BBC Breakfast turns back the clock on 40th birthday

Several former stars of BBC Breakfast have returned to the show for its 40th birthday celebrations.

Francis Wilson, Russell Grant and Debbie Rix were among the familiar faces returning to the famous red sofa.

Diana Moran, aka the Green Goddess, also turned back the clock to lead an exercise routine at Waterloo station.

The original blue-and-yellow analogue clock returned to the bottom-right of the screen, replacing the current red digital clock for one day only.

"The problem we hadn't foreseen is there are lots of younger people who have never seen an analogue clock and are trying to work out what that strange blue thing is at the bottom of the screen," Kay told viewers.

Left-right: Charlie Stayt, Carol Kirkwood, Naga Munchetty, Jon Kay, Sally Nugent, Francis Wilson, Debbie Rix and Russell Grant

Former weather presenter Francis Wilson joined Carol Kirkwood

Elsewhere, newsreader-turned-author Rix joked as she returned to the programme: "The sofa is just as uncomfortable. They design it to look groovy, but nobody thinks about who's got to sit on it."

The first episode of BBC Breakfast Time aired on 17 January 1983.

Presenters past and present celebrated the programme by reflecting on how it has become "more newsy", with presenters wearing more formal attire than the original jumpers.

Charlie Stayt, who presents the show in the second half of the week, seen in the make-up chair on Tuesday

Debbie Rix brought a photo of her first day presenting the show

Also on Tuesday's programme:

• Current presenter Jon Kay tracked down the programme's original red sofa, which was bought from Harrods. Former host Debbie Greenwood took home a section of the sofa when it was removed as part of a show revamp. She told Kay she still sits on it to watch BBC Breakfast today.

• Diana Moran returned to Waterloo station, where she used to regularly enlist passing commuters in aerobics classes. Moran was never seen without her green catsuit. Originally she was planning to wear yellow… until bosses told her she looked like a canary. Asked if it felt like a "TV revolution" to do the railway station exercise, Moran replied: "No, it was extremely cold."

• Singer Leo Sayer, who was a guest on the first episode of the show, presented by Frank Bough and Selina Scott, also made an appearance. "To be interviewed by Selena Scott at that time, it was very special," he said. "She was the 'Princess Diana of TV' so it was quite incredible to walk into the studio." Sayer added that the show "started a tradition that went all around the world", with celebrities then needing to wake up earlier to promote their work.

• Kay unearthed a childhood diary entry in which his 13-year-old self wrote about watching the first episode and complaining there was too much news.

• Presenters past and present were given a cake, baked by a member of the production team, resembling the original Breakfast Time logo.

"People said television in the morning, that's disgusting. Some even said it was immoral."

Forty years on, Ron Neil, who was the first editor of Breakfast Time knew there were doubts about this strange new arrival on television.

But everything had changed at the corporation when the news broke that their rival was about to take the early morning plunge.

The BBC, he says, "hummed, it hawed, it hesitated… and then one bright day ITV announced it was going to do breakfast TV and from that day onwards the BBC decided it was going to do breakfast television and it was going to do it first.

"The question was what would be the mood of this new type of programme. Ron and the rest of the team had a vision.

"Everyone thought it should be welcoming, it should be light hearted. It shouldn't be a boring man behind a desk giving you a lecture. I'm not sure that we said to Frank Bough to wear a jumper.

The production gallery, pictured during the 40th birthday programme

"I just think Frank decided to put on a jumper. Within a few weeks, ladies up and down the land began to knit jumpers for Frank."

Also watching on that first day were their slightly disgruntled rivals at ITV - the BBC had sneaked in ahead of them by two weeks. But, the original TV AM formula was rather more formal and serious than the BBC.

It was not what the pundits or the advertisers had been expecting and for TV AM it was to be the beginning of a rather rocky period.

17 January 1983 was just the beginning. Breakfast TV was not just a new arrival in the schedules it was to be for months, front page news.

Rix, one of the first newsreaders on British breakfast TV, admitted she was a "tiny frightened rabbit" of a person when she first started, as she reminisced about the show's launch in 1983.

Another former presenter, Dan Walker tweeted that it had been a "real privilege" to have hosted the show for six years.

Walker, who previously presented the programme opposite Louise Minchin, wrote: "Happy 40th birthday to BBC Breakfast.

"It is a special programme, made by an brilliant, dedicated team and it continues to be an important show for the huge, loyal audience."