Dazed In The Life

An era ended today. For 26 years, Channel 4’s “Countdown” has been a mainstay of the afternoon television schedule and one of the most beloved and universal shows on our screens. From the youngest children who learn about numbers and letters to the teenagers just in from school, from the students dodging lectures to the housewives on a tea-break, from the pensioners keeping their brains active to the legions of fans who have followed the show since the beginning, everyone knows and most love “Countdown”. And anyone who knows “Countdown” knows Carol Vorderman.
Vorderman is a Cambridge graduate and a chess grandmaster who became the first female face to appear on Channel 4 on its very first day of broadcasting in 1982. In tandem with her partner in crime, the late Richard Whiteley, they set about building not just a programme, but an institution – not that they ever imagined they were doing so! The pair exuded a sense of warmth and fun, endeavouring to make the show always “kind and innocent”. When Whiteley died in 2005, Vorderman guided both Des Lynam and Des O’Connor through their stints in the chair. The original “Thinking Man’s Crumpet”, Carol has lined up the letters and solved sums for 4,500 shows, proving that beautiful women can be smart too!
Primary school finished at 3:40 each day in Kildare town. Our mother would collect Killian and me and would often make a stop at our Granny’s house on the way home – it’s only across a field from our own house and it’s where the stud farm which my mother manages is. On the days when my mother wasn’t free to collect us, Granny herself would pick us up. We didn’t have any of “The Channels” on our TV at home in those days, but Gran did, including Channel 4. Thus we were brought up on a diet of tea and figrolls, a warm fireplace in the sitting room, and staple, brain-building television in the form of “15 to 1″ followed by “Countdown”. Richard Whiteley and Carol Vorderman became familiar figures and the “Countdown” family became a reason to bring our family together.
Carol Vorderman has not had the easiest personal life, enduring two divorces. She still lives with her mother, the person who sent in the application form for her daughter to appear on the show in the first place. But for 26 years she has been a friendly face and a source of fun. She deserves her MBE for helping people to understand how she found numbers to be her friends and contributing to the mental wellbeing of us all. One cannot resist a warm and fuzzy feeling brought on by the sound of the “da-da, da-da, da da da da, BONG” of the “Countdown” theme music. From next year, Jeff Stelling of Sky Sports will move into the host’s chair with Rachel Riley, an unknown Oxford graduate replacing Carol in “the one cool maths job around”. That job has been made cool by Carol Vorderman who will always be irreplaceable.
Des O’Connor noted how touched he was by one of the tea-time teaser anagrams today being DESOSONG (Goodness). But there appears to have been a more touching in-joke in the conundrum today, which read ERACLOSES (Solution: Casserole).  Call me a geek, but CASSEROLE is also the closest thing to CAROL-LESS as you can get (cut those top two crossbars off the second E and you’re there). After today, our lives will be Carol-less, as far as our afternoons go anyway. It was hard work holding back the tears watching Vorderman weeping as she wished everyone goodbye – it’s one of those moments that make you appreciate the little things in life, the small things you take for granted. Familiarity didn’t breed contempt but content in the case of Carol Vorderman on “Countdown”. Rachel Riley has a tough act to follow and, after a quarter of a century at the top, Carol will always be the Countdown Queen. The words will always be “Consonant please, Carol”.