Life's a Cavalcade

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R: You do everything with humour. I think these people that lose their head and so forth, I couldn't take that. I think cajoling and humour is a wonderful thing, a way of getting the best out of people. I: Oh yeah! Well, it's good that they, I'm just thinking particularly about the actual influence of the programme and yourself on the young folk. Did you ever use your influence to start campaigns for them to stop something or start something? At the Queen’s garden party, Glen recalled meeting First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who had watched him on TV.

But the survey, undertaken with ScotInform, also shed light on soaring levels of loneliness across Scotland, with an estimated 218,000 older people feeling lonely most or all of the time. More than 3000 older people, from every council area in Scotland, took part earlier this year.He has joined Age Scotland to encourage people to call our friendship line if they are feeling alone. Set up in 2020, anyone can call for a blether with a volunteer, with many receiving regular weekly calls. Mr Michael added: “I think the Age Scotland friendship line is a wonderful idea. It’s great to know there’s a friendly voice on the line if you are feeling on your own.” R: There were so many really! Yeah, there were so many. There's not really any that I think, no, I can't really think of an, they were all sort of humorous. Life was humorous when you worked for STV. I think there was a great humour ran through the Company and I think that's why people worked so well. Born in Devon, Glen left for London as a teen to pursue a career in entertainment - though found his real success north. He once said: “Scotland’s been very good to me, the people of Scotland have been very good to me.”

My father was a good singer. My mother was a cabaret singer. In those days they would go around doing dinners and so forth." R: Very funny! Great stuff! And, of course, my children appeared on the show and my grandchildren appeared like when we did Christmas shows, anything like that. I didn't like to get strange kids so I would get the family on and it worked very well, you know, yeah, great! I found myself just sitting on my own, looking at the TV, or going out for a cup of coffee just to speak to someone. You can have all the modern technology in the world, but it doesn’t help if you’re lonely. It’s people that matter. The only way you can feel some sense of being is to talk to someone. And I couldn’t put my finger on why it was and of course over the time I began to realise it’s because you’re lonely, you haven’t go that person beside you that you’ve always been used to.” I: Oh no! The trouble with it is including things like the phone service and so on, I want to talk to somebody and eventually I get somebody who's, perhaps English isn't their first language.R: Yes, I was six and a half years on Radio Clyde and two and a half years with Saga and BBC, I used to do BBC in the sixties, going in to the seventies, I used to do radio shows for the BBC and so on and I did West Sound down at Ayr. I opened up the station there so we did a lot of variety of things like that. R: Yeah, character! But he thought it was wonderful! He must have spent a fortune on it. It looked lovely but it was too new, you know!

But one ray of hope in a difficult year has been the way that communities have come together to help those who were more vulnerable or on their own. I: I certainly would concur with Mr Johnston's choice. What are you working on on your roadshows and stuff? You certainly have control of everything without appearing to do so. It's the best talent of a Producer.

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Paladin talked to him a bit, also saying, ‘Come on now wake up’, and then Cavalcade’s theme tune played. I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to be told he’d responded and was doing just fine. Losing the show still rankles. When I ask if he's enjoying retirement he answers: "Well, not really. Because I was forced to stop." Now Glen has decided it’s time that Paladin goes to a new home, a caring one he hopes, as this iconic piece of TV history will be going up for auction for Children in Need.