The absolute very first programme I saw on BBC’s Watch With Mother series was probably the Flower Pot Men which was the forerunner of Teletubbies and In The Night Garden and equally dreadful at teaching kids to speak. Bill & Ben spouted such mumbo jumbo that ‘flobbadob’ and ‘weeeeed’ were all I came out with at kindergarten while the other kids, no doubt weaned on the Open University by proper parents, recited their times tables instead.
It was meant to be educational but seemed more like the BBC guide to snitching. In every episode, Little Weed (the manipulative bitch) would encourage us to pin the blame for some horticultural calamity on one of the characters – was it Bill or was it Ben? – and whoever we fingered would be marched off to some correctional facility by the copper off Andy Pandy. I always suspected the perpetrator was actually Weed herself (I’m not sexist or racist but I admit to being anti-flowers so does that make me florist?) but she was like H in Line of Duty and seemed to slip through the net every time.
Besides Flower Pot Men and Andy Pandy, the other Watch With Mother programmes I was plonked in front of were Camberwick Green and Trumpton. I’m pretty sure I didn’t actually enjoy any of these shows because I remember finding all of them absolutely terrifying. I honestly mean that. The opening of Camberwick Green (ie Junior Wicker Man) showed a musical box being wound up by a clown (and we all know how evil those bastards are) to summon one of the other puppets to slowly emerge from the depths of Hades. The only welcome source of light relief was Windy Miller whose name became so closely associated with farting that my kids have actually heard the expression despite never seeing the programme it was lifted from.
Apparently, at the end of the series, it was reported that the creator of the puppets had them all cremated in his back garden because he came to the conclusion that they wouldn’t be worth anything in the future. I beg to differ on both counts. I know for a fact that there are several survivors because I have bought half a dozen of the originals off eBay for sizeable sums of money (I see it as an investment) from some very nice collectors in Eastern Europe (they tell me the show was extremely popular over there). Am I not a businessman of truly Del-Boy calibre? Chateauneuf du Pape I am.
Trumpton was less scary admittedly but so weird that the League of Gentlemen must have based Royston Vasey’s village on it (‘a local shop for local people’ and all that). It had an odd variety of tradespeople, including a bloke who mended wooden benches (Chippy Minton), a window cleaner who doubled as a chimney sweep (Mr Robinson) and a fire brigade (yes, you know all the names) who never seemed to attend any fires but still managed to enjoy gainful employment rescuing anything which required an abnormally-long ladder to reach it.
I can’t remember what I found terrifying about Looby Loo in Andy Pandy but I felt the same about Jemima on Play School so I expect this explains my anxiety issues with the opposite sex which would no doubt be recognised by all my former girlfriends (by which I mean both of them…namely, my wife and a girl called Miranda from primary school).
I was obviously a timid and insecure little chap because, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I was also terrified of the arched window in Play School and that devil-doll, Hamble. Brian Cant, on the other hand, was a reassuring avuncular figure who…..oh no, don’t tell me, has he been cancelled now too?
Watch With Mother was, in todays language, the umbrella brand for kids TV and had been since the 1950s. It was oddly-named, at least in my household, because my mum used it as a babysitting service while she poured herself a gin and tonic in the other room. Also, what a formal title! Nothing warm & cuddly from the BBC like Watch with Mummy. I know the Beeb wants to be seen as young and trendy nowadays (it would be called 'Watch with Mother & Mother' if it was aired today) but, to my generation, it will always be Auntie….and, in the case of kids telly in the 70s, a miserable old child-hating one at that.
I don’t remember listening to the radio much at home but I’ve got a feeling that some bored or hungover primary school teacher (either Miss M or Miss K – they were sisters) might have switched on the radio version of Watch With Mother to keep the class entertained when they couldn’t be bothered to. Imaginatively-titled ‘Listen With Mother’, the programme started with the classic “Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin”. This was usually the cue for Miss K (or Miss M) to fall asleep or sneak off to the toilet and for us to stop sitting comfortably and start throwing rubbers, pencil sharpeners and chalk across the classroom instead. By the way, you won't find any of those things in schools anymore so what on earth do kids throw at each other instead today? Just on-line abuse, I suppose.
Jackanory was the programme we graduated onto after we’d watched or listened with (or, in my case, without) mother. I just checked the narrators in the early 70s and it was an incredible collection of British acting talent, presumably filling in between jobs. We had stage royalty in Helen Mirren, Judi Dench and Martin Jarvis, the officers in Dad’s Army (not the troops obviously), Indiana Jones’ boss, a couple of Doctor Who’s, both Likely Lads, Carry On regulars like Bernard Cribbens & Kenneth Williams and member of parliament, famous grandson and petfood advertiser, Clement Freud.
You could tell the really big stars. The more successful they were, the less they needed the Jackanory appearance money and so only presented the show for a few weeks (like Helen Mirren and Judi Dench). Bernard Cribbens, on the other hand, must have been going through a really long dip in his career because he kept on turning up to read to us. I guess The Wombles was only a part-time gig and didn’t pay particularly well. Careers were long in those days, partly because you couldn’t write off-colour tweets likely to be dug up 20 years later by some saddo intent on getting you fired from your job. I bet old Bernard would have been a prime candidate for that if the technology had existed.
And then, overnight, you’d moved on from Jackanory and your innocence was gone. You started to watch the Sweeney and called everyone (even your mum) a toilet. You didn’t believe in Father Christmas or the Tooth Fairy anymore (you never believed in the Easter Bunny in the first place but you laughed at the American kids who did). You found a job, got married, had kids and began to watch out for mother rather than watch with her. And now, with bad backs, piles and pot stomachs, you’ve completely forgotten what it’s like to sit comfortably but don’t seem to have quite as much trouble remembering who Windy Miller is. How I miss the old days.
Next: ABSOLUTE VERY FIRST TIME......WACKY RACES
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