Radio and TV - Memories and Favourites

I think my father is on this video, playing accordion Edited by Midland Red, 9th Nov 2015 7:55 pm (Link clarified)

Hi Fatcat. Never heard of Humphrey Lestoq though I think I watched Whirligig. Wasn't Hank the little cardboard cutout sitting sideways on a cardboard cutout horse?

Hi again. Yes, he was the ventriloquist dummy dressed as a cowboy with a big hat and moustache. It ended with a very amateur animation using cardboard cutouts - very hi tech tv in the early 1950s. Other Forum members might be able to confirm that Humphrey Lestoq was a decorated WW2 RAF pilot??

Humphrey Lestocq on wikipedia

Many thanks Midland Red.

My early memories could go on for ever the more I look back. I remember when I was about seven watching children's programmes on the BBC possibly 4pm to 5pm, the news may have followed, but the TV would shut down completely for an hour or so. Very frustrating. Some programmes I recall: Mr Pastry with Richard Hearn, Bill and Ben the Flowerpot men with Little Weeeeed, Pinky and Perky, Sooty, Billy Bunter (wouldn't be allowed today as he would be classed as clinically obese and would need counselling if he was bullied), Lassie, Fury, Crackerjack. As for radio programmes when I was very small I so loved Listen with Mother and dreaded hearing the music called the Dolly Suite at the end as that meant the story had finished. Then around age 7 or 8 when I came home for lunch from Earlsdon Junior school my mother would come home from the GEC at Spon Street and we would listen to Workers' Playtime, with songs and comedy. On Saturday there was Uncle Mac's Children's Favourites - or the past two or three years on Christmas morning Ed Stewpot Stewart has been playing listeners' requests for some of the songs, oh so nostalgic. In the 5s and early 60s there was far more choice throughout the day on the radio, not like today, when it is the same thing day in and day out!

Janey, The Magic Roundabout was a favourite with my daughter, it's still showing here in oz but a more modern version of course. I don't know what the children of today will remember in 20 - 30 years time, maybe the horrors of the modern day Dr. Who. Personally, at my age, I would sit through Star Wars, it takes all sorts doesn't it. Keep looking back you may think of some more.

You would have remembered Ivanhoe then Janey, with dishy Roger Moore, I think he was destined to play Bond in his later years.

Dishy Roger Moore I remember was a model for clothing, then Dorothy Squires grabbed him, first telly I saw was early 52, small box about a foot square. Hughie Green I think was the first real star. Could be wrong about that, it was Errol Flynn for me, a Northampton Dramatic Actor made good. Years later I walked in a Cairns bar and saw his initials carved on a wooden rafter. You're right about the small box you had to fit for ITV

Yes, Wimero, youngsters today have different tastes to us. I agree about Miranda Hart too, and how silly to choose a small slim actress to play the mother of a huge daughter! And Dreamtime, yes, I remember Ivanhoe. And the Saint. Roger Moore really was quite dishy then, wasn't he? I saw him on the front of a knitting pattern! What about Michael Miles in Take Your Pick; he had the Yes/No interlude, and ended with Do you want to Open the Box or Take the Money.... Or was that Hughie Green on Double your Money? I get a little confused these days but then it was a long time ago. The Magic Roundabout was a favourite in our house when my boys were young, Dylan the rabbit, Zebedee, Ermyntrude the Cow ..... and Time for Bed, Florence. Oh these memories go on and on .... I used to watch Dragnet with my mum on a Friday night I believe, and Superman with Clarke Kent. I don't mean I watched it with Clarke Kent! The Army Game was a favourite, and the Grove Family, with the old gran played by Nancy Roberts forever saying she was "suffering from lack of nourishment". As a teenager I watched Juke Box Jury, Oh Boy, Six Five Special. Saw the first episode of Coronation Street, and Crossroads. Today I think the so-called sit-coms are not a patch on those of yore, which may seem quite corny now but we all enjoyed them in years gone by. Remember Steptoe in the bath eating the pickled onions ..... you Dirty Old man ......The one show I wouldn't miss today is Have I Got News for You, which is always guaranteed to be funny, and sometimes QI and Mock the Week, though I can never understand what Dara O'Briain says.

I used to like the Yes/No interlude too. Even small winnings used to be welcome on the game shows, bigger stakes today though. Contestants are getting more greedy. Sorry to hear about Warren Mitchell today, what a character he was and the sour looks he got off Dandy Nichols who played his wife and now Una Stubbs if playing housekeeper to Sherlock. Goodbye to all the good 'funnies' I reckon.

I have been thinking about some of the early adverts. Many of today's ads are quite irritating, particularly the one with Gwyn Evans, and then that horrid little plasticine thing who has had an accident. I could willingly kick him to the ends of the earth. However, I digress. Who remembers the following: You'll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent. The one for the Radio Times with the cartoon characters in a car, the woman saying "Hurry up George, the programme starts at 6.15", then "Slow down George, it doesn't start till 7.20" preceded by a screech of brakes. Don't forget the Kia-Ora, Aurora. All the dirt, all the grit, Hoover gets it, every bit, Hoover beats as it sweeps as it cleans. The little tin men in the Cadbury's Smash potato adverts where one falls on his back kicking his legs (my dad thought that one was hilarious) You're never alone with a Strand. The Hamlet cigar ads accompanied by Bach's Air on a G String. The Oxo ads with Katie and Philip. The Hovis bike ad. Unzip a Banana ........ Oh the memories they bring back, and not half as annoying as some of today's ads - there don't seem to be as many cartoons.

Ken Dodd had a very good radio show, I think it was on a Sunday. There was always one part of it that had me in hysterics each week and it ended with him saying, in a really funny voice, Where's Me Shirt? Anyone remember that?

"Where's me shirt" on YouTube