on TV, especially when they went out to community events.

BBC Spotlight (again) | Page 2 | PASOTI BBC Spotlight (again) | Page 2 | PASOTI

As we never went further south than North Wales for holidays, my first exposure to Gus Honeybun was the section on him in VLS's Buygones tie-in book. Thankfully someone with local knowledge has replied. In the post-apocalyptic novel by Jasper Fforde entitled Shades of Grey, which is set 1500 years into the future, Devon and Cornwall are known as 'The Honeybun Peninsula'. Gus at this point interjected to remind her that 1961 was a long time before she came on the scene and that he had been there for many years prior. According to legend, Gus was found under a gorse bush on Dartmoor. However, a more credible legend is that he was devised to fill unsold advertising slots during children's TV broadcasts. People in Plymouth are being given a chance to have a selfie with legendary TV puppet Gus Honeybun.But of course Ian Stirling was one of them; he was an absolute dear, and very funny, and I really enjoyed the times when he was on, but I had absolutely no idea that he was sending coded messages out to the gay locals! That was extraordinary and I'm still laughing about it." If you were a child growing up in the Plymouth area from the 1960s until the early 1990s, there’s a chance you might have asked this infamous puppet to help celebrate your birthday.

Gus Honeybun Programme, The – Nostalgia Central Gus Honeybun Programme, The – Nostalgia Central

There were lots of presenters, and then Ian Stirling and I came along. He was a wonderful Scottish actor, had a great sense of humour, and we started to do some more ambitious things with Gus.” Nowadays, whether you’re in St Austell or Skegness, Widdecombe on the Moor or Wolverhampton , what you see on ITV is pretty much the same. That wasn't the case during the days of Regional ITV. Every region was run by it's own company so if you were Yorkshire on holiday you'd see the famous chevron ident, in Wales the aerial that spelt HTV or the Thames and LWT logos in London. Out in the arse end of the UK we had a monstrous tiger thing, described in this amusingly sour-grapesy article. He was an icon of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s and every child in the South West wanted him to read out their birthday messages.

He also influenced the network by rescheduling or removing programmes from the schedule and replacing them with local output. He kept his station’s continuity puppet Gus Honeybun, who was Ruth Langsford’s first co-presenter before later joining Phillip Schofield on the This Morning sofa, instead of opting for Children’s ITV network continuity. It was the day commercial television came to the South West in the form of Westward Television. Television in Devon and Cornwall was still very much in its infancy - BBC South West launched only nine days earlier and televisions were something that many couldn’t yet access or afford. It had been quite a long wait - London had got ITV thanks to Associated-Rediffusion in 1955. News Punches, flying, bunny hops, and birthdays, retired west country icon Gus Honeybun reveals all about his television stardom

Gus Honeybun Trains and Rides | Plymouth - Facebook West Hoe Park-Gus Honeybun Trains and Rides | Plymouth - Facebook

Through the interpretation of his long term friend and companion Judi Spiers, I was told – “I can’t tell him to mind his own business, it’s rude. Typical young people I know, but he’s old enough to know better than to ask that question, young man.”

For a lot of the other ITV regions, success meant getting big programmes made and broadcast across the network. Due to its small size and dedication to local programmes, Westward and TSW made a point of focusing mainly on their area. We are all very proud of his brilliant career and everything he achieved but it was his family and his partner who were most important to him. His four children and seven grandchildren will find it very difficult to get used to the absence of his larger-than-life presence, as will Margaret, his partner of 36 years." Plymouth is steeped with rich history, with long-forgotten moments hiding in streets and buildings, lost in time.

Gus Honeybun - Wikipedia

And after snapping a pic with Plymouth's best-known puppet, you could have the chance to win prizes: But less than 20 years later, The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 was introduced - making any male homosexual act illegal – even acts committed in private could be prosecuted. Remember the days when you saw the person introducing the program you were about to watch? It used to be common on TV but these days it’s as rare as a penny-farthing bicycle. When Westcountry Television took over from TSW on 1 January 1993, Stirling went freelance but did present a thrice-weekly Soap Review for the station's evening news magazine Westcountry Live and was involved in a number of regional programmes for the station. He presented a four-part series entitled 40 Years of ITV in 2001, celebrating 40 years of ITV regional broadcasting in the South-West of England. Whilst freelance, he also worked for Gemini Radio in Exeter during the mid-1990s. [4] He retired in 2003 and moved to northern France.The Box has two of the four Gus Honeybun puppets that were made in its collections, including the puppet that took part in this final broadcast. On February 3, a new trail on the Plymouth Trails app will be launching which has been developed with Pride in Plymouth. Mr Squiggle 1 9 5 9 - 1 9 9 9 (Australia) Pencil-nosed marionette Mr Squiggle has the privilege of being the longest-running… It's important to highlight our city's LGBT+ heritage and history - the people and places that have made Plymouth what it is. It remains one of the most popular programmes ever screened on British television," said Paul’s daughter Jemima, who is a Stoke ward councillor and deputy leader of the Labour group on Plymouth City Council.