163 Paperplay

First  watched : 1974

This  is  a  fairly  fuzzy  memory  now - bra-less  Susan  Stranks  fresh  from  her  stint  in  Magpie  with  a  lunchtime  programme  for  pre-school  tots  making  objects  from  household  waste  assisted  by  the  coloured  spiders  Itsy  and  Bitsy. I  know  a  lot  of  older  guys  have  wistful  memories  of  Stranks  ( now  unbelievably  76 )  but  I  was  still  a  bit  young  to  note  her.

162 The Liver Birds

First  watched  : 1974

Despite  the  still  above, I  just  caught  the  tail  end  of  the  Polly  James  era  when  BBC  moved  it  to  the  18.50  pm  time  slot  towards  the  end  of  her  lat  series.

The  series  marked  the  TV  debut  for  housewife-turned-writer  Carla  Lane  initially  in  tandem  with  Myra  Taylor. It  was  developed  from  a  1969  pilot  under  the  Comedy  Playhouse  banner.  The  premise  of  the  series  was  that  two  young  working  girls  shared  a  flat  in  Liverpool  and  dealt  with  boyfriends , work  and  family  as  well  as  the  strains  of  living  with  each  other. Initially  it  starred  Pauline  Collins  and  Polly  James  but  only  ran  for  four  episodes  due  to  Polly's  theatre  commitments. By  the  time  she  was  free  to  resume  Collins  was  the  star  of  Upstairs  Downstairs   and  had  to  be  replaced  by  a  new  character  Sandra  played  by  Welsh  actress  Nerys  Hughes.  Along  with  Sandra  came  her  overbearing  mother  Mrs  Hutchinson  played by  Mollie  Sugden.

Polly  James  left  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  series  when  her  character  Beryl  got  married. It  was  her  own  choice,   believing  that  Beryl  was  becoming  a  bit  of  a  caricature.  She  would  continue  in acting  both  on  stage  and  on  screen  until  the early  noughties  but  would never have  as  high  a  profile  again.

She  was  replaced  by  Elizabeth  Estensen  , as  the  younger  but  equally  loud   Carol. The  show  took  a  new  direction  by  giving  Carol  an  extended  family  who  were  regularly  involved  in  the  storylines  most  memorably  Michael  Angelis  in  his  breakthrough  role  as  her  hippy  brother  Lucien  who  was  obsessed  with  rabbits. They  became  the main  reason  for  watching the  show  with  the  downside  that  Sandra  came  to  be  seen  as  a  rather  wet  and  straight  character  by  comparison.

I'm  not  sure  if  I  watched the  series  down  to  its  end  in  early  1979  or  not.  After  a  quiet  period  Nerys  Hughes  went  on  to  equal  success   in  The  District  Nurse  in  the eighties  Estensen  also  had   long  spells  out  of  the  spotlight  until  resurfacing  in  Coronation  Street  in 1996  and then  Emmerdale    ( it  took  weeks  before  I  recognised  her )  where  she  remains.  Angelis's  impact  can  be  gauged  by  the  fact  that  Lucien  was  brought  back  for  the ill-received  reprise  in  1996  but  as  Beryl's  brother. That series  passed  by  me  entirely.

161 For Schools and Colleges : Picture Box

First  watched : 1973-74

I'm  not  sure  whether  we  watched  this  at  school  throughout  the  academic  year  or  even  if  it  was  on  for  more  than  one  term  but  I  have  a  particular  memory  that  places  it  in  that  time  frame. Picture  Box  was  presented  by  former  Coronation  Street  actor  Alan  Rothwell  ( the  luckless  David  Barlow )  who  was  there  to  provide  an  introduction  to  a  short  film  sourced  elsewhere  in  the  world. You  never  knew  quite  what  to  expect  and  of  course  interest  in  the  contents  varied  greatly  from  one  week  to  another.

The  one  I  remember  oddly  enough  is  the  one  I  didn't  really  watch. I  had  got  in  the  habit   with  my  friend  Patrick   where  I  would  write  the  name  of  four  cars  from  my  Matchbox  collection  in  a  little  notebook   during  lessons   and  then  pass  it under  the  desk  for  him  to  write  the  result  of  a  "race"  between  them   and  pass  it  back. The  class  teacher  - universally  regarded  as   a   useless  eccentric  so  it  seems  unfair  to  name  him - wouldn't  have  noticed  if  we'd  detonated  a  bomb. One  Thursday   morning  I  took  it  into  the  hall   and   we  did  it  all  the  way  through  Picture  Box  which  that  day  was  an  animated  story  and  were  roundly  chastised  by  those  of  our  classmates  who  were  close  enough  to  notice,  for  not  watching  something  that  had  been  really  good.  Why  they  did  this  , in  preference  to  alerting  the  teacher  to  what  was  going  on  , is  something  of  a  puzzle .

It  did  have  the  desired  effect  of  making  me  feel  guilty  and  regretful  that  I  had  missed  something  worthwhile   - I  don't  know  what  it  was  called  so  I  can't  make  it  good  with  YouTube  where  there  are  some  Picture  Box  episodes  available.  Unfortunately  it's  not  a  habit  I've  been  able  to  kick   ( stealing  time  for  something  more  interesting  than  what  I'm  supposed  to  be  doing )  although  my  current  job  doesn't  leave  much  scope  for  it  thankfully. My  powers  of  concentration  have  suffered  as  a  result.  

160 Watch With Mother : Bagpuss

First  watched : 1974

A-ha! Not  much  chance  of  anyone  forgetting  this  one  which  is  at  or  near  the  top  of  any  poll  of  favourite  kids'  TV  shows  that  have  been  conducted  in  the  past  20  years.

Bagpuss  I  think  was  the  end  of  the  line  for  me  as  far  as  Watch  With  Mother  went; in  fact  the  branding  was  dropped  that  same  year. It  was  also  the  last  entirely  new  Smallfilms   production  that  I  watched. Of  course  at  nine ( at  least )  I  was  long  in  the  tooth  for  it  anyway  and  was  only  watching   when  sick  or  on  holiday  but  it  was  engaging  enough  not  to  be  an  irritant  like  Rainbow  for  example.

Like  Pogles'  Wood   before  it  , Bagpuss  is  seeped  in  nostalgia,  set  in  a  ( presumably  zero-rated )  shop  populated  by  antiquated  objects  that  exists   only  to  enable   their  original  owners  to  reclaim  them. The  "shop"  was  run  by  a  girl  called  Emily  ( only  seen in  sepia-stills  featuring  Peter  Firmin's  real-life  daughter  Emily )   who  provided  the  motor  for  the  story  by  depositing  a  broken  object  in  the  shop.  Once  she'd  departed , the  old  cloth  cat  Bagpuss  would  come  to  life  and  direct  other  characters  such  as  Gabriel  the  musical  toad, Madeline  the  rag  doll  and  Professor  Yaffle , a  woodpecker  bookend,  in  mending  the  object  and  telling  its  backstory  often  in  song.

The  series  did  recycle  ideas  used  in  Pogles'  Wood  and   The  Wombles   but  it  was  done  with  great  charm  and  you'd  need  a  heart  of  stone  not  to  feel  a  pang  as  Postgate  closed  the  show  with  the  lines "Even  Bagpuss  himself, once  he  was  asleep, was  just  an  old  saggy  cloth  cat  , baggy  and  a  bit  loose  at  the  seams. But  Emily  loved  him ". You  can't  sum  up  the  enduring  affection  for  an  old  toy  better  than  that.

As  usual  only  13  episodes  were  made  and  it  stopped  being  run  regularly   in  1987  but  the  memory  endures.

159 Bonny !

First  watched : Monday  4th  March  1974

It  was  somehow  typical  of  the  BBC  to  replace  the  serious-minded  Carrie's  War  with  this  Scotch  silliness  produced  and  sometimes  co-written by Paul  Ciani.

Bonny   was  prim  postmistress  Flora  Havers  ( played  by  Una  McLean )  who  has  a  crimefighting  alter  ego  Captain  Bonny  whose  fame  she  then  exploits. All  I  really  remember  about  it  is  that  she  had  a  voice  like  chalk  screeching  down  a  blackboard  and  it  was  all  rather  manic.

Apart  from  the  synopses  on  Genome  there's  absolutely  nothing  to  be  found  on  the  series. It  doesn't  have  an  entry  on IMDB  or  a  wikipedia  page. The  most  intriguing  thing  I  can  glean  is  that  the  second  episode  featured  a  guest  appearance  from  Kevin  Keegan  who  was  rapidly  eclipsing  Best  as  football's  pin-up  boy  but  shouldn't  it  have  been  someone  from  Scotland ? A  certain  Mr  Dalglish  perhaps  ?

The  initial  run  was  four  episodes  long  in  March  in  1974 .It  returned  for  six  more  that  August  then  was  never  seen  again. Una  McLean  is  still  working in  radio  at  85  with  a  long  history  of  pantomime  and  character  parts  behind  her. She  was  married  to  Callan's   Russell  Hunter from  1991  until  his  death  in  2004  and  received  an  MBE  in  2006. 

158 Election 74

Watched  :  1  March  1974

For  reasons  which  are  now  lost  to  me  we  didn't  have  any  proper  lessons  the  day  after  the  general  election  of  February  1974. We  were  just  herded into  the  hall  and  there  we  watched  the  results  unfolding  for  most  of  the  day. God  knows  what  OFSTED  would  have  had  to  say  about  that.

Before  the  election  I  had  a  vague  idea  who  Ted  Heath  and  Harold  Wilson  were  as  regular  faces  on  the  evening  news  who  were  in  some  way  involved  in  running  the  country. I  don't  think  I'd  heard  of  Jeremy  Thorpe  before. My  understanding  of  the  election  was  similarly  limited . My  parents  wanted  the  Conservatives  to  win, most  of  the  boys  at  school  seemed  to  support   Labour  and  the  Liberals  had  very  few  seats  although  one  of  them  was  just  down  the  road  in  Rochdale. Although  Littleborough  is  now  included  in  the  Rochdale  constituency, at  the  time  it  was  in  one  called  Heywood  and  Royton , a  fairly  safe  Labour  seat  occupied  by  Joel  Barnett  ( of   Scotland  funding  formula  fame ).

All  I  can  really  remember  about  it  is  the  lads  cheering  whenever  "Labour  win"  flashed  up   and  eventually  joining  in  because  it  was  the  best  fun  to  be  had  as  the  day  dragged  by.  

As  any  politics  student  will  tell  you  the  result  was  inconclusive  and  after  Heath  and  Thorpe  failed  to  reach  an  agreement  Wilson  took  over  and  went  to  the  country  again  in  October  scraping  a  bare  majority. By  that  time  we  had  changed  schools  and  as  a  new  building  our  new  one  wasn't  on  the  list  of  polling  stations  so  there  was  no  extra  holiday. I  was  aware  that  it  was  something  unusual to  have  two  elections  in  one  year  but  otherwise  the  second  one  largely  passed  me  by.  

157 For Schools and Colleges : Scene

Watched  : 28  February  1974

Scene  was  aimed  at  teenagers  and  flitted  between  drama  and  documentary usually  with   quite  a  hard  edge. It  wasn't  something we  watched  at  primary  school  so  in  the  normal  run  of  things  I  would  have  missed  this  documentary   episode,  subtitled  All  That  Glitters   and  focussing  on  my  favourite  band  The  Sweet  ( in  the  charts  with  Teenage  Rampage  at  the  time )  . However   this  was  broadcast  on  General  Election  Day  and  as  our  school  was  needed  for  a  polling  station  we  had  the  day  off.  Thanks  Ted  !

The  20  minute  film  captures  the  band  at  their  peak, little  more  than  6  months  before  the  fateful  nightclub  brawl  which  set  Brian  Connolly  off  on  a  downward  spiral. They're  seemingly  united  and  talking  about  moving  into  the  albums  market, a  goal  they  were  not  destined  to  achieve  though  there  were  still  hit  singles  to  come.

The  narrator , one  Sarah  Ward  , adopts  a  Valerie  Singleton  school  marm  tone , occasionally  stating  the  very  obvious - "and - they  want  you  to  keep  buying  their  records  in  the  future ! " ( No  shit , Sherlock ? )

It's  enthralling  throughout  and  poignant  to  see  Brian  in  his  prime, healthy  and  able  to  speak  coherently. Other  highlights  are  an  incendiary  live  version  of  Hellraiser  which  certainly  answers  the  enduring  question as  to  whether  they  were  a  serious  rock  band  and  Steve  Priest  asking  a  Top  of  the  Pops  make-up  girl  if  she  can  find  a  little  black  moustache  ( to  round  off  his  gay  Nazi  ensemble ).


Now  did  I  ever  watch  Scene  again ?  Well  www.broadcastforschools.co.uk  has  a  full  list  of  episodes   and  nothing  else  jumps  out  at  me. The  documentaries  stopped  altogether  in  1992 . The  last  drama  under  the  Scene  banner  was  made  in  2007. I'm  not  sure  there  was  ever  a  formal  announcement   that  it  was  being  discontinued  but  I  guess  that's  the  case.