Tiswas made me a star says Chris Tarrant

Chris Tarrant puts his success down to the time he spent in the West Midlands filming hit seventies children's TV show Tiswas.

"Tiswas made me," he told the Express & Star. "It created everything that followed for the rest of my life. Without Tiswas there wouldn't be Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? or the radio show. "We had so many laughs and it was just an unbelievable time of my life."

Speaking as he officially received his star on Birmingham's Walk of Fame at a glittering black tie dinner last night, he paid tribute to the Saturday morning phenomenon filmed in Birmingham's ATV studios in Broad Street, which are now just an empty shell.

"I went back to ATV not long ago and it was quite sad," he said. "It was an awful ghost town of a place.

"I remember it as a place heaving with kids, custard and live bands. We used to get an amazing line-up of musicians on there. It was just chaos and captured the imagination of an entire generation.

"Things would be flying about all over the place. It was wonderful madness.

"My memories of it are fantastic and whenever I do a question-and-answer session or after-dinner speech now, everyone just wants to know about Tiswas. And Sally James of course.

"Lenny Henry was on there too and now we each have a spot on the Walk of Fame. It's funny how it all comes full circle."

The presenter is currently back on screen with Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? and has returned to the airwaves sitting in for Steve Wright' on Radio Two's afternoon show.

By Elizabeth Joyce