Fletcher Marron

Here's something I've learned in The Last Two Weeks : a lot of people really want to Eliot Fletcher . A huge number of. To many people, in fact, want Eliot Fletcher .

And who is Fletcher , exactly? Let me get you up to speed.

Back in the 1980s, there was a pop group called Five Star . They were shining and brilliant, and named after a variety of leaded petrol (which is true).

Formed by Five singing and dancing siblings from Romford, East London , The Group sold millions of records, won a Brit Award for best group, and were often called "Britain's answer to the Jackson Five ".

A week in the year 1989, they visited the BBC's kids " program Is to promote life, your 18 single rooms, With Each heartbeat. During a live Phone -in, a boy who was by The Band , to whom he gave The Immortal question: "Why Five stars are asked, so [expletive] crap?"

the boy said his name was Eliot Fletcher .

her notorious About Two Weeks , a clip of The Incident was divided by the (excellent) Twitter account Shortly thereafter, someone claiming to be Eliot contacted, Five -star-singer Doris Pearson , excuse me, laying it to rest 30 years of hurt.

Doris graciously accepted The Apology , inviting Eliot wrote on a beer - and I was careful, for the Bbc News .

Why be careful? Since Eliot had ignored all my attempts to contact and verify his identity. In the original article, I have made clear, the whole thing could message a wrong.

Sure enough, after the story was published, a second Eliot Fletcher showed up, claiming to be a had taken a forklift to his name. Then I was notified by a third party, Eliot ; and several BBC-colleague who claimed that Eliot had to grow up, a producer on the children's TV show The O-Zone.

On the comments under a YouTube clip of The Incident , dozens more borrowing. "That was really me! Real name is Jim!" "My heart was crazy," who claimed he'd been called the name "A Teacher I hated, Mr. Fletcher " for the prank call.

What was going on on the earth?

"Eliot is to this Urban Legend ," suggested Doris. "Some people just want to just jump to, for awareness, for attention. "

I realized that I would have to find out who, if anyone, told The Truth .

started to get To me, I have contact to several members of the Live production team (including, but not limited, Gordon the Gopher puppeteer, the now head of editorial compliance BBC-Radio), but none of them could shed light on The Mystery . is Some, reasonably, argued that the additional coverage could encourage copycat behaviour, and declined to comment.

So I began to unravel The Web of "others, Eliot 's" to see if anyone checked out the history.

"It's a bit embarrassing," said one of the alleged perpetrators, who asked to remain anonymous. He made The Call "just to annoy My Sister ," said he, as she had been, in hardware on the TV that morning.

A key detail: Eliot Fletcher was not his real name. He would be out of The Infamous nickname of "panic" after getting through The Show .

"I remember, like always, I took Eliot out-of-ET, and Dexter Fletcher , the actor in Press Gang ," he said. "I have said these things, then I said what I did, put The Phone down, and realized how much trouble I was in.

"My mother is still angry with me about it. "

His story sounded plausible, but something disturbed me: His accent does not match with the original Phone call. Accents change, of course, but I dig kept, just in case.

Soon I was talking to another Eliot (let's call him Eliot Two). He offered to prove his identity by recreating his famous outburst over The Phone - what, how I swore, at high volume, in The Middle of a startled BBC newsroom. Funny, but not conclusive.

A trawl of newspaper archives, not every leads - to learn although I was surprised at how gung-ho had the BBC about The Incident .

"It is alarming, but do not you ever heard the language, when the children play in The Park ?" a spokeswoman said a News of The World journalist, had me on the outbreak.

"We are trying to vet calls, but unfortunately these nutters are non-slip. We are very sorry. "

A few days later I got a Phone number for Eliot Three of the BBC producer. He admitted, he had calls for a lot of string in his youth, but didn't remember this particular episode.

Then Eliot Both have been In Touch again. It would help to hear a cassette recording of The Infamous call?

of Course, I said, "Yes", so he dug it out and digitized it. A few hours later, the file Ping in my Inbox. Not only that, his home-recording-on-one match-up with The Show (right down to his dog, Tammy, barking in the background), but the point is that it swears contained a couple of bonus that have been cut off on television. None of them are printable here. All of them are worse than what actually went on. The tape ends with the teenager in laughter to break out.

It was not conclusive proof, but it was convincing. We talked on The Phone about his memories of The Day and here is an edited transcript, so you can decide for yourself whether Eliot was really Five -star, s crank caller.

What made you decide to harass you, Five stars in the First Place ?

The Thing was, I was a Big Fan of them. Then all of a sudden, they were on TV their new Ferraris, and The Music began to show to downhill. As a boy, took their music very seriously, I have the feeling that they were sold out.

I didn't know I was going to argue or anything. I just knew I wanted it and give them a piece of my teenage soul.

As you have through the screening process, to it on air?

you said: "do you Have A Question for Five stars?" and I was like, "Well, have you ever thought of splitting?", that's a pretty generic question. And Then , lo and behold, they called me back 20 Minutes later.

Then, just before I was due on air, The Postman , turned mad and sent my dog and I in this whole conversation with Sarah Greene on my dog, Tammy.

I remember that. The fact that she had just made a light-hearted chat, the swearing is even more strange.

That's why it was so funny. The Words came out of my mouth, And Then I just rolled and laughed literally for about half an hour.

What happens then?

The Phone rang and I thought, "Okay, that's it, I'm going". When I returned an hour later, The Front door swung and my mother goes, "you Have the ring up the BBC?"

she had told a very angry conversation with someone from the BBC to her, what a naughty child I was, and She Said , "You have to write to The Head of the BBC a letter of apology".

And you?

I didn't mean to, but you made me do it. So I write a letter of apology, but The First letter of The First sentence began with 'F'. The First letter of the second sentence began with 'U'...

So, you had no remorse?

No remorse at all. It's funny, listening to it now, because I sound really, really angry. I think that's why it stuck in the minds of the people.

your Twitter name cousin apologized. You Are?

no. No Excuses. What's done is done. As an adult, somehow the feeling is somewhat different, but The Child in me is like "no".

it remains to hope that seals up the black hole of the 80s-TV-trivia-for always.

If you are The Real Eliot Fletcher , or you claim you don't, please, get In Touch with us. Ever.

I'll leave the Last Word to Doris Pearson , who, After All , was The Target of Eliot 's anger all those decades ago.

"you know, it was so many moons ago, and I'm a forgiving woman," she laughs.

"And to be honest, I thought at the Time Was , 'Well, we're not actually crap'. "

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Source of news: bbc.com