Sarah Greene tells TV co-host Roman Kemp 'I was there when your mum and dad met'

18 August 2023 , 17:04

987 0

Sarah Greene (Image: S Meddle/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

It was peak 1980s, and the studio of the BBC’s morning hit Saturday Superstore was bursting with big hair, bigger shoulder pads and the decade’s biggest pop stars.

Presenter Sarah Greene, fresh from Blue Peter, and co-host Mike Read were whooping live, while in a corner, George Michael was surreptitiously introducing Wham!’s backing singer Shirlie Holliman to handsome Spandau Ballet bassist, Martin Kemp. Love bloomed, Shirlie and Martin went on to have son, Roman. The rest, as they say, is history. Except maybe not.

Flash forward four decades, and it transpires Roman had no idea about Sarah’s pivotal role. Sarah – now 65 but looking barely different – has found herself co-hosting again, but this time with radio DJ Roman, 30, on a new daytime BBC One quiz show, The Finish Line.

“Roman didn’t know me,” she admits. “But I knew him. Or I feel I have, because of his mum and dad. I was on the show where they met, where George introduced Shirlie to Martin. We had Duran Duran, Culture Club, Wham and Spandau. George later became Roman’s godfather. We were all in the same orbit.”

Sarah Greene tells TV co-host Roman Kemp 'I was there when your mum and dad met' qhiddzikeiqeqinv

Roman and Sarah on The Finish Line (BBC)

She gives a silky laugh, which would transport any fan of Blue Peter’s youngest star – she was 22 when she joined – back to their youth. “I bored the a*** off him with the story,” she admits (I was shocked at such language from a kids’ TV legend). Sarah and Roman, 30, born 13 years after Sarah’s Blue Peter debut in 1980, will co-host a new daytime BBC One quiz show, The Finish Line, which airs for the first time on Monday.

Happy Valley's Clare's death 'confirmed' after tragic final exchange with sister

Five contestants race head-to-head – literally, on moving podiums – while answering questions to win a cash prize. The fun show has all the hallmarks of a hit, but most refreshing is the pairing. How often do we see an older female presenter working alongside a younger man? “Other people have commented on that but I think it’s more about the rapport you have with that person, it’s really not based around age,” says Sarah.

She recalls a chat with a producer friend early in her career, who was trying to choose two hosts for a show. “I said ‘Why don’t you put her with him?’ and he said ‘But she’s older than him’. I said ‘So what?’ but he said you couldn’t have it that way around.”

Sarah Greene tells TV co-host Roman Kemp 'I was there when your mum and dad met'

With Simon Groom on Blue Peter in 1980 (BBC)

Thankfully times have changed. The pair get on brilliantly and it’s a delight to see Sarah on TV after a long absence. She admits the loss of late husband Mike Smith, the Top Of The Pops and Radio One DJ, influenced that. He died of complications following heart surgery in 2014.

They married in 1989, and amid her grief Sarah took on his aerial filming firm. She explains: “Nine years ago my husband died and I had a very big task on my hands, because I made the decision to take on his business. It was a learning precipice. It took up a lot of my headspace.

“Offers of TV came in but for a long time I was trying to learn this new business but also feeling too raw. Only time can help that. You know when you feel ready, when you have that energy.” Energy she now has in spades. She’s just as sparky as she was when we watched her “tap dance on a biplane” and dive to the Mary Rose on Blue Peter.

Sara with Phillip Schofield (Comic Relief via Getty Images)

Viewers loved her then – some perhaps a bit too much. She confides: “In amongst the fan mail was all sorts of things. There was a board in the office and when people sent pictures of themselves in we put them up on the wall. And that’s all I will say on that matter!” She has also gained fans on The Finish Line. Modestly, she concedes “quite a lot” of contestants knew her – one older male contestant even proposed marriage.

“It was very sweet,” she smiles. Now in a relationship with ex-British touring car champion Robb Gravett, an old pal of Mike’s, she had to decline. The daughter of Harry Greene, a Welsh TV host who specialised in DIY, and actress Marjie Lawrence, Sarah initially studied drama. The chance to present Blue Peter came knocking early although initially she struggled with “being herself”.

Saturday Superstore and then Going Live! with Phillip Schofield, followed. She hosted some of the latter in plaster after she and Mike suffered a serious helicopter crash in 1988. Later she moved away from children’s television, but encountered barriers. “I remember the first series I did for the BBC’s science features department. I was championed to do this live show prime time, but there were some real old curmudgeons who weren’t so keen, they felt I wasn’t old enough and male enough.”

Sarah with her late husband Mike Smith (EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS)

Shirlie with Martin (Hulton Archive)

She impress with facts they didn’t know about, and stood no nonsense from other men in the industry. “There was one time on a natural history series, when I was editing, in the dark room. A guy came in and put his hand on my shoulder and said ‘Oh Sarah, I hope you don’t feel that’s a little bit too intimate or too sexual?’ I stood up and said ‘Don’t worry, nothing you could ever dowould I possibly construe as remotely sexual’.”

Now reaching the veteran stage of her career, Sarah has no plans to retire and believes her late husband Mike would be “proud” of her TV return. Especially as it was filmed in Belfast, where he grew up. She adds: “I had a few little taps on the shoulder from him.”