Noel's House Party

I once worked selling tickets at a big event. It was before debit cards and we had no EPOS system, or even a till, it was all manual with these things for cards. All it did was print the raise numbers on your card onto three slips of paper using carbon paper.

Every card transaction produced 2 carbon paper sheets which we put in a makeshift plastic bag bin, (although they frequently on the floor and got blown out the door) and then when that was full we'd take the bags and put them in the nearest bin. If you knew where to look you could have had access to hundreds of people's credit card details.

This was only 25 years ago... different times

That's the 90s for you. We used to be sent out the door to play on the roads even if there was a hurricane.

90s !? You had it lucky mate. In the 70s we were made to play along the central reservation of the motorway, so we didn't disturb anybody. I often refused to, so instead I sat indoors and flicked between Test Card F on BBC 1, 2, and on really exciting days ITV.

Before elf and safety went mad!

Don't the call centres now just volunteer staff who type in the caller's details into the normal public-facing Children in Need website?

EDIT: I think it's this URL: https://mydonatetelethonsappeals.bt.com/donate/cin2016/

This saves the need for any staff training, and there's no need for staff logins or even an caller's email address (only if they want a receipt). As call centre providers all over the place can (and do) volunteer staff, it's one less system to worry about.

It was also people pledging to go to the bank and pay up

I think that was what we were supposed to do when I volunteered but either the website fell over, or we couldn't access it from BT due to a fault, so when it was back up and running later, the shift that took over entered the details between calls.

We had Derek Acorah taking calls with us - well he would answer them and have a chat before handing over to someone else to take the details.

Being a (alledged) psychic, you'd have thought he'd have known how much the caller was going to pledge before they actually said the amount..

It was because there weren't the kind of systems in place that let people pay instantly and over the phone. There were credit cards, but they weren't as common as cards today are, neither was payment instantaneous.

So you'd phone up Children in Need or Telethon and pledge money. I think they'd send you a paying in slip and thank you note/reminder, or you went down the high street and paid it into one of the many many banks and building societies that got listed during the programme.

The amount raised shown on screen was mostly promised money, though I assume the vast majority paid up

I seem to remember in 1995 The Big Red Nose Breakfast made a point of saying they were only looking for donations that year, not pledges.

Seems Noel is possibly making a show with... Keith Lemon?

http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/news/a803171/keith-lemon-and-noel-edmonds-are-teaming-up-for-a-new-channel-4-pilot/

https://youtu.be/ZNQ9v7Q6NxE?t=47m50s

How did they do the bit where the person gets gunged at the end of the trip around the house then goes backwards and comes back out fully cleaned up? I seem to remember they did the trick several times throughout the various series

Was the first trip somehow pre recorded and then slotted in to the show and the second gunging live?