'Did BBC Breakfast just show a naked woman?': Shocked viewers get an eyeful when report on 1970s train advert appears to show nude blonde waving from InterCity 125
- Woman was in advert promoting InterCity 125 as modern travel option
- It was broadcast during BBC report on new Hitachi high-speed trains
- Breakfast viewers shocked by what they thought they had seen live
- BBC says woman was wearing flesh-coloured bikini in grainy footage
BBC viewers almost choked on their cornflakes yesterday when the Breakfast programme appeared to screen footage of a naked woman.
The image of the woman waving from an InterCity 125 for a 1970s advert - promoting the train as a fast and modern way of travel - was broadcast in a report on BBC One shortly before 7.30am.
Transport correspondent Richard Westcott did not mention the woman as he spoke about its new Japanese replacement - but the BBC later confirmed she was wearing a flesh-coloured bikini.
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Naked? The image of the woman waving from an InterCity 125 for a 1970s advert was broadcast on BBC One
Reaction: Viewers including Tony Wood, from east London, were shocked by what they thought they had seen
Viewers including Tony Wood, from east London, were shocked by what they thought they had seen live. He tweeted: ‘Did BBC Breakfast just show an advert of a naked woman advertising a train?’
But when Mr Westcott was asked on Twitter about the image, the former Radio 1 journalist replied that it was a ‘proper old’ British Rail advert, adding that the woman ‘had a costume on’.
Presenters Bill Turnbull, 59, and Sally Nugent, 43, also carried on without mentioning the woman, following Mr Westcott’s report from Leicestershire about the new high-speed trains in development.
A BBC spokesman told the Daily Star that the woman had been wearing a flesh-coloured bikini, and she had been made to look naked by the grainy footage.
BBC presenters: Bill Turnbull, 59, and Sally Nugent, 43, carried on with the show without mentioning the woman
Grainy footage: The BBC said the woman featured in the advert had been wearing a flesh-coloured bikini
Twitter response: Transport correspondent Richard Westcott did not mention the woman during his report
In the 1970s, British Rail's InterCity 125 was outpaced only by the Japanese, and it symbolised a new era of modern technology on a network that had been seen by many people as tired and tatty.
But it will soon be replaced by the Hitachi 800 series from Japan – a £6billion project that will launch on the Great Western line in December 2017 and the East Coast mainline to Edinburgh in 2018.
While ministers argue that the new locomotives will bring quicker journey times, more comfort and create thousands of jobs, opponents question whether taxpayers will get value for money.
Commercials promoting the InterCity 125 and railway travel were also presented at the time by disgraced BBC presenter Jimmy Savile, who claimed that the 1980s would be the ‘Age of the Train’.
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