Sandi Toksvig

I don't remember a time when my family wasn't in the spotlight.

My dad was incredibly famous.

When Danish television started, my dad was the very first host of the news.

And in those days...

It's hard to believe now.

The news would come on.

I don't know how old you are, Richard, but it used to be that if you wanted to watch television at 7, you had to turn on a 5.2 to warm the television up.

You had to have a little moment to think about going, oh, I get to broadcast now.

The lights would come on at the back.

So my dad came on at 7.

He read the news from a desk in black and white.

There were no insert film footages at all.

He had a red telephone on his desk.

I don't know why it was red because it was black and white, telly.

And occasionally the prime minister would ring and they would do an interview together.

And my dad would often smoke his pipe while reading the news.

So this is how casual it was.

At 8 o'clock, he would finish and then they would do a half-hour documentary about, I don't know, the Queen's silver spoon collection.

And then the service would close down.

My father was two-thirds of all available Danish television.