Childhood memories.

[Russethouse]

Is this it :

1953.
THE LITTLE RED MONKEY by Eric Maschwitz.
TV cast - Donald Houston; Arthur Rigby and Honor Blackman
Six 30 minute episodes between January 24th and February 28th, 1953.
Plot concerns atom scientist and a midget Russian spy.
Cold war thriller.

All episodes wiped.

Made into a feature film in 1955 - The Case of the Red Monkey, with Richard Conté and Rona Anderson.

Crikey - there is a whole frum about this stuff http://p197.ezboard.com/bwhirligigtv

[Tresco]

They are bringing back The Champions too! I was  madly in love with Alexandria Bastardstoe, she was probably the first woman I ever fancied! (MR KNIX)

I reckon Furrynix is the same age as me, as all his memories of programmes have reminded me of all my favourites. 

The Champions were so fantastic, not least the theme music, but Ms B was so very beautiful, and powerful. I'm surprised we were allowed to watch it, thinking back. And that amazing fountain, was it in Geneva?.  I swear it was the first time I ever looked at a map to find a country. The second time was after watching 'The Great Escape'.

But the theme music from Belle and Sebastien, and especially Robinson Crusoe were so good, fixed forever in my memory, along with the old 'Match of the Day theme. i loved Pogles wood too, Pippin and Tog (Tog was a squirrel type critter).

The episode of Camberwick Green (or was it Trumpton), when Mrs Honeywell? had a couple of babies to look after, but went gossiping with someone else and left them outside in the pram (it couldn't happen today).

The soldiers were doing some painting at the same shop (what a busy Cold War  Cuthbert, Dribble and Sprout? had) and they dropped spots of red paint on the babies, which she thought were measles: classic Camberwick Green chaos ensued.

Happy Days.

I remember asking my mum (this was in the '60's sometime) "what would be wrong  if Harold Wilson 'got in' ".  Her answer, verbatim was "because if he gets in, we'll have Russian tanks rolling down the streets".

Eeeek alors! And apparently MI5 thought the same as my mum!!!

[Loiseau]

I've only just caught sight of this thread, so forgive the harking back to much earlier posts...

It has long been my theory that the things we remember in life are the scary moments - something that is borne out in these fascinating recollections.
I can't claim anything stunningly early: I remember hanging around on a railway station with my mother, and then meeting some strange man - who turned out to be my father coming back from the war - when I was about 3. Oh, and as a follow-up, I suppose, going to see my new-born sister in a nursing-home when I was 4 1/2. And the day of her christening, when the cat fell off the banisters (don't ask me what it was doing there) to the bottom of the stairs just before we went to church... (All scary moments, I suppose.)

Ooh, anyone remember a TV series called "The Black Ace"?  I think it was fighter aircraft having endless "dog-fights".  Oh, and my all-time hero was Hopalong Cassidy...
Well done finding the words to Little Red Monkey, Dick!  I seem to remember that the programme itself was a bit frightening (what a wimp I must have been!).

QUOTE:  "Russethouse's reply brought forth another memory. Uncle Mac. Macdonald Hobley was a neighbour of mine in Bournemouth, his wife Douggie, used to be a hairdresser in the Crossroads series...."

I used to think Macdonald Hobley was very dishy!  However I don't know that he was ever called "Uncle Mac". That, surely, was a guy on children's radio - whose real name was Derek McCulloch. (A friend of mine who worked in radio in the early 1960s once told me that DMcC was rather strange-looking, and that children would probably have found him quite scary!)

Re the agricultural content of The Archers: I used to work in the TV Agricultural Unit (no, really) at the BBC in Birmingham. The Archers - being radio, and fictional - wasn't part of our unit, but the producer of the radio "Farming" programmes used to be the agricultural story-editor of the series, so I can vouch for all those bits of agricultural advice being taken seriously and being pretty kosher...

Angela

 

[Dick Smith]

You are correct, Loiseau, Uncle Mac was Derek McCulloch - see

http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/radio/childrensfav.htm

for a small picture.

It mentions Nellie the Elephant - remember her!

[Tag]

Thank you Gay, I knew of the film but must have missed the info about the TV series. So much old stuff has been wiped which seems a pity. The date helps me pinpoint when I left UK.

From what Dick says he seems to have found something altogether more hideous.

[Christine Animal]

...the pebbles at Worthing, Jersey with the fairy lights on Gorey castle and the cockatoo in front of the Dolphin hotel, the smell of the leather seats in the cars (which made me feel sick), the indicators which didn't go quite all the way up, then didn't come all the way down, so it was better to roll the window down and stick an arm out.

Didn't anyone watch Billy Bunter ?

         

 

 

[Russethouse]

Away from the TV for a moment, when we lived in Maidenhead (we moved to Cookham just before I was 7) we had our bread delivered by horse & cart, I used to be allowed to feed the horse the stale bread while my mother picked up the fresh loaf. The shop up the road had clear topped tins just under the counter which you selected your biscuits from, no buying an assortment, you made your own.

When we moved to Cookham we had three deliveries of meat and/or fish a week (and if we were out the guy put it in the fridge for us !) two deliveries of bread and the grocer delivered your order the day after you gave it to him............

[Gastines]

I stand corrected about  Uncle Mac. I hate to think how many whiskies the other Mac had on me, but he could tell an interesting story. He blotted his copybook with the BBC. He used to be ON all the time and then just did Rep/Pantomimes.

Regards.

[Dick Smith]

Did any of you ever have lemonade delivered by the Corona man? And I can really remember my father going out with a shovel and a bucket to get the milkman or bread man's horse's droppings to put on the rhubarb.

Which was annoying because I preferred custard myself.

[Dick Smith]

[quote user="Gastines"]

I stand corrected about  Uncle Mac. I hate to think how many whiskies the other Mac had on me, but he could tell an interesting story. He blotted his copybook with the BBC. He used to be ON all the time and then just did Rep/Pantomimes.

Regards.

[/quote]

If you look here

http://www.transdiffusion.org/emc/halcyondays/1970s/presentation.php

it says that the BBC simply did away with in-vision announcers and the whole line-up was essentially made redundant. It says he ended up compering concerts on cruise ships (apparently he sailed on the RMS Alliteration).

Edit: I see the quote facility is working well.

[Furry Knickers]

I remember me cousin in Birmingham, they had Alpine pop delivered in a mustard coloured truck with all these weird flavours like cabbage and pork which was a yellowish beige colour and mango and rice, all very advanced for the 70's.  They even had their bread deliverd by the Midland Counties Milk man that later became Unigate. I once seen a woman injecting ring donuts in Wimbushes with rasberry jam and selling Big T round breads! Me Mammy thought it best that we get back to County Kildare before I get Corrupted by all these terrible temptations in me path. Round sliced breads are still illegal in Kildare.

[Suze01]

Other kids prgrammes I used to watch that haven't been mentioned so far are Mary, Mungo and Midge; The Herbs (or was it called The Herb Garden) and Crystal Tips and Alistair.

[Furry Knickers]

I love that cat!

[Chas]

We too had corona delivered - were allowed to choose our own flavour.  I used to help deliver the milk from our milk man's cart. Not many bottles then mainly churns and ladles to dish out the milk.  I also remember that the coal dealer at the top of the road had at least two steam lorries operating towards the end of the war (WW2 that is !).

[Dick Smith]

One of my greatest regrets, now I am diabetic, is the unavailability of Diet Cream Soda...

[PeterG]

What about the rag and bone man who used to give out white and yellow "donkey stones". These were used by my mother to brighten the back yard steps!!!!!!!!!

[Dick Smith]

Our rag and bone man used to go to the pub and get legless, his drinking pals would shove him on the back of the cart and the horse would take him home. According to my father...

[Tag]

Eskimo Pie from the little man with the icebox on the front.  Which reminds me of the bread man who delivered from a bicycle. Embassy fag tokens, Morning Cloud oval fags, fags in proper tins, 50 packs. Bengal matches too. Not a lot of telly though as we went to a country which didnt have it. Now there is a damn good idea. Getting coal from the coal hole in the cellar to light the fires......

Enough. There was also polio .....

[Russethouse]

Anyone remember Green Shield Stamps ?

[Christine Animal]

Oh yes, I remember Green Shield Stamps and Father Christmas at Bentalls, we had to queue up to go into his sort of grotte, I felt taken into another world.  My mother often used to take us shopping at Bentalls.  Does it still exist, I wonder?  Does Kingston on Thames still exist...?

 

[Dick Smith]

Indeed it does, but much altered. Did you ever have a donkey ride in Bentall's basement? I went to see Santa there in about 1953 with my dad and his pal Ginger on Ginger's motorbike & sidecar. Remember those?

[Weedon]

And I remember going to the Festival of Britain on a school trip by steam train, so there.  And I went into the Dome of Discovery.  The only recollection I now have of the trip is that some b*****d nicked my Kia-Ora drink from out of the army satchel my dad let me borrow.  For the life of me I cannot recall anything of the Boer War?

weedon

[Christine Animal]

... neither do I Weedon.  Yes Dick,  is still there!  I don't remember the donkeys though.  My father had a motorbike with a sidecar before I was born, as my mother would not ride on the back.

I used to love Johnny Morris and have just seen that he died in 1999.  He once said that two French ladies talking together sounded something like a hosepipe, the "bsut, bsut, bsut".  I wonder if he ever heard the Canadians!

  What a wonderful man he was.

 

[Dick Smith]

Christine - how do you get the pictures in your posts? I've asked before and you haven't answered!

I liked Johnny Morris, too. Who's the geezer with him with the white hair?

[Furry Knickers]

Hammy Hamster and GP have sadly passed away too! No more shall Hammy drive his little speedboat along the riverbank.

There was a lad called Ginger in The Beezer, I think he had a motorbike?