Listen with Mother

Last updated

Listen with Mother was a BBC radio programme for children which ran between 16 January 1950 to 10 September 1982. [1] It was originally produced by Freda Lingstrom although for the majority of its run it was produced by George Dixon, and was presented over the years by Daphne Oxenford, Julia Lang, Eileen Browne, Dorothy Smith and others. [2]

Contents

History

It was first broadcast on 16 January 1950 on the BBC Light Programme in a fifteen-minute slot every weekday afternoon at 1.45, just before Woman's Hour . Consisting of stories, songs and nursery rhymes (often sung by Eileen Browne and George Dixon) for “mothers and children at home”, at its peak it had an audience of more than a million listeners. Roger Fiske assisted with the music. From 7 September 1964 the programme moved to the BBC Home Service (later BBC Radio 4).

Listen with Mother's final week's programmes (widely reported in the press) featured Wriggly Worm stories, presented by Nerys Hughes and Tony Aitken and directed by David Bell. These stories were broadcast on the Listen with Mother programmes throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.

Listening Corner, which replaced Listen with Mother on 13 September 1982, began with repeats of the Wriggly Worm stories. Collections of Listen with Mother stories have been published by Hutchinsons/Random House. Two collections of Wriggly Worm stories ('Wonderful Wriggly Worm' and 'Wonderful Wriggly Worm Rides Again'), by Eugenie Summerfield, have been published by Book Guild. Listening Corner continued until 24 August 1990, ending three days before the launch of BBC Radio 5.

Theme music

At the start of each programme a short introduction on piano was played. The tune went to the rhythm of the words quarter to two, which of course was the time of the broadcast, and many children were helped in learning to tell the time by this ingenious device.

A piece for piano duet, the Berceuse from Gabriel Fauré's Dolly Suite , Op. 56, was played at the conclusion of each broadcast and became synonymous with the programme. It was recorded for the programme by Eileen Browne and Roger Fiske, [3] However Julia Lang, in an Anglia Television interview in the 1990s, said that during her tenure when she finished reading the story she had to get up (noiselessly), rush across to the piano in the studio and play the Berceuse live.

"Are you sitting comfortably?"

Each story on Listen with Mother opened with the phrase "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin" (sometimes "...Then we'll begin"). [4] The question, originally an ad lib by Julia Lang on 16 January 1950, became so well known that it appears in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations [1] It has been incorporated and sampled by many artists and musicians; for instance,

See also

Related Research Articles

Blue Jam was an ambient, surreal dark comedy and horror radio programme created and directed by Chris Morris. It was broadcast on BBC Radio 1 in the early hours of the morning, for three series from 1997 to 1999.

<i>Flower Pot Men</i> British childrens television series

Flower Pot Men is a British programme for young children produced by BBC Television. It was first transmitted in 1952, and repeated regularly for more than twenty years. A reboot of the show called Bill and Ben was produced in 2001.

I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again was a BBC radio comedy programme that originated from the 1964 Cambridge University Footlights revue, Cambridge Circus. This is a scripted sketch show. It had a devoted youth following, with the live tapings enjoying very lively audiences, particularly when familiar themes and characters were repeated; a tradition that continued into the spinoff show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.

BBC Radio 4 Extra is a British digital radio station from the BBC, broadcasting archived repeats of comedy, drama and documentary programmes nationally, 24 hours a day. It is the sister station of BBC Radio 4 and the principal broadcaster of the BBC's spoken-word archive, and as a result the majority of its programming originates from that archive. It also broadcasts extended and companion programmes to those broadcast on Radio 4, and provides a "catch-up" service for certain programmes.

Doctor Who: The Curse of Fatal Death is a Doctor Who special made specifically for the Red Nose Day charity telethon in the United Kingdom, and was originally broadcast in four parts on BBC One on 12 March 1999 under the title Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death. Later home video releases are formatted as two parts and drop the "and" in the title. It follows in a long tradition of popular British television programmes producing short, light-hearted specials for such telethon events.

The Roly Mo Show is a British children's television series produced by Novel Entertainment and aired on CBeebies. The series is set in the home of Roly Mo, where his niece and his friends come over each day to visit him. It is an educational series, with a primary focus on literature. It is a spin-off of Fimbles.

<i>The Woodentops</i> (TV series) BBC childrens puppet show (1955–57)

The Woodentops is a children's television series first shown on BBC Television in 1955. Created by Freda Lingstrom and Maria Bird, it featured on the Friday edition of Watch with Mother and regularly repeated until 1973. The main characters are the members of a family living on a farm. The aim of the programme was to teach pre-school children about family life.

The Green Eye of the Yellow God, a 1911 poem by J. Milton Hayes, is a famous example of the genre of "dramatic monologue", a music hall staple in the early twentieth century. The piece was written for and performed by actor and monologist Bransby Williams. It has often been misattributed to Rudyard Kipling, who classed its author as being among his many imitators, and often parodied, most famously by Billy Bennett as The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog.

"New Earth" is the first episode of the second series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 15 April 2006.

The EastEnders theme tune was composed by Simon May. Leslie Osborne has a contractual composer credit, but did not contribute to the composition or recording.

"The Idiot's Lantern" is the seventh episode of the second series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast on 27 May 2006 on BBC One. It was written by Mark Gatiss and directed by Euros Lyn.

Daphne Margaret du Grivel Oxenford was an English actress, known for her early stage roles, and later her radio and television work. She was the voice of BBC radio's Listen with Mother from its inception in 1950 to 1971. As spinster Esther Hayes, she was part of the original cast of Coronation Street. Other notable roles include Mrs Plummer in Man About the House (1973), Alice Dutton in EastEnders (1990), and Mrs. Oldknow in the mini-series The Children of Green Knowe (1986).

"There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" is a children's rhyme and nonsense song of a kind known as cumulative.

<i>Cranford</i> (TV series) British television series

Cranford is a British television series directed by Simon Curtis and Steve Hudson. The teleplay by Heidi Thomas was adapted from three novellas by Elizabeth Gaskell published between 1849 and 1858: Cranford, My Lady Ludlow and Mr Harrison's Confessions. "The Last Generation in England" was also used as a source.

Eileen Browne, was a BBC Radio broadcaster, perhaps best known for being one of the original presenters of Listen with Mother.

"The Dramaturg" is the eighteenth episode of the American television series Smash. It was written by Bryan Goluboff and directed by Larry Shaw. The episode premiered on NBC on February 19, 2013, the third episode of Season 2. Eileen introduces Tom and Julia to a new writing partner in order to fix Bombshell's script; Karen confers with Derek about Jimmy and Kyle's musical that they are working on; Derek tries to get reinstated as the director for The Wiz revival with Veronica Moore.

Are You Sitting Comfortably? may refer to:

Julia Lang was a film and radio actress and radio presenter. Born in London, she is best known for presenting the BBC radio programme Listen with Mother.

Frieda Fordham was a psychiatric social worker, Jungian analyst and writer. Her second husband was the innovative analytical psychologist, Michael Fordham.

Roger Fiske was a musicologist, broadcaster and author who played an important part in establishing music for schools at the BBC during and after World War II.

References

  1. 1 2 "January Anniversaries: Listen with Mother 16 January 1950". The BBC Story. Archived from the original on 2014-01-09.
  2. ↑ Whirlygig nostalgia site - Accessed 25 Jan 2011
  3. ↑ Biddy Baxter. 'Eileen Browne obituary' in The Guardian, 5 May, 1999
  4. ↑ "Are You Sitting Comfortably?". Random Radio Jottings. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.