Published on 12, July, 2020
Being born in the fifties, and having my formative years in the sixties and seventies, I believe some of the best television programmes were those made for children. I am a great fan of programmes made for children, and even now think there is some quality work there.But some of the programmes of rhe past excelled in real quality.
For starting this thread I will include one or two of my favourites from the sixties to the eighties.
I will come back to this later with others, I think my avatar would indicate one of my favourites so that goes without saying, for the moment.
The Owl service, a programme made in the late sixties, a mystery about a tea service and the remote.locarion it was set in.
Follyfoot, with its theme tune about a farm for retired horses, the characer of Dora every lad in my year fell in love with
Children of the Stones, a very creepy tale set in Avebury, with similarities to the Wicker Man
The Witches and the Grinnygog, a tale of a gargoyle with a seemingly strange power.
Worzel Gummidge, with Jon Pertwee and Una Stubbs at their best.
Others to come, but opening up to reminiscences from other people.
Born 1975.
Bagpuss, Fingermouse, Camblewick Green, Trumpton, The Flumps, Bod.
The Elephant (1974) - Bagpuss episode plot synopsis
Bagpuss and friends are brought a small elephant, with no ears, stuffed with straw. Bagpuss explains how its ears fell off and it got stranded on a desert island and was rescued by mice who used its ears to escape the island. They decide it may never have had ears, and give it a hat to wear instead.
nuff said...
The end of Camberwick Green where the character of the week says goodbye and goes back into the musical box really upsets me and I'm not sure why but its guaranteed to induce floods of tears. I was fine with it when I was a kid but if I watch it now I'm a mess!
I think this is the Brian Cant retrospective (10 mins in) and acceptance speech (about 19 minutes in):
The biblical quotation he had prepared was very good... see also his joke about his neurological condition here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/entertainment-arts-11827013/brian-cant-to-receive-children-s-bafta
I think he was also a good actor. Was it partly a Suffolk twang in his voice that made it so distinctive?
I feel like I've gone from childhood to old age with nothing in between. And they say nostalgia's past its prime.
I've often wished that real life had incidental music like TV and films do. I'm sure I would understand what's going on between people way better.
. said:What breaks me up is Brian Cants BAFTA speech for his lifetime achievement award
Just watched it, never saw it before... heart warming and heart breaking at the same time... he was so important to kids of the 60s right thru to the 90s, that voice was such a familiar tone in my childhood!
Absolutely! ...lyrics aren't necessary, the right chords and melody will do it every time for me. Mum used to tell me that as a toddler the sound of a church organ used to make me almost hysterically sad.This gets me both musically and lyrically;www.youtube.com/watch
Music kills me too - certain chord progressions instantly reduce me to tears.
Not just you jonesy I find music very emotive, in fact if I find myself struggling I can go on YouTube and choose to be happy by seeing amazingly talented singers or street buskers, or conversely I can get my emotions out by choosing music or songs with very emotional themes and cry my eyes out, my body convulses I am so sad, I feel great afterwards so it must be me getting in tune with my emotions, or just letting out all the pent up tangled feelings I have? I guard my feelings all day, I get on with life as best I can, but exhausted and just being “ switched on” to get through each day I need to feel who I am, I allow my inner me to just let go completely. Some call it masking others acting out to suit a role, well it takes it’s toll every second of every day.
I wish you well and thank you for sharing your thoughts in this thread. ()
Thanks for replying, it makes me feel better to know its no just me that has these reactions. Music does it too... the last 30 sec of the Theme To Black Beauty weeps me out every time!
. said:Bless you Jonesy... is that your childlike self being packed up and put away :( onwards to reality and the innocence being stepped aside for that thing called “real life”
Ellie you are very insightful and there is probably a great deal of truth in this. I had a real sense as a kid that my childhood was slipping away from me too early and even back then felt very sad about it. Yet conversely I was gobsmacked by the cruelty of my peers and couldn't wait for them to grow up and be nice to me.... of course that never happened! My whole life I've felt stuck in a weird limbo land where I'm either too juvenile or to grown up but never on the same level as everyone else...its only in the last few years I've known why.
The end of Camberwick Green where the character of the week says goodbye and goes back into the musical box really upsets me and I'm not sure why but its guaranteed to induce floods of tears.
I have similar reactions to cartoons and the like sometimes. They can bring out huge upwellings of emotion that I don't realise are buried somewhere. I wonder sometimes whether it's because they simplify the emotions to appeal to children; so my under-developed sense of emotional understanding gets them in a way that I don't with the complex emotional behaviours of adults.
Bless you Jonesy... is that your childlike self being packed up and put away :( onwards to reality and the innocence being stepped aside for that thing called “real life”
You need to nurture your inner Windy Miller!
What breaks me up is Brian Cants BAFTA speech for his lifetime achievement award
Off they go....