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How was already a hugely successful series by the time
it appeared in Look-in, having began in 1966. The format of the show
was so simple, to answer everyday questions, about all sorts of subjects,
all phrased so they began 'How?...'. It was conceived by one of the
presenters, Jack Hargreaves (top left), whose specialist area was nature and the
countryside, during this time he also presented another series about the
countryside called 'Out Of Town', which also became a Look-in feature. With Jack were three other 'experts', Fred Dineage
(bottom right),
who specialised in historical questions, but also used to do boyish things
like card tricks, and oddball things, and generally mucking about, Bunty James
(top right), who did things like cooking, fashions and more feminine
things, (she was replaced later by Marian Davies), and Jon Miller (bottom left) who did all the
science type questions and experiments. One of the main gimmicks of
the programme was for all the presenters, as they appeared on screen, to put
one hand up, Indian stylee, and say 'HOW', to which an Indian voice would
reply in a deep brogue, 'HOW!', also hence the Indian headdresses in the pics above, which were evident in a lot of the publicity pics of the time.
The features in Look-in were a mix of just plain text, answering the
questions, and diagrams to describe more complicated things. The
questions were sent in by Look-in readers, but I am not sure if the
questions were really answered by the How presenters or just
by Look-in writers, but it was very informative, and really great if you
were a fan of the series, as I was. The illustrations incidentally
were by David Jefferis.
The series has been revived recently as 'How 2', and Fred
returned to the show as a presenter.
Click below to see a full page HOW feature.
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