Veteran entertainer Lionel Blair is one of six celebrities to turn back time and relive 1975 for BBC1's The Young Ones. He spent a week cut off from the modern world, along with actresses Liz Smith and Sylvia Syms, cricket umpire Dickie Bird, and broadcasters Kenneth Kendall and Derek Jameson. The experience was a bit of a culture shock for Lionel, 78, who is best known for Give Us A Clue and Name That Tune.

What were you doing in 1975?
Lots of television shows and preparing for Aladdin in Toronto — getting the script together, casting it and all that. My wife [Susan] found my diary from 1975, so I was able to really talk about it.

How did you find your trip back to the Seventies?
It was an extraordinary experience, but I didn’t like going back to the past – though I may have loved it if it had been the 1800s with top hat and tails and all that. There were good parts. A lady came and gave us a yoga class, which I’d never done and loved. I became the group exercise teacher after that and got them all swiveling their hips and lifting their legs.

What did you have to wear?
We had Seventies clothes, and of course my name is in the Cockney Rhyming Slang book, so we were all wearing Lionel Blairs!

What did you miss most from modern life?
We had no mobile phones and weren’t allowed to call home, which I missed terribly, because when I’m away I talk to my wife three or four times a day. Another thing that annoyed me was the record player — it was very delicate and whenever we started dancing, it jumped.

Were there any truly terrible moments?
Three girls who work in a retirement home came to look after us one morning. They kept saying, ‘Can I make you a cup of tea dear?’ I really felt as if I was in a retirement home, and said, ‘Either these girls go, or I go!’ It made me realise that retirement homes do things all wrong — they mollycoddle people instead of encouraging them to be active.

Did the 1975 surroundings make you feel young again?
I don’t feel very different from how I felt back then! I still work and I feel like a baby. I think that the others sometimes thought, ‘Oh Lionel, just sit down!’

Did you notice the others looking more youthful as the week went on?
Poor Liz Smith, who’s 88, was wonderful. She had an operation last year and I was getting her off her sticks. I said, ‘Give me the sticks, lean on me and we’ll walk the length of the garden, which we did.’ We even did a little ballroom dance!

What were the highlights?
They took me to see the dance troupe Tap Dogs. I did a routine with them, and taught them some of my steps. We had such a good time. People say, ‘How do you keep fit?’ But I’ve been a dancer all my life and I think that must have contributed to how I am today. I loathe not working.

How else do you stay fit?
I’m not really a drinker — one and a half glasses of wine would be a lot for me, and I was never ever into drugs. I take aspirin and a cod liver oil capsule every day. But most of all, you’ve got to think about today and not yesterday. Yesterday’s gone.

By Marie-Anne Hamilton