Where’s Radio Cumbria?”, asks Richard Madeley. “It used to be at Hilltop Heights.” It’s opposite the castle now. “I’ll have to take a look. It’s been a long time since I was in Carlisle.”

The Border City is where Madeley found his feet as a broadcaster. The first uncertain steps were taken here, long before he found fame as half of the nation’s favourite TV couple, Richard and Judy.

He sounds enthusiastic, talking on the phone to The Cumberland News about memories from his youth. Then again, he sounds enthusiastic about most things.

It’s an endearing and familiar characteristic. Millions have seen Richard chuntering away about whatever has taken his fancy, while his wife Judy Finnigan gives a “What’s he like?” look to the camera.

They’re coming to Cumbria early next month. The visit is mainly to promote Richard’s third novel, in discussions with Judy at Carlisle and Keswick. He will also be showing her some important places from his life before they met.

“I don’t think I’ve been back to Carlisle since 1980,” he says. He lived there for four years after moving up from London during the long, hot summer of 1976.

Richard joined BBC Radio Carlisle, as Radio Cumbria was then called, as a reporter just before his 20th birthday. He spent two years there, followed by two years at Border TV. He also met and married his first wife.

“It was absolutely formative,” he says of his time in Cumbria. “I can’t see how my broadcasting career would have gone the way it went had I not spent four years in Carlisle. Most of what I use now, I learned about 80 per cent of it with Radio Carlisle and Border.

“I was completely an East End of London / Essex bloke. I was deputy editor of the East London Advertiser. Local radio was burgeoning. Most places thought I was too young at 19. Then Radio Carlisle gave me a break. I barely knew where Carlisle was.”

He spent most of his savings, about £500, on a second-hand Triumph Spitfire to make the long journey north. His first encounter with a Cumbrian was somewhat bizarre.

“I rolled into Carlisle and went into a corner shop on the way to my B&B on Warwick Road. I got a loaf of sliced bread, and I wanted a jar of peanut butter. I asked the guy behind the counter. He disappeared through the hanging strips. I was there for about five minutes. ‘Hello? I’d like some peanut butter!’

“Eventually he came back out, went to the fridge, and handed me a packet of Anchor butter! I said ‘No – peanut butter!’ His face collapsed. He said ‘I’ve never heard of it’.

“It was completely unrepresentative of Carlisle. But I thought ‘Where on earth have I come to?’”

That feeling took a while to subside. Richard admits to being lonely at first, far from home and with no friends or family close by.

“I was very young. Most of my colleagues were a lot older than me. A lot of them had come from Radio 4. I felt like a fish out of water. But they were very kind to me. I used to get invited to Sunday lunch with their families. And within three or four months, it was fine. And I met Lynda. We ended up getting married.”

This was Lynda Hooley, who lived in the flat below him. She was seven years older, and manageress of Carlisle’s Chelsea Girl boutique.

Within a few weeks they had moved in together and the following summer were married in a church at the foot of the Caldbeck fells.

By this time Richard had become producer of Radio Carlisle’s breakfast show. After two years at the station, Border TV expressed an interest.

He seems to revel in stories which make him sound ridiculous, and this career move is no exception. “I got a note at Radio Carlisle to call the MD at Border. I dialled the number and his PA answered. When she asked who I was I blurted ‘It’s, er, Richard Madeley’, which sounded like ‘It’s Sir Richard Madeley’.

“She said ‘Hang on a moment, Sir Richard.’ Then the MD came on the line: ‘Sir Richard – how good of you to call.’

“I had to explain, but he found it amusing, and I got the job.”

He and Lynda had bought their first house, at Eden Place in Stanwix. Soon after her husband started working at Border, Lynda accompanied him on a staff sponsored walk.

“I’ve a terrible memory for names. My wife said ‘Who’s that?’ ‘That’s the MD.’ ‘What’s his name?’ ‘I don’t know.’

“This guy gave me the job, he pushed it through personally. I was very grateful to him. And I couldn’t remember his name.

“He came over and I knew he wanted me to introduce him to my wife, but I couldn’t! Eventually he looked at her and said ‘And this is...?’

“I turned to my wife. And I couldn’t remember her name either! I just stood there. It would not come. There was this terrible silence.”

He laughs. “My wife knew I couldn’t remember the MD’s name. In an act of treachery she said to me ‘What’s his name?’

“I did a Basil Fawlty cackle and took off, leaving them together. She thought it was hilarious. He never forgave me. He cut me dead from then on.”

What was his name? “I can’t remember.”

Richard does recall colleagues such as Eric Wallace, Keith Macklin and Liz Howell who helped him make the transition to television.

“I loved working at Border. I really cut my teeth there. It was a small audience. You felt you could make silly mistakes. It was a very kind environment.”

After two years, Richard was offered a job with Yorkshire TV. He and Lynda moved to Yorkshire. Then came Granada TV, second wife Judy, and 21 years hosting first This Morning together on ITV, then the Richard & Judy talk show on Channel 4.

Richard now hosts Madeley on Sunday on Radio 2 and regularly guest hosts programmes such as BBC1’s The One Show and Channel 5’s The Wright Stuff.

He has also written two best-selling novels, Some Day I’ll Find You, and The Way You Look Tonight.

His third, The Night Book, is published next week. This tale of suspense is set in a time and place familiar to its author: the Lake District in the summer of ’76.

He says: “Writing the book, I found the memories were vivid. If I’d set it in the present day I’d have had to do some boots on the ground research. But because it’s set in 1976 I could just mine my memories. 1976 was an extraordinary summer. It just went on and on and on.”

One character seems familiar in some ways. Seb Richmond is an inexperienced radio reporter with Lake District FM.

“He’s not me,” says Richard. “The box that I put him in is the box I was in; struggling the way I was. But his character is not me. He’s a lot older. He’s hung on my frame.”


Richard Madeley during his Border TV days His first two novels were successful critically as well as commercially. Richard describes the reaction as “just a huge relief. You’re really putting yourself out there to be judged, in some ways much more than being on television. It seems more real than just sitting in front of a camera. You never know how people will take it. The potential for failure is huge.

“I always knew I wanted to have a crack at proper writing. Doing TV five days a week sucks your time away. Only when we stopped doing TV suddenly did I have the time.”

He agrees that the Richard and Judy Book Club, which began as part of their Channel 4 show, helped inspire him. “We’ve always been voracious readers. The book club really put a responsibility on us to read a lot more. That broadens your mind I suppose and informs your thinking.

“I feel like I’m in the third tranche of my life. I was hard news, then features, and now a writer. I feel I’ve got a really nice life. So many different things now.”

He has two children, Jack and Chloe, from his marriage with Judy and two stepsons, Tom and Dan.

Richard turned 60 last month. And it’s 40 years since he arrived in a strange northern city where peanut butter was an exotic delicacy.

“I can’t believe it’s 40 years,” he says. “It seems like last month. That’s the thing about getting older. The stuff you remember vividly seems very recent.

“I really want to see the old houses I lived in. I’m expecting it to seem very recent and at the same time a long time ago. It’s going to be bitter sweet.”

The Night Book is published by Simon & Schuster. Richard Madeley will be in conversation with Judy Finnigan at the Crown and Mitre Hotel, Carlisle, on Monday July 4 and Queen’s Hall, Keswick, on Tuesday July 5. Both events begin at 7.30pm. Tickets £12 (including the book) are available from Bookends, Castle Street, Carlisle. Call 01228 529067.