A brief resume of the television career of SHAW TAYLOR

During the summer of 1957 Associated Television…ATV… were looking for a relief vision announcer to fill the six weeks while the regulars took their holidays.Actor Shaw Taylor got the ‘part’ and at the end of six weeks was invited to sign on as a staff announcer.

"But you are a thespian dear boy" said his friends. "you’re an actor laddie"

"£1500 a year, paid holidays, and my son Richard just born?…. Forget acting!" said Shaw. And it was that career change plus Shaw’s natural ability to ‘talk to camera’ that led to him becoming a television ‘jack of all trades’.

Announcer in the days when the announcer appeared in vision and ad libbed to keep the station in time with the network.

Quizmaster of shows like TELL THE TRUTH, PENCIL & PAPER, PASSWORD and DOTTO…

Royal Commentator at Royal Command Film & Stage Performances, at Princess Alexandra’s Wedding and on other Royal Occasions including ITV’s yearly coverage of the Cenotaph Ceremony.

Sports commentator on Ice Skating, Snooker, Ten Pin Bowling and Water Skiing

Foreign Correspondent In 1961, along with Reginald Bosanquet, he presented the first ever ‘live’ broadcast from behind the Iron Curtain at the opening of the first British Trade Fair from Sokolniki Park in Moscow. Working with Russian television for a direct broadcast to the UK he spotted Nikita Kruschev and captured a live off-the-cuff interview with the Russian leader, and lived to tell the tale…what a tale!

Disc Jockey on BBC’s Late Night Extra and with five shows a week on Radio Luxembourg, including The Friday Spectacular, he was the first DJ to interview The Beatles.

Travel Presenter The Thames holiday programme Wish You Were Here? decided that Shaw and his wife Jane would be the ideal couple to represent the ‘middle-aged whose children having flown the nest and could afford reasonably expensive holidays’. So, among many other places, they found themselves‘museum haunting ‘ in Italy, ‘touring’ Spain, Portugal and France by car, and ‘cruising’ aboard Sea Princess, Canberra and the remarkable SS Vacationer.

Crime Presenter Perhaps the most important programme for Shaw came in 1962 when ATV (Associated Television) needed to fill five minutes of airtime at peak viewing for six weeks in London only. Steve Wade, Head of Outside Broadcasts, who had been with Shaw in Moscow, thought up an idea that hadn’t been seen on television before…an armchair detective series for real!

New Scotland Yard was offered a weekly five minutes of airtime to help in the fight against crime… The Yard would provide the crime reports…Shaw would script and present them and invite viewers to help solve them ….

POLICE FIVE was born and the catchphrase that Shaw invented took it’s place in television history…."KEEP ‘EM PEELED!"

The six week run turned into 30 years. The programme was copied and adapted all over the world even, dare one say it, by the BBC…giving birth to the very successful CRIMEWATCH UK.

Independent Producer. Shaw’s own production company TOTAL COMMUNICATIONS LTD. took over POLICE 5 as an independent production and also launched another crime fighting idea through the television and the media …. CRIMESTOPPERS.

In 1986 POLICE 5 was directly responsible for the recovery of a set of 12 priceless medallions stolen from Kew Palace. They were sent to Shaw anonymously after he has said on the programme that "…the loser, a very distinguished lady, was not amused." They were sent to Shaw, through the post, wrapped in toilet paper.

One good medal deserves another and in 1987 Shaw Taylor was awarded an MBE… and at the investiture at Buckingham Palace ‘the distinguished lady’ thanked him personally. " I think I owe you this" she said. "With respect Your Majesty" replied Shaw "you owe me twelve." He is still waiting for the other eleven.

During the 30 year run of POLICE 5 Shaw still found time to present other programmes among them a motoring magazine DRIVE-IN and TRY BRIDGE WITH SHAW TAYLOR which resulted in him being invited to partner Omar Sharif in an International Bridge Contest….he declined, not wishing to find himself on the sharp end of an Egyptian scimitar.

The End... In 1992, feeling that thirty years was long enough Shaw decided to ‘hang up his handcuffs’ as far as television was concerned and he and his wife Jane now live in their cliff top home on the Isle of Wight (where they first met nearly 60 years ago) and from where Shaw frequently takes the ferry to the mainland for voice overs on commercials and videos for which his distinctive voice is in great demand.

Having enjoyed a full and varied career on stage and on screen is there anything that he would still like to do?

"Apart from being the captain of a cruise liner" says Shaw (giving lectures aboard cruise liners is yet another sideline for this Jack off the Box) "I would quite like to do a bit of acting again….I don’t mean starring roles but as one of that highly professional band of actors whose faces pop in films in supporting roles … a character actor playing what we used to call ‘cameos’..

He is now ‘keeping ‘em peeled’ for just that.