122 Lizzie Dripping

First  watched  :  March  1973

I  had  to  read  up  quite  a  bit  on  this  one  to  be  convinced  I  saw  it. I  think  it  was  one  my  sister  liked  a  lot  more  than  me. The  heroine  Penny  ( Tina  Heath  )  is  a  twelve  year  old  girl  of  a  somewhat  imaginative  frame  of  mind  who  starts  seeing  a  witch  ( Sonia  Dresdel )  of  whom  no  one  else  is  aware. Some  mild  adventures  ensue. There  was  no  character  called  "Lizzie  Dripping" ; it  was  apparently  Midlands  slang  for  a  girl  who  told  tall  tales.

The  series  was  developed  from  a  Jackanory  Playhouse  drama  specially  written  by  children's  author  Helen  Cresswell  in  1972. There  were  two  series  made  of  four  episodes  each  broadcast  in  1973  and  1975. The   first  series  was  completely  "original", the  stories  in  the  second  were  adaptations  of  books  Cresswell  had  published  in  the  meantime.

Tina  Heath  later  had  a  short  stint  as  a  Blue  Peter  presenter  where  she  is  remembered  for  having  an  ultrasound  scan  on  the  programme  when  she  became  pregnant  in  1979.