Challenge Anneka - Kent Railway Restoration

[och aye]

This is a blast from the past. If anybody was around during the 1980s and 1990s, Anneka Rice was one of the most well known TV personalities of that time. She had a TV show called Challenge Anneka where she was "challenged" to complete tasks by a deadline. Anneka using a mobile phone about 10 years before they became almost universally owned was quite unique at the time.

You can read more about the show here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenge_Anneka

Back on 20 October 1989 8.15pm on BBC 1 (as opposed to BBC One - as we see it branded today ) she was tasked to restore and bring back rails to Northiam station on the Kent and East Sussex Railway.

While it is rather dated and somewhat questionable that businesses just happened to have a spare digger available for the weekend, or British Steel happened to have a lorry load of railway tracks to deliver to them, it is a nice trip down memory lane for those who are involved with the Kent and East Sussex Heritage Railway.

 

[Ashley Hill]

There was also a series called The Help Squad featuring Annabel Giles. The internet contains very little information on the series but I remember an episode where they painted the footbridge at Buckfastleigh on the SDR as I was briefly seen in the crowd at the end. We were given pink overalls to wear, yuk!

 

[Sun Chariot]

There was also a series called The Help Squad featuring Annabel Giles. The internet contains very little information on the series but I remember an episode where they painted the footbridge at Buckfastleigh on the SDR as I was briefly seen in the crowd at the end. We were given pink overalls to wear, yuk!

I was thinking of Annabel Croft (as one does...) for a moment there; but I realise whom you mean, I hadn't realised Ms Giles had passed.
I'll look for the SDR footage. You'll be the one in pink overalls, innit?

 

[Ashley Hill]

I was thinking of Annabel Croft (as one does..

The lovely Miss Croft replaced Anneka Rice on Treasure Hunt.

 

[Ploughman]

If I recall right.
The work involved, supposedly, renovating a derelict station covered with debris. signs hanging at odd angles, the very picture of desolation.
In comes a Helicopter and a figure jumps out, Anneka has arrived.
15 minutes later Signs are rehung, the platform is swept all is well.
The builders do their stuff.
Every bit is staged, but aimed at the General Public and for entertainment purposes only not serious.

 

[Bodiam]

Challenge Anneka is still spoken of by older Kent & East Sussex volunteers. There was certainly a good deal of "scene setting" before the recording including lifting a couple of new track panels that had been laid alongside the platform.

 

[och aye]

Challenge Anneka is still spoken of by older Kent & East Sussex volunteers. There was certainly a good deal of "scene setting" before the recording including lifting a couple of new track panels that had been laid alongside the platform.

I thought as much.

Do the volunteers have any interesting stories of her visit/the filming of the show?