Index

» The Girl with the 3...
» Letter to the Indep...
» How do Composers Co...
» Bell's Palsy

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, April 11, 2002, Thursday

The girl with the 38 bees: Graeme Garden and Ian Pattinson expose legendary scorer Samantha

By GRAEME GARDEN and IAN PATTINSON

Samantha, 29, radio's glamour-girl from I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, has been scoring on the show since the late Seventies. Week after week, she sits patiently keeping a close eye on the points as the teams go through the motions, and, although her voice is never heard, her presence is a vital ingredient in the programme's recipe for success.

Sam first came to the producer's attention when she was spotted as the hostess demonstrating the week's star prizes on Radio 4's You and Yours. He invited her to his office to offer her a position, and she was only too eager to fit it in. Now she travels the country with the regular teams, and her lovely dog, Mungo, goes everywhere with her. Before each recording, she'll tell the producer it's time to let her whippet out, and then she's off for a romp in the park with Mungo, who loves her to give him a stroke while he licks her face and pants.

Away from the silver microphone, Samantha lives quietly in a small converted cottage in East Sussex. The cottage is her great passion, and she is lucky to have a professional roofer living next door in case she needs to get felt laid down in the loft.

She keeps herself busy with her many interests, and has recently started keeping bees. She already has more than three dozen, and she knows an expert handler who is only too happy to come round and give her the odd tip. She says that he'll carefully take out her 38 bees and soon have them flying around his head. An expert cook, Sam is often to be seen at the nearby inn, enjoying some of the local pork in cider.

Her many fans were delighted to see that Sam has taken on a new role as co-presenter with Brian Sewell on Trailer Trash, the programme where competing teams construct caravans out of industrial waste, and which can be heard on Mondays at 5.20am on BBC Radio Homespun Digital.