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90s kids TV legend recalls 'underage drinking' off set and admits 'there's no money left'

One star of the beloved 1990s TV show The Worst Witch has recalled drinking underage and spending much of her earnings from her time on the children's programme

[The Worst Witch]

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The Worst Witch was a megahit for CITV and ran from 1998 until 2001 (Image: ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

One star of the beloved 1990s programme The Worst Witch has recalled what really happened off set and what she did after earning "a lot of money" from the hit children's series. The CITV show, which was based on the book series by Jill Murphy and followed clumsy witch-in-training Mildred Hubble throughout her time at Cackle's Academy, ran from 1998 until 2001.

The titular character was played by Georgina Sherrington, and she was joined by fellow child actresses Felicity Jones, who went onto mainstream Hollywood success, and Hollyoaks star Jessica Fox in the main line up.

Also amongst the cast was late British acting legend Una Stubbs, and now, former actress Holly Rivers, 41, who played the part of schoolgirl Drusilla Paddock, has recalled going to great efforts to find a pub near the studios who would serve alcohol without requiring proof of ID at the time.

[Holly Rivers as Drusilla Paddock and Georgina Sherrington as Mildred Hubble]

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Holly Rivers (left) played Drusilla Paddock and has now launched a podcast reminiscing about her time on the series (Image: Youtube)

Joined by co-star Katy Allen, who replaced Felicity Jones in the role of class bully Ethel Hallow, on her Cackles After Dark podcast, Holly said: "It was this cheesy bar and they had Buy One Get One Free lurid cocktails, we enjoyed a few of those. I think it was the only place we could find in the whole of South London that would serve us alcohol. Even though we did have fake IDs!"

Since her time on the programme, Holly has carved out a successful career as a children's author, but the topic of conversation soon turned to money and she spoke candidly of what she did with her lucrative earnings from the iconic show.

She said: "So let's talk finances. We were earning quite a lot of money for teenagers. Were you sensible with your earnings?" Katy, who went on to appear in Casualty and EastEnders, admitted that quite a lot of it was put into savings but she spent a lot on designer clothes.

Recalling her own decisions, Holly said: "My mum and dad were pretty liberal and pretty progressive. They just said I'd worked really hard for the money so I could do with it whatever I wanted. So I did.

"I did put myself through uni and I did loads of travelling so I didn't spend it unwisely, but there's certainly none left!"

Since the advent of streaming, The Worst Witch has made it onto various platforms and Holly even wrote to BritBox to ask for royalties, but was left bitterly disappointed with the response she received.

[Holly Rivers]

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Since her acting days, Holly has become a children's author (Image: hollyriversauthor/Instagram)

[Holly Rivers]

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The former child star even wrote to a streaming service to try to get some royalties for the cast, but was unsuccessful (Image: hollyriversauthor/Instagram)

She said: "My agent at the time still deals with my Worst Witch finances now. There's not much coming through. But the BritBox debacle...I wrote to Britbox and said 'We're the cast of The Worst Witch, the original series and I see you've got our beautiful faces on your amazing streaming [platform].' Do we get some money?'

"No joke, the answer I got back was 'Unfortunately, we won't be able to issue any payments as we don't issue payments smaller than 25p,' that's what we were gonna get. Less than 25p!"

The final episode of The Worst Witch was broadcast in January 2001, just months before the release of the first Harry Potter film, and a short-lived spin-off titled Weirdsister College followed. In 2005, CITV launched The New Worst Witch with a brand new set of characters before Netflix remade the series entirely in 2017, with Game of Thrones star Bella Ramsey in the leading role.

Author Jill Murphy published the final Worst Witch book in her multi-million selling series in 2018 and passed away in 2021 following a long battle with cancer at the age of 72.

At the time, her son Charlie said: "I feel beyond lucky to have had a mum like mine and it's impossible to summarise the ways her absence will be felt. She had a depth of character, a warmth and a life force like no other. I miss her so much already."

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