Multi-Coloured Swap Shop - Content

Content

The anchor was Noel Edmonds and his associates from the beginning were Keith Chegwin, John Craven and later, in 1978, Maggie Philbin. The show's presenters formed a pop group called Brown Sauce in December 1981 before releasing a single called "I Wanna be a Winner". Soon after the group's formation, the song peaked at #15 in the UK Singles Chart and stayed in the Top 40 for a total of 9 weeks.

Also featured was Posh Paws, a stuffed toy dinosaur. Noel Edmonds once explained that his name was actually spelled "Pohs Paws", because that is "Swap Shop" backwards. Another person named was 'Eric' (Ilett), the often-referred to but never seen technician whose job was to lower a plastic globe containing postcards sent in by viewers as answers to competitions. Eric Ilett performed a similar task on the BBC's Ask The Family when technical assistance was required as part of the programme.

The content of the programme included music, visits from celebrities, competitions, and cartoons. There was also coverage of news and issues relevant to children, presented by John Craven, building on his profile as the presenter of John Craven's Newsround.

The cornerstone, however, was the Swaporama element, hosted by Chegwin, who was very rarely in the studio. An outside broadcast unit would travel to different locations throughout the country where children could swap their belongings with others. This proved to be one of the most popular aspects of the show, often achieving gatherings of more than 2,000 children. Generally, thanks to a suggestion by the BBC's Head of Outside Broadcasts, Martin J. O'Connor, the primary purpose of the BBC OB unit was to broadcast a sporting event at that Swaporama venue later that day. This allowed Swap Shop to utilise the same unit and save programming costs which would otherwise be prohibitive.

The telephone number for the first series of the show was 01 288 8055. This number was also used for many other BBC phone-in events, with the result that on one occasion a young caller trying to reach Swap Shop instead got through to a phone-in with the then Prime Minister James Callaghan. From the second series onwards the programme had its own number - 01 811 8055.