First watched : Uncertain
Almost certainly my first day at school was 7th September 1969 and that's as good a time as any to start bringing in the teatime programmes after Play School although some of them still ring no bells at all.
Jackanory was a permanent fixture on kids TV from 1965 to 1996 and has been revived in all but name on Ceebeebies. The concept was ultra-simple , a seated celebrity ( usually an actor ) read a children's book abridged to fit five 15 minute slots, interspersed with illustrations from an over-worked in-house team or free lance illustrators. In later years they introduced special effects and more dynamic performances in an attempt to stave off an inexorable decline in viewing figures but I was long gone by then. I think my break with it was probably enforced in September 1976 when I started attending a secondary school some six miles away and wasn't back in time for the start.
I find it hard to believe it was anyone's favourite programme. In general I found it unengaging . a good excuse to concentrate on eating your tea, but occasionally it would catch my interest , usually if it was featuring a book from a series in which I was already interested. I remember Moominsummer Madness featuring in the summer of 1974 just after I'd purchased it. The only book I can recall it directly turning me on to was Erik Linklater's The Wind On The Moon but I also enjoyed the stories featuring Mortimer the Raven and had my suggestion we read one of the books as a class when it turned up in the school library accepted.
On 7th September 1969 the featured book was The Founding of Evil Hold School , the first, recently published, book by White Russian fanatic and perennial UKIP candidate, Nikolai Tolstoy and from the synposis sounds like an anti-communist allegory. The reader was Kenneth Williams, one of twelve separate stints the Carry On actor did on the show.
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