By Marianne Craig
Reporter

BROADCASTING legend Terry Wogan made a whistle stop visit to Derry yesterday to film a documentary about Irish history.
Speaking to the Derry News during a stopover at Radio Foyle, Terry said the city was a deserving winner of City of Culture 2013.
“I think it’s great for the town and the people. It’s a great honour,” he said.
“It’s a very historic part of Ireland and that’s why we decided to come here.
“It will make a hell of a difference, look what being European City of Culture did for Glasgow and Cork.
“Things like this lift the spirits and we need that these days where we are all so conscious of the spirit of recession and depression.
“There’s something to be said for that. It’s possible to get depression about depression
Terry said Radio Foyle and its figure head Gerry Anderson also had a special place in his heart.
“I hosted my morning show here years ago. I can’t remember what the pretext was, it was probably Children in Need.
“It’s a terrific station and it’s probably won more awards than any other local one that I know.
“Gerry is a long standing friend of mine. “I’ve always admired him as a broadcaster.
“I felt if I was going to come here the man I wanted to talk to was Gerry.”
Despite attracting 8 million listeners on his show ‘Wake Up to Wogan’, the 72-year-old maintained he was happy to retire from the daily show.
“It’s not that you get tired doing it.
“I miss the camaraderie and the fun- we used to get six to seven hundred emails a day so you had a good grasp of the mood of the nation.
“I do miss it in that sense.I just knew it was time to fold my tent.
“You know when it’s time to go. It was the same with ‘Blankety Blank’.
“I’m still on every Sunday with my live music show.
“We get a lot of singers and bands on. It just depends what they are selling really.
“They aren’t going to come on because they love the presenter.”
Wogan is currently filming a two part documentary about Ireland and has already visited Dublin, Cork and Wicklow.
“I’m going around Ireland making a film about my impressions of how it was then, suffering from emigration as it is now.
“We’ve been very lucky with the weather until we came here.
“But nobody comes to Ireland for the weather,” he joked.