0.15 seconds of fame
It was the summer of 1984, I was six years old, and my family lived in an idyllic little village in Suffolk. So idyllic in fact, that the BBC were in the process of making a short series about one of the local farmers.

The day of the village's summer fete dawned bright, and this year would be particularly exciting - there would be actual TV cameras there! Now this was a proper village fete - most of the village got involved in one way or another. They even had pig bowling - it was like the Industrial Revolution never happened.

I could barely wait for the fete to start, and as soon as my parents were ready to set off, I pelted off along the pavement towards the green as fast as my six-year-old legs would carry me. I was going to be on TV!

As the village green came in sight, I could see the cameras already set up, and put on an even greater burst of speed - failing to take into account a particularly treacherous stretch of path where a gravel drive overflowed onto the path. I went head over heels, rapidly acquiring a quite impressive selection of cuts and bruises, - in the process getting a lump of gravel actually embedded between the skin and my kneecap (still got the scar, in fact). My dad, ever practical, dug it out of my knee there and then with his penknife.

Unfortunately the cameras had caught the whole thing, and so the only time I've been on TV was aged six, covered in minor abrasions, and absolutely bawling my eyes out - though I was literally onscreen for less than a second.

Dad got a whole seven or eight seconds in the same episode, carrying a table.
(Photon wasting your time since, Sat 13 Jun 2009, 5:58, Reply)