How a TV bust-up gave Eamonn Holmes his big break
Eamonn was just 19 years old and working as a farming reporter on Ulster TV when the producer and presenter had a studio bust-up.
âThe producer shouts at him, âYouâre ďŹred!â and Iâm there at 19 years of age, watching this.
“Then he says, âYoung Holmes, have you got a shirt and tie?â So I said, âYes Mr Fitzpatrickâ, and he says, âRight, go and put them on because youâre presenting this programme.â
âSo that was my introduction to television presenting. I read the autocue, and my heart was beating so fast that I couldnât hear a word I was saying,â Eamonn says.
Eamonn went on to present news, sport and then early morning television for a record-breaking 26 years.
Honoured in 2018 with an OBE for services to broadcasting, his career has encompassed both hard news journalism and programmes such as This Morning with his wife Ruth Langsford.
âIâm very grounded, I know what I do well,â he says. âI canât play a musical instrument, I canât speak a foreign language, I canât cook, I canât dance, Iâm pretty useless overall. Iâm as good as it gets when it comes to being a live presenter on TV and thatâs about it really,â he adds.
Eamonn recalls growing up in Belfast during the Troubles.
“I had a very normal childhood until I was eight, and then the Troubles happened, and we knew all about it.”
He describes his school bus being hijacked.
“This guy came on the bus in a balaclava and two others came up behind him and he said, ‘We're commandeering this bus on behalf of the provisional IRA, everybody out' and they started sprinkling the bus with petrol, so we all ran out and somebody lit a petrol bomb and threw it, and the bus burned.”
He ran the mile to school only to meet the headmaster.
“He looks at me and says, ‘Why are you late Holmes?' So I told him, panting, what had happened, expecting him to say, ‘That's awful, come into the office, have a cup of tea.' But he just said, ‘Detention!'
“His attitude was that our school should be an oasis outside the Troubles.”
