Judith Chalmers, legendary travel presenter noted for her long-running stint on Wish You Were Here…?

Judith Chalmers, who has died aged 90, was best known to television viewers as the irrepressibly chirpy presenter of the ITV travel show Wish You Were Here…?

Warm, open and natural in front of the camera, she was in at the launch of the series in 1973, a year after joining Thames Television from the BBC, where she had begun her broadcasting career at the age of 13 on Children’s Hour. By the time she completed filming on the final series in 2003, she had clocked up two million air miles and visited 120 countries.

Usually broadcast for around five months annually, Wish You Were Here…? went out every year except 1975, when, with the economy in such​ a mess, it was thought poor taste to remind the British public what they were missing.

Each half-hour programme usually comprised three travelogues: one featuring a young female presenter dispatched somewhere hot enough to necessitate the wearing of a swimsuit; one featuring a male presenter sent somewhere cheap and featuring some sort of comic incident, often involving a camel. The third normally featured Judith Chalmers jetting off somewhere expensive to sink piña coladas, be garla​nded with orchids and top up her year-round tan.

It was, she claimed over the opening titles, “Britain’s favourite holiday programme, banishing the winter gloom from your sitting room”. Wish You Were Here…? regularly rated among the Top Ten programmes, achieving an average of 13 million viewers per episode. The travel trade voted Judith Chalmers communicator of the year seven times, though her streaked bouffant, orangey perma-tan and tennis club manner made her a godsend for comedians.

The Kenneth Williams “dirty old man” character J Peasmold Gruntfuttock always wanted to “get his hands” on Judith Chalmers, and Barry Cryer claimed to have known her “when she was white”. In the East End, she was rhyming slang for haemorrhoids (from Chalmers – farmers – Farmer Giles, as in “Blimey, I’ve got a nasty case of the Judiths”).

First broadcast at a time when large numbers of Britons were being seduced by cheap package holidays to Spain, by the 1990s Wish You Were Here…? was beginning to show its age. Critics complained that the programme reduced globe-trotting to the level of an outing to the local supermarket, with its obsession with value for money, en-suite “facilities” and the cost of every cup of tea, camel ride and coach journey. Inevitably Judith Chalmers got some of the blame.

“Here I am,” she announced, standing alongside the Great Wall of China, “by a rather special stretch of masonry.” The Cape of Good Hope was “like Cornwall on steroids”. On a visit to a Caribbean island noted for its banana plantations, she observed: “Now it’s tourists hanging around in bunches.”

“I’m a straightforward person who doesn’t have any airs and graces,” she conceded.

If there was a dash of envy in some of the jokes at her expense, Judith Chalmers was always keen to emphasise that spending half the year “on holiday” was not all fun: “I have to be just as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the cameras at the end of a tiring day as I do at the beginning. I can’t party and stay up late drinking like people on holiday do.” But after completing her last programme she conceded that it had been “quite a journey”.

Judith Rosemary Locke Chalmers was born at Didsbury, Manchester, on October 10 1935, the daughter of David Chalmers, an architect, and his wife Millie, née Broadhurst, a medical secretary. Her younger sister, Sandra, would also become a performer on Children’s Hour, and was later editor of Woman’s Hour.

Judith was educated at Withington High School and later at secretarial college. She was 13 when she auditioned for Northern Children’s Hour. Charmed by her blue eyes, snub nose and effervescent personality, the producers gave her her own series. Aged 17 she became a television announcer.

In 1959 she moved to London and became senior announcer for BBC Television. She went on to work as a reporter for BBC News, as well as for Panorama and Town and Around, mainly covering social events such as Royal Ascot and the Henley Regatta. She also presented the radio programme Family Favourites, taking over from Jean Metcalfe. Later she presented Woman’s Hour and Come Dancing.

In 1972 she joined Thames Television to present Afternoon Plus and a year later began her long-running stint on Wish You Were Here…? From 1979 until 1985 she hosted the Miss World and Miss United Kingdom beauty pageants, and in 1981 co-presented ITV’s coverage of the wedding of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer. She went on to commentate on many royal and other ceremonial occasions.

From 1987 to 1990 she created and presented the Hot Property series for home owners on ITV and Channel 4. She was also the presenter of BBC Radio 2’s mid-morning show from 1990 to 1992, taking over from Ken Bruce, and in 1992 began a new radio series, Hi Days and Holidays with Judith Chalmers.

After the last episode of Wish You Were Here…?, she found a new home on a show called Destination Lunch on a satellite channel aimed at people interested in buying property abroad. Her book 50 of the Best Holidays was published in 1987.

In addition to broadcasting, Judith Chalmers served, variously, on the National Consumer Council and on the Peacock Committee, set up by the Home Office in the 1980s to investigate the financing of the BBC.

She was a founder member of the Lady Taverners, a charity which raises money for disabled and disadvantaged children, serving as its president for eight years. She was also vice-president of the Holiday Care Service and for 20 years was chairman of the appeals committee of the Women’s Nationwide Cancer Control Campaign.

Long after her retirement, Judith Chalmers remained synonymous with travel broadcasting. One of her producers told the Telegraph in 2004 that working with her had been “like travelling with royalty. People flock to her. You can get out of a minibus and suddenly crowds come from nowhere to be photographed with her and talk about the holidays she has inspired them to take.”

Judith Chalmers was appointed OBE in 1994 and in 2003 was presented with a lifetime achievement award by the British Guild of Travel Writers.

She married, first, in 1956, Alfred Lea, a sales representative. The marriage was dissolved and she married, secondly, in 1964, Neil Durden-Smith, a BBC sports commentator with whom she bought a holiday home in a development in the Algarve. He survives her with their daughter Emma and their son, the broadcaster Mark Durden-Smith.

​Judith Chalmers, born October 10 1935, died May 21 2026

[Source: Daily Telegraph]