The UK's First Ever Breakfast TV Show Featured A Very British Exercise Routine

Last Updated 16 January 2025

The UK's First Ever Breakfast TV Show Featured A Very British Exercise Routine
Commuters exercising at Waterloo station
Waterloo commuters following Diane Moran's lead, despite not being in entirely appropriate attire.

At 6.30am on Monday 17 January 1983, Britain got breakfast TV for the first time.

This was the historic launch of the BBC show Breakfast Time, broadcast from Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd's Bush (a location where everything from Andy Pandy to Doctor Who had been shot). Within seconds, Breakfast Time had established tropes of a genre still going strong today: desks switched out for comfy sofas, a digital clock in the corner of the screen — and someone in a leotard chirpily egging you on to get some bloody exercise.

The leotard in question was a glossy emerald, and the Miss Motivator inside it was Diane Moran, already known as the 'Green Goddess', for obvious reasons.

Commuters with brollies exercising
Bit of a stretch: Image: Reach PLC via British Newspaper Archive

Breakfast Time had chosen not to shoot Moran's inaugural exercise routine at Lime Grove, but rather out and about — at Waterloo station. As passing commuters were urged to "wake up, shape up and stretch up", the country's first breakfast TV viewers were treated to the very British sight of folk in pin-striped suits and knitted tank tops being implored by Moran to "put your papers down, and your pipes and your umbrellas" (all items, apparently, were still being wielded by commuters in the early 1980s). Watching it in 2025, you have to remind yourself that no, this this is not an episode of Look Around You.

Despite being reluctant to shed their overcoats and leather jackets, commuters did get into the spirit of the thing. The routine hit peak 'good lord, that's British' as the commuters picked up their brollies and used them in a stretching exercise, while British Rail staff looked on and smirked. Gene Kelly, it's fair to presume, was not quaking in his tap shoes. One exercise-ee, the improbably named Gordon Tooth from Surbiton, later told the Daily Mirror "It was strenuous but enjoyable, although I doubt if I would normally have time to do exercises before I go to work." It's nice to imagine that at this point, Gordon popped his pipe back in his mouth and went off in search of a full English.

Very much not in the spirit of most breakfast TV that would follow, however, the segment had in fact been recorded a few days previously — presumably to minimise technical difficulties/the risk of live broadcasting someone having their eye poked out with the end of an umbrealla. Still, Moran would continue on her quest to Keep Britain Fit, paving the way for the likes of Mr Motivator and Joe Wicks in the years to come.

In 2023, Moran returned to Waterloo station to mark the 40th anniversary of her trend-setting exercise routine, though to our knowledge, no umbrellas were wielded on that occasion.

You can see a video of the opening of the first Breakfast Time, and a clip from the exericse routine, on the BBC's website.