SANDRA’S ADDICTED TO TV GAMESHOWS
the only show that Sandra has collected a prize from.
The 71-year-old said: “I’ve loved my TV career although I’d not won any prizes until the Pointless trophy. It keeps my mind alert and I actually enjoy the hair and make-up – I like rating the green rooms of the various programmes.”
After leaving her day job at the Windhill Medical Centre in Shipley, West Yorks, Sandra started her daytime TV appearances in 2009 on Channel 5’s Wordplay with Jenny Powell and Jenni Falconer.
The quiz was axed after one series but Sandra survived the chop and the programme featuring her was one of just 95 episodes aired.
Next up was the ITV teatime show The Chase, presented by Bradley Walsh. In her episode feisty Sandra gave Chaser Mark “The Beast” Labbett a run for his money.
Then it was on to BBC One’s Bargain Hunt but Sandra and Maurice failed to show a profit on their £300 budget of bric-a-brac buys purchased at Wetherby racecourse.
She then popped up on Fifteen To One and votes their green room at the Pacific Quay in Glasgow as one of the best in the business.
The general knowledge quiz was a winner for Sandra, who said: “Having done six daytime TV shows I’ve started allocating points for the green rooms and Glasgow was my favourite. Sandi Toksvig was a really friendly presenter. After I’d done Fifteen To One, I went on to do The Boss with Susan Calman as the presenter at Salford Quays.
“The Boss was the nearest I came to winning any money – I was almost at the point of deciding which shoes I’d be buying when the prize of around £6,000 slipped away.
“We were on holiday in Wales when it was broadcast and we got sent a photo showing some of our seven grandchildren watching intently as they had plans on spending the money as well.”
Husband Maurice said: “When we married I had no idea my model bride would turn into a TV
star.” THE sky is filled with acrobatic dots singing away…it can only mean one thing.
Welcome back from your long migration little friends!
Yes, our beloved swallows, swifts and martins have made their more than 6,000-mile journey from their winter home in South Africa.
The idea a little bird with a body no bigger than a matchbox would fly 200 miles a day over the Sahara desert seems almost ludicrous. But they believed much crazier things in the Middle Ages.
It was once believed that swallows used to dive to the bottom of ponds where they would sleep beneath the icy water until spring. That’s pretty insane.
SWALLOWS come to the UK to breed, picking out spots on cliffs or, more commonly in the UK, in man-made structures and buildings, which gave them their common worldwide name, the barn swallow.
Many swallows will re-use nests built the year before with a few home improvements.
There are even records of birds refurbishing the same nests for 50 years! That’s some serious dedication…or laziness.
Swallows like to do pretty much everything on the wing, they fly 11 meters per second and at this speed catch flies, and drink by swooping down over water. Although they can live more than ten years, the dangers of such a huge migration for such a tiny bird mean most only live around four years.
That may not sound like long, but even in four years a swallow will fly up to 60,000 miles.
In an average human’s day-to-day life, it would take us about 40 years to walk that far. Phew… makes me want to go out walking more.
EXCEPT when they are nesting, swifts spend their lives in the air, living on the insects caught in flight. They drink, feed, mate and sleep on the wing. The birds “power nap” by switching off half of their brain for a few seconds at a time.
Some individuals will go 10 months without landing. No other bird spends as much of its life in flight.
Swifts are the fastest of all birds in level flight (the peregrine is the fastest, but only in a steep dive called a stoop).
Birds have been recorded at a top speed of 69.3mph (111.6km/h).
HOUSE martins live up to their name by building their nests under the eaves of houses, although they originally nested on cliffs.
It takes a pair of house martins about 10 days to construct their mud-cup nest, made up of at least 1,000 beak-sized mud pellets.