Sir Ian Taylor: Memories of Danny Watson and his impact on a generation

Now, as you know, Danny Watson has passed away. Danny, of course, was Newstalk ZB's afternoon host for 15 years until 2015. And so of course, we felt it fitting to pay tribute to Danny with our first interview, and it's with his lifelong friend, Sir Ian Taylor. Sir Ian, like Danny, made his name in TV when they co-presented children's show Spot On, and Ian's with us now. Hi, Ian.

Hi, Heather. How are you?

I'm very well, thanks, mate. I'm m- my, my commiserations on your loss. I know this must be hard n- hard news for you.

Well, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's really interesting, I think, to put, put it in context. I've, um, just been on the phone with Margaret Rush- Rushworth. So there was Danny, Marg, and me were on there, and, um, we've been talking for the past 45 minutes, and all we have done is laugh. And, you know, Danny would be really stoked to know that's what we were doing. The memories are just so cool. Uh, such an amazing, amazing human being.

Yeah.

And we laughed, and Danny would love that, that we laughed.

How far back do you guys go?

Oh, 50-something [laughs] 55 years. Um, I, I remember, um, I remember my first meeting with Danny. Danny, um, we needed to find another host. Uh, Ray Millard had left Spot On, and we needed to find another host for, for Spot On. And Mike Steadman, the great Mike Steadman, went off doing interviews, and he went off to Christchurch and came back. And he said, "I've found the next host." I said, "Oh, yeah? That's cool." He said, um, "He's kinda different. Um, and I think, um, I think we might have to give him some elocution lessons for maybe a month before we put him on TV." [laughs] And, you know, these were the days of Dougal Stevenson and Philip Sherry. And, uh, we said, "Well, what have you done?" He said, "Well, what's his background? Well, he's a pig hunter. He loves pig hunting. Um, he's in the Territorial Army, and, uh, but I just think he's gonna be good." Well, we couldn't wait to meet this Danny Watson. So Danny finally turns up. He turns up in the office with a dog called Defa, which was Defa Dog. Um, turns up with Defa Dog and looks at us with a big grin on his face and says, "Hey, it's really cool to be working with youse guys, eh? It's gonna be really cool."

[laughs]

And I remember thinking, "Four weeks isn't gonna be enough." [laughs]

No. Did you ever, did you ever knock it out of him?

No. No, we didn't. You know, and I, I think, uh, I'm so glad you, you know, you took the time to be able to, for us to have this chat because one of the things that has always resonated with me is there's a whole generation of people... And I'm getting texts and calls from people everywhere. There's a whole generation of people who grew up with Danny, grew up with Spot On. And I think the impact of this crazy guy who's in the Territorial Army, you know, he went pig hunting, the impact has always been really clear for me because the number of times I get stopped in the street and someone says to me, "I know you. You used to be on Spot On with Danny Watson," or worse still-

Mm

... "I know you. You're Danny Watson."

[laughs]

You know? He had that impact on everybody.

Yeah. He, uh... Did he ever tell you his story about dying?