A fixture of my childhood, along with Neville Wanless on the other side.

RIP, never a fan of news as kid but like yourself was a big fixture of it for some reason.

Preferred Pam Royal like.

Inspiration for Roger Mellie and a natural TV presenter. Would Mike have had his teeth done and gone on a diet? Would he fuck!

[quote="born toulouse"]Inspiration for Roger Mellie - is that true?

a natural

So I was told by two separate and highly reliable sauces.

Sort of a myth. Roger Mellie was inspired by Rod Griffith from Tyne Tees. Simon Donald from Viz was in the Tyne Tees studios and saw Rod unleash a tirade of expletives and from that Roger was born. Mike did influence Roger but the character wasn't based on him.

Anyway, RIP Mike - seemed like a top bloke.

I thought there were bits of Mike Neville and Paul Frost in Mellie?

Neville's sarcastic ad libs could liven up the dullest news item, while Frosty used to spend his afternoons in the pub and be dragged out about an hour before the programme started - loads of times he was very obviously still pissed doing the show.

Great characters, local news is dull as without them. RIP Mike.

I was just passing on what I was told by a lad I played five a side with who was an early cartoonist on Viz. He didn't do Roger Mellie though so it might have just been what he thought. Another bloke who knows Chris Donald quite well told me much the same thing but again second hand info so could be wrong.

I certainly did see Judi Lines who replaced Kathy Secker rooting through a big bargain bin of £1 a pair frilly knickers in Fenwicks though.

Probably in this pub, that was next door to Tyne Tees. Those were the days, when you could have fun at work, Paul Frost would be a Greggs and a Costa Coffee at his desk man these days

http://www.closedpubs.co.uk/northumberl ... ttage.html

Used to drink in there fairly regularly until I got barred for smoking a Turkish cocktail cigarette. To be fair it stank and the landlord wouldn't accept that it wasn't some form of drug despite my pissed protests along the lines of, "Why would I smoke a pink spliff with a gold filter and expect not to be caught?"

Good pub but I never saw a single pop star in there.

I lived and worked in Newcastle for a year around 1988/89, went in there a couple of times, can't remember it being anything remarkable, a bit of a rundown sort of live music pub that served real ale If I remember correctly, which was a typical pub of its time , The Cooperage was another one like that. I never saw any rock stars in there either, though it was Pam Royal I was hoping to see , knowing Pam she is probably tee-total.

Nothing better than a rundown live music pub. Was near the original Riverside Club as well. The barrel type tables in the Cooperage used to piss me off, there is never any need for a novelty table.

Egypt Cottage, next door to TTTV.

I went up to see The Tube getting filmed in 85 and saw Jools Holland, Glenn Tilbrook and Keith Wilkinson out of Squeeze in there.

If you'd have told me Jools Holland would be a national treasure, Wilkinson would be playing in a folk-band of Hartlepool scruffians and I'd sing live on stage with Tilbrook back then....

I was scared of Mike Neville when I was a kid....then again I was scared of Bagpuss!!!!
R.I.P. Mike!!!!

As a kid, I just thought he was a proper posh Geordie.

HP and Daddies?