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Vera McKechnie (born c. July 1927) [1] is a retired British presenter who was one of the first presenters at the start of BBC Children's Television in the early 1950s.
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Vera McKechnie (born c. July 1927) [1] is a retired British presenter who was one of the first presenters at the start of BBC Children's Television in the early 1950s.
McKechnie began her career when the BBC resumed TV broadcasts after the Second World War. On BBC Children’s Television she narrated the earliest live editions of Andy Pandy from 1950, in which she told a story as it was acted out by string puppets. The programme was aimed at very young children under primary school starting age of five years at the time. The programme was broadcast during the school day and part of a series of five known as Watch with Mother , [2] one of which one was broadcast each weekday. When the broadcasts began, the main BBC transmitters only covered London and the southeast from Alexandra Palace, Birmingham and the Midlands from Sutton Coldfield, and Manchester and the northwest from Holme Moss.
She was a TV in-vision announcer from 1955 until 1960, and later worked for BBC Children's Television as presenter of For Deaf Children, 1956. Other TV work was Focus, 1958 to 1960; Picture Book , 1963 to 1965; narrator, Andy Pandy, 1970.
From 1955 to about 1958 she was the main presenter of Studio E, a magazine programme for older children aged around 9–14. Studio E lasted around 55 minutes and came from the studio of the same name at the BBC's west London studios in Lime Grove, Shepherd's Bush, since demolished.
After television she became a teacher, spending 15 years at Roedean School and then in Broadstairs, Kent then St Margaret's School, Bushey.
Lime Grove Studios was a film, and later television, studio complex in Shepherd's Bush, West London, England.
Andy Pandy is a British children's television series that aired on BBC Television in 1950. Originally live, a series of 26 filmed programmes was shown until 1970, when a new series of 13 episodes was made. This series was based upon a comic strip of the same name.
Watch with Mother was a cycle of children's programmes created by Freda Lingstrom and Maria Bird. Broadcast by BBC Television from 1952 until 1975, it was the first BBC television series aimed specifically at pre-school children, a development of BBC radio's equivalent Listen with Mother, which had begun two years earlier. In accordance with its intended target audience of pre-school children viewing with their mothers, Watch with Mother was initially broadcast between 3:45 pm and 4:00 pm, post-afternoon nap and before the older children came home from school.
Picture Book is a BBC children's TV series created by Freda Lingstrom, first broadcast in 1955. It was the Monday programme in the Watch with Mother cycle. Initially introduced by Patricia Driscoll, the programme encouraged children to make things; Driscoll's catch phrase was "Do you think you could do this? – I am sure you could if you tried". She left the programme in 1957 to play the part of Maid Marian in the ITV series The Adventures of Robin Hood. Patricia Driscoll's episodes were repeated until 1963 when they were replaced by a new series of episodes with Vera McKechnie. The programme ran until December 1965 and replaced in the Monday slot by Camberwick Green in January 1966.
Freda Violet Lingstrom OBE was a BBC Television producer and executive, responsible for pioneering children's programmes in the early 1950s. She and her friend Maria Bird together created Andy Pandy and The Flower Pot Men.
This is a list of British television related events from 1970.
This is a list of British television related events from 1967.
This is a list of British television related events from 1964.
This is a list of British television related events from 1962.
This is a list of British television related events from 1961.
This is a list of British television related events from 1960.
This is a list of British television related events from 1958.
This is a list of British television related events from 1957.
This is a list of British television related events from 1956.
This is a list of British television related events from 1955.
This is a list of British television related events from 1953.
This is a list of British television related events from 1952.
This is a list of British television related events from 1950.
Maria Bird was born Mary Edith Bird on 24 August 1891 in Pietermaritzburg, Colony of Natal, and died in the village where she lived for most of her life, Westerham, Kent, England, on 25 August 1979, aged 88. She was a descendant of Francis Bird the sculptor and Colonel Christopher Bird who was Colonial Secretary at Cape Town Castle. Her mother brought her children from Natal Colony to the UK to be educated and Maria attended a Scottish convent. Following school, she studied the Dalcroze eurhythmics music and dance method under Émile Jaques-Dalcroze in Dessau.