Mr and Mrs star Derek Batey renting out his Florida home

Jun 21 2009 by Graham Young, Sunday Mercury

FORMER Mr & Mrs host Derek Batey is using the internet to advertise the chance to sleep in his king-sized bed at his Florida home.

Yet he likes it so much himself that he has so far declined all offers.

Now aged 80, but still actively promoting the hit show around the world, Derek bought a house in the US on the advice of his daughter, Diane.

She suggested the idea of hiring it out more than seven years ago, thinking that it would help him to pay the overheads when he was not using it.

Visitors to the site at www.mr-and-mrs.tv will see debonair Derek’s face beaming back at them, with a silk hanky in his top jacket pocket.

The site tells how he was born in Brampton, a small town in Cumbria, where his father ran a mineral water and ‘pop’ bottling business.

At the age of nine he bought his first ventriloquist doll.

Fame

Derek joined Border Television in 1961 and paved his way to fame and fortune when he saw the Mr & Mrs format which had been devised by a British-born Canadian, Roy Ward Dickson.

By then he was the channel’s Head of Production, so he commissioned a 13-part run.

With viewers inundating the station for more, the show took off and became part of the ITV network’s schedule from 1973 to 1988, with Derek presenting almost 500 half-hour programmes.

He also took Mr and Mrs on stage, in theatres, cabaret venues, clubs, holiday centres and even Bingo Clubs all round the country for a further 5,000 performances.

Derek’s Florida home is in an area known as Remington, which has a golf course and club house.

Adding some details on the website, Derek writes: ‘‘When my wife and I saw the home for the first time, we loved it and both said together ‘a perfect Mr & Mrs holiday home’ which it is. So we decided to rent it out for holidays and vacations to families coming to Florida.

‘‘The home has everything you could want for your stay and the accommodation comprises four bedrooms sleeping a maximum of eight.’’

The air-conditioned home also has a 24ft x 12ft heated swimming pool with large deck area and a private garden.

But when the Sunday Mercury approached Derek about the property’s availability, he had a surprise up his sleeve.

He said: “Diane and my wife Edith, to whom I’ll have been married for 59 years in September, made the house and garden look so beautiful.

“Having put the details on our website, we decided that we didn’t want to risk a string of holiday tenants.

“So, in fact, we’ve never let it.

“Pure laziness has left it on the web and we politely decline enquiries.”