MAA blast from the past: Michael Parkinson for Yorkshire Tea and the Sunday Times

Journalist and TV chat show host Michael Parkinson died this week at 88 and, like most of his ilk, made the odd appearance in ads although he never looked especially comfortable with it.

He was one of Lucky Generals’ line-up of professional Yorkshiremen for Yorkshire Tea, alongside others like Sean Bean and Patrick Stewart, a difficult herd to corral.

Bean was so over the top he might have been his most famous creation, Sharpe, about to seize the Napoleonic eagle at Talavera.

More revealing of Parky, whose many tributes did him justice although, inevitably, there was some airbrushing, is this for one of his employers, the Sunday Times back in good old reconstructed 1979. Parky was a good cricketer with, it seems, an eye for the girls. It’s available on the History of Advertising Trust here.

A useful primer for those agencies thinking of going the celeb route at Christmas perhaps.