Judith Chalmers dies aged 90 after 29 years on ITV

judith chalmers died aged 90 after a career that stretched from the to ITV and made her one of British television’s most familiar travel presenters. Her family said she died peacefully at home on Thursday evening, surrounded by her family, after living with Alzheimer’s in her final years.

Wish You Were Here...? and ITV

She began presenting Wish You Were Here...? in 1974 and stayed with the ITV series until 2003, fronting its 30-minute travel and holiday format across nearly three decades. That run made her the face of a strand that linked ordinary viewers to destinations, itineraries and the changing business of television travel programming.

Chalmers also presented ITV’s daytime magazine show Good Afternoon, adding to a broadcast career that had already started at 13 when she began working for the. In the 1960s, she presented Radio programmes Family Favourites and Woman’s Hour, moving between radio and television long before cross-platform presenting became routine.

Radio to OBE

She was appointed an OBE in 1994, a formal recognition that sat alongside a career built on long-form presenting rather than celebrity packaging. Her path from Gatley, Cheshire, to national radio and ITV is the cleaner story here: steady work, a durable audience, and a show that lasted long enough to define her name.

Her death also closes a chapter for the format she helped sustain. Wish You Were Here...? depended on a presenter who could sell travel as practical information, not fantasy, and Chalmers did that for years without the churn that now defines daytime television.

Neil Durden-Smith and family

She leaves behind her husband, former sports commentator Neil Durden-Smith, and their two children. For viewers who knew her through ITV, the immediate legacy is straightforward: a presenter whose name was tied to a 30-minute travel series, and whose absence removes one of the clearest links to that era of British broadcasting.