Schools programmes on television

SCHOOLS PROGRAMMES ON TELEVISION

“Your talking lesson follows shortly”

Introduction

Schools programmes are probably there on television just to give your teacher a break from teaching you and therefore let a piece of 21-inch technology in a brown box to do the teaching for you. Whether you actually went to school to watch these programmes on the television or was ill in bed with chicken pox and put BBC 1, BBC 2 or ITV on in the mornings, you would have come across these educational programmes on the television for pupils aged between four and 16. In fact, if you ever skived off school of a morning and stood outside the front window of Radio Rentals or Rumbelows you would have starred at loads of television sets showing the same programme. Or if you had your own front door key and both your parents did a nine to five job so they were not at home, you could have watched them all morning. In fact there was a better chance that you would have seen more of these schools programmes while off school rather than in school, although the chances are that the reason why you never saw many of the schools programmes in the first place was because you was never in school to see them anyway. For a person who never liked to take schoolwork home with them and do homework, I rather liked the schools programmes when I was off school. But sadly when the holidays come along the schools programmes would end and would be replaced with films or cartoons. However half term was a better chance to catch these schools programmes when you were off school – and that was within school rules. In the third week of October or the third week of February the schools programmes would be repeated the following week for schools that were off for half term, and that meant seeing how the other half lives during that week. Not all the country breaks up for half term in the same week; some counties like Nottinghamshire happen to break up a week after the rest of the country and that meant being free from school when others wouldn’t be. Even some teachers who videotape these schools programmes sometimes miss out one episode because of half term. That’s the bloody National Curriculum for you! So, the best place to view these programmes without the Education Welfare Officer knocking on your parent’s door is at school, but if your parents were at work all day, then it would have been a waste of time for the EWO to visit, wouldn’t it? Schools programmes would be seen at school during the mornings, although sometimes in the afternoons as well and in the Infants school the room that we viewed these programmes was either in a box room that was probably so small that the class of thirty kids being crammed into the room was a bit like shoving sardines in a can. The television set, which seemed to be a big brown “National Health” television set on top of a big stand that was at least 5’6” – the same height as the teachers. They took about ten minutes plugging the aerial in that was pointing on the roof to the Sutton Coldfield television transmitter and had an aerial socket on the wall next to the double electric socket to plug the television in and for the set to warm up as if it was so old fashioned that John Logie Baird probably made the same model himself. Do schools pay television licences I wonder, or do they get away with not paying one, as they are an educational establishment? The “television room” was usually the roomy hall where we did assembly or PE, just like the Junior School. Here we took a break from our teachers doing their Joyce Grenfell act and watched a bit of telly, just like you do at home, except that it was for educational purposes. When the programme ended, one of the three teachers of the three classes in the hall while the classes were sitting cross-legged on the cold hall floor would rush to the television set and turn it off quickly as if the next programme would be about pornography and the teachers did not want the kids to see it. When video recorders came on the scene, you had a choice in the mid 1980’s between Betamax and your actual VHS. When the ITV schools programmes finally arrived on Channel 4 in 1987 one teacher actually made the mistake of recording one schools programme and getting Santa Barbara on videotape instead!

Counting down

If the teacher had switched the television set on to early on your average BBC 2 schools programmes in the mid 1980’s, you would have probably came across the caption “Programme X follows shortly”, with a picture from your aforementioned programme and perhaps that elephant walk music, or a Sheena Easton track instrumental, which Easton herself must have given permission to do. And after what feels like ten minutes waiting for the classes to settle down and be quiet, the orange “Daytime on 2” ident would appear in the screen with the horizontal yellow bars appearing on an orange background a continuity announcer, who must have just been paid Ł3.50 an hour for his job (a lot of money in 1984) would have told us what programme was on next. ITV programmes would have been preceded with a five minute art gallery that would change every thirty seconds or so with paintings from various primary schools around the country, plus a few regional opt outs. And then the sixty pips revolving a circle around a blue screen which had the words “Independent Television for Schools and Colleges” written on it, that had been in service from the ITV network strike in 1979 right up to when ITV schools moved to Channel 4, still calling themselves ITV schools confusingly! ITV by that time had converted to a more lifestyle schedule in the mornings and had included many programmes from the short-lived American import Santa Barbara to the Richard and Judy magazine This Morning. After the minute was up and you’ve counted every one of those pips disappearing, it’s time for your programme. When ITV schools transferred to Channel 4 in 1987, the ITV name was unchanged as many of the programmes were still made by ITV companies. But here a masterpiece of music was used along with the revolving rainbow ITV logo and the music was a six-minute “Rotomotion” tune called “The Journey” composed by James Aldenham, which was simply too good to be wasted just to introduce schools programmes, but I glad that it did – it was almost like heaven, even though the music expressed the late Thatcher and early Major period in our schools and the tune felt like a very conservative one that served the time that it was used. This was followed by a one-minute countdown to the next programme where a bit of light would disappear from the circle each second. Come 1993 when I was near to leaving school they changed the music and the schools programmes lived up to their name and became Channel Four Schools for the first time. Schools programme continuity still lives on today, but not in the form that we used to watch them in back in the 1980’s.

The Schools programmes

These we know better about then the continuity of course! Programmes that I didn’t actually watch at school but knew a lot of as I watched some of them at some included Granada’s Picture Box, which Alan Rothwell narrated a film about. This programme would always be on Monday mornings at 9.30 am, and although I never saw it in school, I made sure that I watched it if I wasn’t there. Did you know that Picture Box was first seen in 1966? I emailed Granada for some first TX dates for their programmes a year or so ago and they gave me that information. Did you also know that Alan Rothwell was one of the original cast members in Coronation Street when it began in 1960? He played Ken Barlow’s twin brother David who looked rather like Cliff Richard at the time in the very first episode that was shown recently during the fortieth anniversary celebrations. David Barlow was killed in a crash in 1970 and that was when Rothwell made exit from the Street and into a children’s television programme called Hickory House with another Coronation Street actress, Amanda Barrie, who played Alma Sedgwick-Baldwin-Halliwell. Other programmes for schools that I never saw when I was there included, Stop, Look and Listen presented by Chris “Millionaire” Tarrant. Fifteen years before he was giving out cash prizes to lucky contestants on his quiz show, while they phoned a friend or asked the audience, Tarrant had this programme for 5 to 7 year olds on a Midlands perspective and showed you how a dustman empties the bins or how farmers prevent their stock from getting foot-and-mouth. You know the score. Chemistry in Action was always the one that had no theme tune and just a scientist in a white overcoat doing experiments with a clock for measuring time. Bill Oddie did one about reading books, so did Lesley “Blue Peter” Judd, and not to forget Basil Brush as well. The BBC had You and Me with Cosmo and Dibs and the UB40 theme tune that seemed to be set in a jumble sale for some reason.

The programmes I saw

Words and Pictures was one programme that I remember among all of them that I remember watching at school. I remember watching it between 1983 and 1986 during the Infant school years and the first year at Junior school. The programme was set in a library at the time and consisted of an animated character called Charlie. The programme was obviously a way to promote children’s books from the genre of David MacKee, Pat Hutchins, Shirley Hughes and Quentin Blake. The presenter of this programme was Vicky Ireland, who had previously presented the Yorkshire Television children’s programme Stepping Stones that was on Thursday lunchtimes to be replaced in April 1981 with Get Up and Go! That I remember so well with the late Beryl Reid. Ireland took over from Henry Woolf who also did Frost’s Weekly and programmes like that and stayed with Words and Pictures until 1990 when Sophie Aldred took over. This programme was one of two programmes (the other one being Sesame Street) that I can thank today for helping me read and write when I was very young. At the end of the programme, we “watched how Magic Pencil wrote” the letter featured on that edition. A small letter B would be “top to bottom, up and round”, both in theory and in practice. Latter years would see Magic Pencil change colour on the blackboard each time it wrote a letter of the alphabet. Words and Pictures had always occupied the term time slot of 2.00 pm, or just after 2.00 pm Monday afternoons on BBC 1, albeit schools programmes changing to BBC 2 in the early 1980’s, but still in the Monday afternoon slot although it’s midweek repeat varied over the years. But the Monday afternoon slot had been there right from when the programme began in September 1972 right up to about 1990 when Sophie Aldred took over, thus transferred to Fridays at about the same time. The theme music almost seems to tell the age of the programme. Although the programme is still running today, the theme tune was changed in the 1990’s, but back in 1984 when I watched the programme at school, the theme tune seemed to give clues that it might have been the same theme tune when the programme began in the 1972. The 1980’s signature tune sounds very similar to the Hot Butter hit Popcorn that was a top ten hit in the same year that the programme started, so it could have been the original tune that was still heard in the mid 1980’s. Words and Pictures also turned up in the BBC programme Threads for some reason, just like those never transmitted Protect and Survive public information films, only seen on the Charley Says video.

Look and Read was another one that I could remember and was meant to be like Words and Picture for the next stage up – being seven to ten year olds. I remember the orange sponge character Wordy, voiced by Charles Collingwood, aka Brian Aldridge in The Archers. These programmes were often shown as the first part of a drama, some in between bits with Wordy and a human presenter as well as animations like Dog Detective is chasing AR, Bill the Brickie (not to be confused with Bob the Builder, may I add) build yourself a word – happen and ing, Magic E (before it had a drug reference) and other animations. Derek Griffiths always seemed to sing the theme tunes and also appear in the programmes from time to time. I watched the first two series on Friday mornings and the second two during the week, but Ben Clarke’s website has helped jog a few memories about when I could have actually watched these episodes. I watched Look and Read between 1986 and 1988 and hopefully this was what programmes I watched when I was at school:

BADGER GIRL – AUTUMN 1986 – FRIDAYS (FIRST TRANSMITTED AUTUMN 1984)

About a young girl called Debbie who befriends a badger and because she has streaks in her hair just like a badger she is also given the name Badger Girl. The ten part series was set in Dartmoor and a place called Home Ridge. Some man wants to track the badger down or something and there may have been two boys in it, one called Kieran (the first time that I heard anyone being called that name). Barker and Deal also had something to do with the programme as well. Surprisingly just like the southwest, was last seen in 1992 the same year that TSW lost its franchise.

FAIRGROUND – SPRING 1987 – FRIDAYS (FIRST TRANSMITTED SPRING 1983)

Ten parter involving a fairground and a fortune-teller. Ben Clarke’s website will have more details.

DARK TOWERS – AUTUMN 1987 – TUESDAYS (FIRST TRANSMITTED AUTUMN 1981)

The oldest of the bunch. I can remember the teacher switching the television set off half way through the credits.

GEORDIE RACER – SPRING 1988 – TUESDAYS (FIRST TRANSMITTED SPRING 1988)

When my class got to watch Geordie Racer, we were in for a treat. The programme was the only one that was a premiere out of the four that was seen at school and they ran until 1995, the most recent of the four. I suppose programmes like Auf Wiedersehen Pet where most Newcastle stereotypical dramas were based in the 1980’s were the possible inspiration for this particular one, as you probably know, it has Geordies in it. Not surprisingly as actor Kevin Whately has appeared in both programmes. As far as I can remember, it was a drama about a Geordie boy and a flock of pigeons that he owns, although I may be misconstruing.

Into Music was like Music Time. It was on BBC 2 on Monday mornings (cue Red, white and blue T-W-O ident). I remember that one of the teachers even recorded keyboard music on tape for singing with. Christmas Calypso and Otter, Otter were two of the tunes used in the programme.

How We Used to Live was ITV’s typical northern Yorkshire Television offering for schools programmes and even though they did series about Victorians and the Romans, they did one about the 1960’s in about 1987. Do you remember this series? The series maybe a little older as I remember that I watched the programme on school videotape.

There were others, but none seem to spring to mind at the time of writing this. Do you remember any of these programmes? Email me if you do.