As the nation thrills to another series of The Celebrity Traitors, Newspapers.com, the historic newspapers website of leading family history company Ancestry, has revealed some remarkable early glimpses of the contestants before they were famous in old newspaper clippings.
University Challenge presenter Amol Rajan appears in an article from the Putney and Wimbledon Times on 23 February 2001 about pupils from Graveney School in Tooting who got into Oxbridge, with the article saying he’d been offered a place to read English at Cambridge.
Before his success as a pop singer, James Blunt, real name James Blount, served in the army. An article from the Midweek Observer on 3 February 1999 says that he and a fellow member of the Household Cavalry, Lance Corporal of Horse Andrew Bassett, competed in the British Army Alpine Skiing Championships, where they were among the leading finishers in the team giant slalom. The article adds that “Lieutenant Blount also turned in a superb performance finishing ninth out of 135 competitors in the individual grand slalom”.
In the Solihull Times on 9 December 1994, comedian and TV presenter Joe Lycett appears aged six, dressed as Rudolf, in an article about the Honeybourne Nursery School Christmas Show.
Singer Leigh-Anne Pinnock is featured in the Bucks Free Press on 30 September 2011. The article describes 19-year-old Pinnock as “A High Wycombe singer who dreams of being a pop icon” and says she has now joined a new band called Rhythmix in The X Factor bootcamp. The band, later known as Little Mix, would go on to win the TV talent contest and become chart-topping stars.
Actor Michael Sheen has always been proud of his Welsh roots, as shown by a clipping from the South Wales Evening Post on 7 January 1988, where he appears as a member of the West Glamorgan Youth Drama Company in a play about the life and work of Dylan Thomas.
Actor and comedian Miranda Hart also appears in an early stage role in the Evening Standard on 13 April 2000, which announces that Miranda Hart and Charity Trimm will perform their “character revue with sketches, songs and dance” Orange Girls at the Comedy Pub for the price of £5.
The Celebrity Traitors is showing on BBC One on Thursdays at 9pm
