Hosting BBC Breakfast’s 40th anniversary on Tuesday will be two of the show’s first viewers.
Sally Nugent and Jon Kay both watched the show as schoolchildren, when it was called Breakfast Time.
Jon, 53, who joined as Sally’s co-host six months ago, said of when he first saw it: “I was like Adrian Mole.
“I was 13 and I had a diary and I only kept it for a few weeks but it was in 1983. It included that first day and I talked about how I set the alarm, went downstairs to watch this first edition of breakfast television.
“I talked about ‘how strange watching TV eating my cornflakes’.
“I thought as a teenager about being a journalist but that was sort of being a newspaper journalist. l never was watching it thinking I wanted to do that, but yeah, it’s quite weird to end up doing that job.”
Sally, 51, has now been on BBC breakfast for almost a decade, first as the sports presenter and more recently as a main host Monday to Wednesday, replacing Louise Minchin in autumn 2021.
She recalls: “I can remember watching the first ever programme while I was getting ready for school and it was like a real kind of appointment-to-view moment wasn’t it? It was trailed so heavily.
“I got up a little bit early to get downstairs to put the telly on and I was completely mesmerised by it, thinking it was the best thing ever.
“And then I headed off to school. I didn’t at that point think one day I want to do that.
“Or that I would be presenting it!”
She said of campaigning footballers she has interviewed: “I’m really proud of the work we did with during the pandemic with Marcus Rashford about free school meals.
“I am really proud of the work we did with Jordan Henderson, about the Premier League players raising money for the NHS but I am probably most proud of the work we do with the men with motor neurone disease.”
In 2021 Sally won Royal Television Society awards for interviewing footballer Marcus Rashford on ending child poverty and getting behind rugby league hero Rob Burrow’s campaign to fight MND.
For the anniversary episode, the show will be rebranded as Breakfast Time for one segment, complete with the on-screen clock. There will be archive footage and some extra-special guests, producers have promised.
Sally jokes she may need to take up doing triathlons to continue on the sofa for 25 years like her friend Louise.
“But it is a job she loves and wants to continue for the long term, even if it means she leaves her husband and 15-year-old son sleeping when her 3.30am alarm goes off.
Jon has the top BBC sofa job despite a shaky start to his career in broadcasting.
On his first day working for BBC Radio, he drove up a multi-storey car park with the car’s giant aerial up, wrecking it beyond repair.
He said: “I was terrified and thought I would never work again but they were very nice about it.”
Jon and Sally have other things in common apart from having watched Breakfast Time as children.
He said: “Sally and I both grew up in the north west, I think we’ve worked out that we were probably in the same nightclubs.
“She also gave me the best advice, it was that sleep is part of the job. Don’t feel guilty about catching up on sleep. Don’t feel guilty about having a nap during the day, and it’s totally true.
"Its a funny job. It’s a long programme, it’s quite stressful at times, but it’s also a laugh.
“It is about having trust and supporting one another through because it’s a weird time of day.”
They had known each other for years as more junior BBC workers, and teaming up with Sally was one of the reasons Jon wanted the job.
Sally said: “The thing that’s great about Jon is we can prep stuff together. So if we have got a big interview coming up, we’ll have a little chat about ‘what do you think, what have they said?’ Or we give each other ideas which are really useful.
“He looks after me all the time.
“Every day in this job is brilliant, it’s such a gift I feel very lucky.”
- Viewers can watch BBC Breakfast on BBC One and the iPlayer from 6am Monday to Sunday.
