YOUR COMMENTS

Rosie Davis - July '08
I still have a Columbia Kennedy & Carr record of Rusty and Dusty - The BBC Dance Orchestra, Henry Hall, with Vocal Çhorus. On one side 'Adventures of Rusty and Dusty Brown', 'The Haunted House', and 'At The Zoo'. On the other side 'Out Shopping', and 'At the Circus'. Most of the words are still firmly stuck in my head. If anyone would like them, I'll see what I can do!

Such nostalgia! Do you remember the song and music of 'The Swish of the Curtain'? Was that before 'Ballet Shoes' or something else?

I've been in New Zealand for 40 years now, but grew up in Bath. Dick Barton was wonderful, and Monday Night at 8 was the first 'grown-up' programme I was allowed to stay up for!

Rosie

Pip Knight- July '08
I wonder if anyone else remembers Uncle Mac as a person who was all a father could be for all the children whose natural fathers were in the 4 corners of the earth in those days - Burma, North Africa, Singapore, Palestine, etc etc - anywhere except with their families. I notice he had/has 2 'real 'daughters and I send them love. Does anyone remember how awful it was when Uncle Mac just disappeared one day from our daily appointment with him after tea when we were children?

Suzanne - July '08
Just read your postings. The music for "Said the Cat to the Dog" which featured Mompty and Peckham is "Facade" by William Walton.

Bernared Leon Guard - June '08
In answer to Lynne Mc.Kenzie, (March 08) I 'think' the bassoon music was part of Allegro Spiritoso by Jean Baptiste Senaille c 1688-1730

If it was, it is available on Hyperion Records, called The Playful Pachyderm CDA 67453. Also on it is the theme music to the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery programs!

Mary Wells - Mar '08
I think that the music for Mompty and Peckham was called Golliwog Cake Walk or something like that. The tune is in my head now and it is played from time to time. Listen out for it.
For me an astonishing thing about Children's Hour was the kindly German Dennis the Dachshund in Toytown. Ach Larry Mein Freund! That in the time of War or just after the war.

Lynne Mackenzie - Mar '08
Please can somebody help me out with the signature tune to "The Magic Bedknob"? I'm pretty sure it was part of a concerto, and it was certainly played on the bassoon. It was broadcast late 1940's, early 1950's.
Also, does anyone else remember "The Firebrand"? I loved it - it terrified me!

Robert Bellingford - February '08
I should very much like to know the title and the composer of the introductory music to Kipling's 'Just So Stories' which were broadcast on the BBC Home Service Children's Hour.

Could anyone enlighten me?

Ernest - February '08t
What program ended each show with a rabbit hopping down a road?

Gordon Kuphal - February '08
I think the signature tune was from Walton's Facade. Can anyone confirm this?

Jonathan Greenhow - Feb '08
Mopty and Peckham were one of my favourires....and the signature tune stayed with me for years but I can no longer remember it although I sometimes think I hear it broadcast - a snatch of melody makes me remember the programme. What was IT?
Also David Davis voice was - smooth and comforting after a bad day ay at school.
Some serials were very good and I loved Norman and Henry bones, one of whom played I think by the actress who is now Shula in the Archers.
Any info on these gladdy received/read.

Mavis Lloyd - Jan '08
My first memory of radio is my sister rushing me in to listen to 'Ballet Shoes'. Can anyone tell me the name of the piece of music played for the introduction? I still remember the excitement I felt when the music started.

Alan W. Clark - May '07
My late father, Wyness Clark, was a child radio actor in the late 1940s and possibly 50s. He did some work for Scottish BBC's version of "The Children's Hour" broadcasts but I don't have very much information about that period of his life. If anyone recognizes the name and can tell me more, I would be greatly interested.
I do know that he lived in Motherwell and was a pupil at Dalziel High and also at Wishaw High. He graduated from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.
Thanks for any information or suggestions as to where I might obtain more information.

Alan Clark
stxclark at yahoo dot com

Dennis Lumkin - Jan '07
Yes, I too remember Mompty & Peckham, Toy Town, Tammy Troot, Clara Chuff with Mr Fortyfifty (an Engine) narrating the story.
Who remembers First Attempts, a childrens' talent show with Charles Smart or Sandy McPherson playing the BBC theatre organ? Most of the young pianists seemed to favour Debussy's "Golliwogs Cake Walk" the title of which now is politically incorrect! I also remember another Children's Hour music show with a group of singers calling themselves "The Three Semis'"
& one of their songs was "The Little White Mice Parade" The first line of the song was "Here they come, rump tiddy um pum"

R.Basson - January '07
Chanson De Matin [Elgar] introduced the BUNKLE THE BOY DETECTIVE prog.

Joan Butler (now in Australia) - Nov '06
The jewels of the Madonna introduced "Ballet Shoes" broadcast on Children's Hour in 1947 and repeated after this. As a small girl I loved it.

Laila Glanville - Nov '06
My husband and I have always attributed our love of classical music to the years we spent (albeit 500 miles apart) listening to Children's Hour--Scottish for me and English for him. Jewels of the Madonna= Ballet Shoes; Tarka the Otter= Beethoven's 7th. Often we'll hear a piece of music and say "that's Children's Hour" but then can't name the play. My personal favourite was "The Blue Door Venture" series with "Swish of the Curtain" by Pamela Brown. It had its very own signature tune and I can still recall that. Anybody remember Tammy Troot?

NB - Nov '06
Was there an 'Alexander Armstrong' signature tune? If there was, are there any clips out there of either this or the programme?

Dave Ainscough - Nov '06
Reply to Ken Smith - Aug '06

I think you'll find Rusty and Dusty Brown were characters of Henry Hall and his Orchestra. I would have been, at a guess, four years old and my parents had Long Playing records of these stories. That would have been '51-'52. I remember only short passages, mainly of the pair in a Haunted House, 'Down the stairs came a big white ghost, in his hand he held a gleaming knife, said Rusty to dusty, "run for your life"' and 'Rusty said "well I'm not scared, so quietly that no-one could have heard"'. Little snippets like that, but also I can remember some of the music that accompanied the words. I must ask my mother if she can recall any more, when next I venture into the northern hemisphere.
Anyhow Ken, I hope these small bits of info are of some help to you and stir some of your memories.

Anne Cooper - Sep '06
Does anyone remember David Davies who used to tell stories on Childrens hour? I would love to get a tape of his he had the most wonderful story telling voice. Can anyone help please?

Patricia MacQueen, Billerica, Mass., USA - Sep '06
I remember Children's Hour from the time just after the war and I loved it! I especially remember "Said the Cat to the Dog", a program about Mompty (spelling?) and Peckham, a cat and dog relationship in which the cat always got the better of the loveable but slightly daft dog.
Later, I got really hooked on "Dick Barton" and once, for a moment recently, couldn't remember whether it was on radio or TV, so vivid were the visual images I had conjured up.
I am making a crazy quilt of images from my childhood, mostly pictures ironed onto fabric, and am happy to have found this website as it has a few images I can collage into something that could be incorporated into the quilt.
Thanks.

Ken Smith - Aug '06
Can anyone please tell me who Rusty and Dusty Brown were?
I remember when I was 3-4 listening to the radio in the afternoon with my mother so it was probably on Children's hour.
The year would have been around 1935 -36.
Earlier and I would have been too young to remember anything, later impossible as my mother died in 1937 shortly before my fifth birthday.
Any information would be most welcome - even if only that someone else remembers too.
One episode I remember made me cry, but even back then I was unable to explain to Mum what the matter was.

James Anderson - June '06
There are major gaps in this page about children's hour from Belfast, some of it basic information, such as:-

1. Was the programme one hour duration always?
2. When did the Northern Ireland children's hour begin? 1924?3. At what time of the day was it broadcast?
4 . What was the content? It clearly was not all 'I want to be an actor.' A line of description about Button Brown and Brogeen would be valuable.
5. Cicely was clearly a giant, but she built upon the foundations of others. What happened in the programme before WW2? For example, who was Aunt Phoebe played by Miss W Eason of Belfast in 1934?
6. Did children's' hour continue throughout WW2?

Would be delighted to hear more.

Graham Brodie - March '06
The comments on 'Jewels of the Madonna' which I still enjoy have reminded me. Does anyone remember the music 'The Duel' which introduced one programme on Childrens Hour? I can still hum it but have no idea of its composer or the programme.

Mary Kate Adami-Sampson - Feb '06
Is the Antonia Ridge who was associated with the Children's Hour the same Antonia Ridge who wrote the English text to the song The Happy Wanderer? I've been searching diligently, and can't seem to find out. An Antonia Ridge also wrote English versions of other songs composed by Friedrich Moller (The Wooden Horse, The Emperor and the Nightingale). In addition, is this the same Antonia Ridge who has written several books about the roses? The latter seems to have been writing into the 1970s. I'm giving a short talk on The Happy Wanderer to our mixed-age chorus here in Massachusetts, in the U.S.

Pauline Watchorn - Dec '05
I was always glued to the wireless - Toytown comes to mind with Larry the Lamb. Later on I enjoyed Wandering with Nomad, a nature programme with Norman Ellison. Also "Ballet Shoes" being read and the music ..... can anyone remember the music? I hear it occasionally and always think of Noel Streatfields delightful book. Dick Barton, Special Agent was wonderful......Pauline

Anne-marie Murray - Nov 05
My Mother was so proud of the fact that she sang on this programme and that she met Cicely Mathews and Havelock Nelson accompanied her on the piano. She was about 17 at the time and sang on a few occasions. We think this was around 1948. Early on in her life she developed problems with her throat and eventually could not sing any more. As a child I have distant memories of my mother singing but we have no recordings at all. She died last year and my family and I would dearly love to hear her voice again, if possible. I don't know if these programmes were recorded and kept, but if they were would it be possible to hear her again? Her name was Lilian Carlin.

ANN - Sept '05
NOEL...the Jewels of the Madonna tune was played, I am pretty sure, at the beginning of the readings by Antonia Ridge. I have just been searching the Internet for details of her, and then came across this BBC page. I bought an old copy of her book "For Love of a Rose" a few years back, and could hear her lovely voice in my head. Hope you check into this site again.
I used to sit there, in our little cottage, with my ear glued to the radio which had to played with volume low so that not much battery was used. Oh what memories. I was allowed to listen to Childrens Hour with Uncle Mac, then Dick Barton, special agent, at 6.45. What heart pounding stuff that was...Dick and Snowy....would they escape again?

Mary Stewart - Aug 05
Have just been writing down my childhood memories of listening to 'Children's Hour (early 50's).

I clearly remember being confused about the origin of the voices out of the wireless run by celled battery. we didn't get electric until end of 50's so radion was a great source of pleasure.

before bed we were allowed to 'sit up' and listen to Cicily Mathews, what a pleasure it was!

Pamela Solomos - May 05
In reply to Maureen Taylor, I'm 99% certain that Mompty and Peckham were the pets in the Children's Hour series "Said the Cat to the Dog." (I think Mompty was the (rather snooty) cat and Peckham was the dog.) The series was a dog's- and cat's-eye view of their family, known as the Bells, of (3 or 4?) children, one of whom was a young daughter who put on airs and who referred to herself as "Miss Virginia Bell." I believe the father was a rather impecunious vicar. I used to love the series too.

H.S.Hawker - April 05
What about childrens hour in England, although I tried I could only obtain it in Northern Ireland. I would Like to read about childrens programmes around 1928 to 1935 when Uncle Mac was there

Noel Pilling - March 05
I would be eternally grateful if anyone could identify the Children's Hour programmes from the 1940's which featured the following pieces of introductory or incidental music:

The intermezzo from "Jewels of the Madonna" (Wolf-Ferrari)
The overture "Plymouth Hoe" (composer??)
" Chanson de Matin" (Elgar)

I also remember with nostalgia Hely-Hutchinson's Carol Symphony which accompanied "the Box of Delights" - thankfully repeated in the television series of a few years ago.

Maureen Taylor - March '05
Does anyone else remember Mompty and Peckham on Children's Hour? I asked some of my old schoolfriends (from over 50 years ago), and they don't, but I loved it. Mompty was a cat (Mon Petit Chat), and Peckham a dog. Having just listened to an episode of Toytown brought it all back.