I’M THE CELEBRITY CELEBRANT
ANYONE hiring one of Britain’s newest “celebrants” to officiate at their wedding, vows renewal or baby naming may recognise the face and voice – if not the name.
For Liverpudlian Debbie Greenwood was one of the country’s top TV presenters back in the 1980s.
The former Miss Great Britain co-hosted BBC Breakfast Time with Frank Bough and Selina Scott, the First Class quiz for schoolchildren, the game show Love Me Love Me Not and Channel 4’s daily consumer show Streetwise.
She was a regular on Radio 2 and the face of several shopping channels, including QVC from 2001 until 2013.
She has also been married to fellow presenter Paul Coia for 30 years.
Now aged 62 and freshly-qualified as an independent celebrant, Debbie says: “I hope nobody is put off by the fact they know who I am. The feeling I’m getting is there’s a trust from people who’ve seen me do various programmes.
“They say things like ‘We used to watch you on Breakfast Time’ or ‘My mum used to buy everything from you on QVC’ – so you feel like part of the family.
“It can make for an easier connection. The alternative is they think ‘I can’t stand that Debbie Greenwood…why would we want her at our ceremony?’
“But at least they can eliminate you quite quickly if they don’t like you.”
Yet interestingly, the inspiration for Debbie’s new career did come from TV.
“I was watching the 2017 BBC drama series Love, Lies And Records with Ashley Jensen as a registrar, and I thought, ‘Something like that might be a nice job’.
“There seemed to be an overlap to what I’d done on telly. After years of warming people up for interviews and getting the best out of them in an interview situation, it’s a bit like that. You meet the families beforehand and need to make them calm.”
So does this mean Debbie is now done with presenting?
“I have given it up in the sense that I’m not looking for a TV job,” she explains.
“If something nice comes along I’d do it, but I’m not vying for telly work. I just want an easy life with nice things in it.”
Debbie is not from a broadcasting background. Her late father Ron was a policeman and mum Rosalie is a retired doctor’s receptionist who still lives in Liverpool, where Debbie was born and raised.
Aigburth Vale High School alumna Debbie remembers: “I was a horrible swot and Miss Goody Two Shoes. As soon as I started learning French at school, I wanted to be an interpreter or a French teacher.”
She went on to get a degree in French and German from Liverpool Poly and now she sometimes teaches English.
However, Debbie had a sideline as a beauty queen: “In 1979 my boyfriend’s mum spotted an article in the Liverpool Echo asking for entrants to Miss Liverpool and she suggested I have a go.
“I thought it was a ridiculous idea and I’d just be making a fool of myself. But my
boyfriend Phil talked me into it, saying the first round was just an interview and if I did that he’d take me out to a Berni Inn for a steak dinner and Black Forest gateau.
“I bought a skirt and blouse from C&A. I had beginner’s luck – the rest is history.”
Over five years Debbie won “about 50” contests: “They were great fun and I made lots of friends. My best friend, Julie, I met in Miss Liverpool, which I won in 1979.
“I was a student and the money came in very handy. It also meant you could get into nightclubs for free.”
When she entered Miss Great Britain in 1984 Debbie was selling advertising for a local free newspaper in Penny Lane.
“Had I not won I think I’d have gone back. I was a terrible salesperson though, so I may have moved into the more creative side of advertising or perhaps to an
advertising agency. I also might have had the confidence then to try for local radio. Janice Long made that seem possible.”
Instead, she was crowned in the ballroom of London’swaldorf Hotel.
“The next morning, on no sleep and champagne, I was interviewed on BBC’S Breakfast Time. That went quite well and afterwards they offered me a job.
“I went home to Liverpool and did an interview with Granada TV, who also offered me a job. So from nothing I got two TV offers in two days which was extraordinary and very exciting.
“I didn’t know what had hit me. I took the Granada one because it meant I could stay home. A year later I did Breakfast Time again and they offered me a job again and I accepted.
“I was very lucky. I didn’t train at all, but I was in the wings for quite a long time before I sat on the red sofa.
“While shadowing for Breakfast Time I met David Cassidy when he was a guest.
“I’d been a huge fan, in love with him my whole life. But he wasn’t what I imagined and I didn’t feel the same after that. You shouldn’t meet your idols.”
Her website states: “Despite winning Miss Great Britain, Debbie has had a long and successful career in broadcasting.”
“That’s sort of a joke,” she explains. “I think some of the journalists on Breakfast Time were a bit puzzled by me because I didn’t have a journalistic background, and I was very inexperienced.
“Once they realised that I was eager to learn and was not stupid, they were kind and helpful. I was always glad that I had my degree though, as it was proof I was not there under false pretences.
“There weren’t so many with regional accents in my day, so the BBC probably thought they were doing their bit by having a Scouser on newsy programmes.”
Of her co-hosts, Debbie says, “Selina was lovely, like a big sister to me” and “Frank was one of the best broadcasters I’ve ever worked with – he saw me as a daughter figure”.
But the job wasn’t easy for the green Miss Greenwood: “I was very inexperienced. You’d have to wait up really late for your scripts and notes, sometimes til midnight, and you’d have to watch Newsnight to be au fait with what was going on. I’d get up at 3am and go to the studio.
“For the press I was a novelty – one minute they’d be praising me and the next they’d be writing terrible things.
“An elephant once ate my script on Breakfast Time. And I remember reporting outside Buckingham Palace on Andrew and Fergie’s wedding – doing a live piece to camera. I put my coat down by the cameraman, and someone stole it and ran off. I couldn’t do anything about it.”
Debbie’s interviewees included a young Tom Hanks and a newly-wed Elton John (to Renata). But they weren’t all fun.
“I got sent to No.10 to interview Mrs Thatcher. I went with a load of Scouts as it was Bob-a-jobweek. She was absolutely terrifying and couldn’t be bothered.
“The idea was she should encourage people to be entrepreneurs. She gave them a Dundee Cake to raffle, and I thought ‘Of
‘It meant you could get into clubs for free’
all the prizes you could have donated…’
“The other women I found scary were Barbara Cartland and Fanny Craddock.
“They don’t necessarily take well to you when you’re a young female in telly with a questionable background, not being a proper journalist and having recently been Miss Great Britain.
“When I interviewed Zandra Rhodes she actually fell asleep. I took it as either I was being boring or she felt particularly relaxed in my company!
“Asking Prunella Scales about her first date with actor Timothy West, I said ‘Did you snog?’ and everyone was horrified.
“I met Prince Philip at Kensington Palace for The Duke of Edinburgh Awards. I’m not a royalist but when he entered the room I was tongue tied. I managed a feeble joke, ‘I’m Debbie and I heard you always wanted to meet me’.thankfully he did laugh.
“I always loved Paul Mccartney. I met him when he won an award for We All Stand Together. I was sitting at a table thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m in the same room as Paul Mccartney’.
“When he was leaving with Linda, he did a little detour and came to the table I was on and said hello.
“I was really starstruck and said ‘I’m Debbie’ and he went ‘Yeah I know, I’ve got all your records!’ So I loved him even more. That was the highlight of anything to me!”
Debbie left after 18 months on Breakfast Time. “They wanted to revamp the show and get rid of the ‘sitting on the sofa with a cuppa’ vibe.they made Frank get rid of his famous jumpers and wear a sports jacket.
“My replacement was Jeremy Paxman. I remember him coming in one morning to shadow me. I was very honoured, although he was very tall and not able to hear anything I said.when I left they gave me a section of the show’s red sofa and I’ve still got it in a spare bedroom.”
Among Debbie’s subsequent shows was Tricks Of The Trade on BBC Two in 1987, on which she met Scottish TV star Paul
Coia, who had made his name on the BBC’S Pebble Mill At One: “I’d seen him on telly and thought he looked dishy, but when he turned up in a yellow cardigan I thought, ‘I don’t fancy him’.
“Yet within 15 seconds I was thinking, ‘I wish I’d washed my hair this morning’. I was smitten early on, I must admit.”
They became something of a celebrity couple, co-hosting several shows on TV and radio and guesting on many more, although they drew the line at Channel 4 reality serieswife Swap in the Noughties.
They wed in October 1992 and went on to have daughters Annalie, now 27, and Luisa, 24, who both work in marketing.
“I’m very glad they didn’t go into telly because it’s not a secure business. It’s very fickle,” Debbie says. “Paul and I have been very lucky, but most people aren’t and don’t have the longevity we’ve had.”
The second half of Debbie’s small screen career was mostly spent selling – everything from handbags and bedding to cameras and chocolate: “We had quite a lot of celebrity guests on, including Susan Boyle, David Hasselhoff, and Marie Osmond.
“Joan Rivers had a jewellery range and I loved those shows because you never knew what she would say next.
“It was fun working on shopping TV, but there was a lot of pressure. Not only did you appear live for three hours with no script, no autocue, and no rehearsal, you also had the pressure of sales targets.”
Yet Debbie’s sunny nature and smile are undiminished. Although delighted to have now joined the UK’S 4,000 celebrants, she said she will not officiate at funerals, internments and memorials. “I decided not to do the funeral training. I’m too emotional to be helpful at such a sad time.”
Living with Paul in a smart detached house with five bedrooms and “a nice garden” in south-west London, and a holiday home in Portugal, Debbie adds: “I’d really like the celebrant thing to work out, but I’m not really doing it for the money.
“I’m just thinking of it being something lovely to do that you also incidentally get paid for. I’m at a stage when I’m conscious life is short so I want to relish things that I do and enjoy my family.”
‘Shopping TV was
a lot of pressure’