I see that Crackerjack (CRACKERJACK!!!) is back on television with Sam and Mark breathing life into
the 60-odd year old brand. Amongst the
faces popping up on the first show from its earlier incarnation was Don
Maclean (pictured above).
During the 70s Maclean was partnered with Peter Glaze doing
those Crackerjack comedy routines and
song parodies as well as providing the comic relief on The Black and White Minstrel Show. By 1977 he was appearing on
Radio 2, first on the comedy panel show Wit's
End and then with his own sketch show Maclean
Up Britain. Here he teamed up with one of his Crackerjack co-stars Jan Hunt, that man of voices Chris Emmett (Week Ending, The News Huddlines and The
Burkiss Way), Bob Todd (stooge to Benny Hill and Spike Milligan on the Q series) and Gordon Clyde (the
interviewer on The Dick Emery Show and
presenter of The Pleasure's Yours on
the World Service).
Don's show made a return in 1980 for a further three series
but now re-titled Keep It Maclean. The
cast, apart from Todd all returned with scripts provided by Tony Hare who had
also written for Crackerjack and
would go on to be one of the chief writers on The News Huddlines. The other writers were Howard Imber who'd
contributed to Week Ending, TISWAS and Bullseye and later a comedy quiz vehicle for Maclean called The Clever Dick-athlon, as well as Jimmy
Mulville and Rory McGrath just before they went off to write and perform on the
telly.
From the start of the third series on 5 September 1982 comes
this edition of Keep It Maclean. The
comedy does, as those programme warnings on Talking Pictures TV sometimes say
reflect "the prevailing attitudes of the time". Listen out though for
a delightful musical tribute to radio stars of the past sung by Don to the tune
of In Party Mood and with lyrics by
Frankie Desmond.
Don Maclean continued to appear on Radio 2 comedy shows such
as The Press Gang and The Name's the Game before taking over
the Sunday morning religious slot Good
Morning Sunday in 1990 where he was heard each week for the next 16 years.
From the earliest days of British radio the BBC was keen to keep the children of Britain
entertained (and informed and educated too of course). Each of the regional
stations had their version of Children's
Hour presented by one of the radio uncles and aunts, from 'Uncle Rex' Palmer
in London to Kathleen Garscadden as Auntie Cyclone (yes, really) in Glasgow.
For ninepence a year those young listeners could join the Radio Circle and
receive their membership card and enamelled badge.
Children's
Hour was aimed at those of school age and it wasn't until 16 January 1950
that the Light Programme schedules listed, for the first time, Listen with Mother a new programme for
the under-fives. The notion for such a programme was imported from Australian
radio where the BBC's Controller of Talks, and former Director of School
Broadcasting, Mary Somerville had heard Kindergarten
of the Air, which had been running since 1942.
Broadcast on weekdays at 1.45 pm Listen
with Mother was "primarily for the three- to five-year-olds" and
consisted of "stories, songs and nursery rhymes and will be opened and
rounded off with music". The nursery rhymes were set to music by Ann
Driver, presenter of Music and Movement since 1934 and sung by George Dixon and Eileen
Browne, both schools programme producers and broadcasters. It was Eileen who
became one of the main presenters of Listen
with Mother for the next two decades.
The other main voice on the programme was that of the storyteller who
initially would appear on a monthly rotation so that "continuity will grow
through hearing a familiar friendly voice each day." Within the first few
weeks the actresses Julia Lang and Daphne Oxenford both took turns as the
"story lady", joined later by Dorothy Smith. All three stayed with
the programme for years.
Those stories, whether it was Roderick, the Little Red Roller, Lambkin
and the Butterfly or The Little Cat
in the Haystack, were prefaced by
the opening words "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin." Now
synonymous with the programme and having long since entered the British
consciousness they were supposedly ad-libbed by Julia Lang; but given this was
the era when even live programmes were scripted, timed and rehearsed to the
second this seems unlikely.
Listen with
Mother tended to use actors, and occasionally singers, as the presenters and
storytellers. The list includes Maureen Morris, Catherine Edwards, Lorna
Pegram, Sean Barrett, Gladys Whitred (who sang Time To Go Home at the end of Andy
Pandy), Auriol Smith (founder of Orange Tree Theatre), Scottish singer
Alison McMorland, Sam Kelly ('Allo 'Allo,
Porridge etc), Patricia Gallimore
(Pat Archer in The Archers), Jean
Rogers (Emmerdale's Dolly Skillbeck),
Lucie Skeaping (now presenter of Radio 3's The
Early Music Show) and, presenting the programme in its closing weeks Tony
Aitken and Nerys Hughes (The Liver Birds
and The District Nurse).
This recording dates from 16 June 1965 with Eileen Browne presenting, Julia
Lang reading the story of Big Fat
Puss-Cat. The continuity announcer is John Dunn. At the time the programme
opened with an tune played on the celesta.
When Listen with Mother started
the majority of children's programmes on the radio came within the remit of the
BBC's Entertainment Division under the control of R.J.F. Howgill and later
Michael Standing. However, Listen with
Mother was produced by the School Broadcasting division under R.S. Postgate
(seemingly no relation to Oliver Postgate) and then John Scupham. Following the
axing of Children's Hour in 1964 Listen with Mother moved over from the
Light to the Home Service (later Radio 4 ) where it remained for the rest of
its run. In its new berth on the Home it was now followed by schools programmes
in term-time or various musical concerts the rest of the year.
Increasingly competition from television meant that Listen with Mother sadly became an unwanted infant, more likely to
be heard by 55-years olds rather than 5-year olds and eventually, and
inevitably, got shunted around the schedules. In July 1973 it moved on an hour
to 2.45 pm to follow Woman's Hour
which itself had been shifted over from Radio 2.
When Radio 4 moved over to long wave in November 1978 Listen with Mother now went out at 11.45
am, an odd bit of scheduling just before lunchtime. By October 1979 it was back
in the afternoon just after the 3.00 pm news and before Afternoon Theatre. Finally in September 1980 it was back again to
mornings at 10.30 am and on VHF only, whilst the Daily Service was on long wave. Radio 4 controller Monica Sims,
herself a former children's television executive, saw the programme as "a
frightful nuisance" and that it "made the audience, or a lot of the
audience, switch off".
Time was called on Listen with
Mother in September 1982 and led to much "nostalgic wailing" with
letters of protest and a petition handed in at 10 Downing Street, though it's
doubtful that Mrs Thatcher was much of a fan. As a report in this sequence
shows even Roy Hudd and Christopher Timothy were on hand to raise their
objections and Chris Rowe - a song for every occasion - lamented its passing.
These clips come from The World this
Weekend and Today.
The final edition presented by Nerys Hughes and Tony Aitken was broadcast
on Friday 10 September 1982 ending with a round of goodbyes from the recent
presenters.
But Radio 4 didn't totally neglect the under-fives. The following Monday,
13 September 1982 again on VHF only, the five-minute Listening Corner started, offering just enough time for a story. It
was a familiar voice too for that first week, that of Tony Aitken.
Listening
Corner ran for eight years with stories read by some former Listen with Mother storytellers such as
Nerys Hughes and Carole Boyd, some from Play
School like Toni Arthur and Fred Harris and guest readers that included Roy
Kinnear, Willie Rushton, Kenneth Williams and even Alvin Stardust.
The last edition of Listening
Corner aired on Radio 4 on 24 August 1990, though by then it running on repeats.
On Monday 27 August Radio 5 launched and scooped up all the children's and
school's programmes with the toddlers catered for by Andrew Sachs on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
