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I’ve only ever been to the NFT before to use the bar. That’s a terrible admission, isn’t it. Anyhow, this evening that was rectified, as Rich had spotted an ‘audience with’ night at the Turntable Cafe on the subject of Watch With Mother, that once-great British institution that saw programmes made specifically for parents (female parents in particular) to watch with their children. That was when TV wasn’t simply a substitute baby-sitter, and programmes like Mr Benn were de rigeur.

Now the star attraction was to be three episodes of Joe, previously thought lost but since rediscovered in the BBC archives. I’d never seen it before, so it was mildly fascinating to watch these black and white works of art, where a 15 minute programme was told with as few as 25 still frames, jazzed up only by the occasional Ken Burns-style camera pan. In the panel discussion afterwards, the programme makers - two old women, one with a walking stick who would no doubt drive you mad with frustration in a post office - explained that they were all recorded ‘as live’, with the narrator and a full orchestra in situ. Why live? Because it was recorded onto video tape, then the height of technology but unfortunately, at that time, entirely beyond anyone’s technical abilities to edit.

Far more interesting, though, were the episodes of Bod and Fingerbobs that they also showed. I’d forgotten quite how cheeky and mischevous Fingermouse used to be, or how slow and laboured Bod was.

The high point, though, was undoubtedly the panel discussion, in which the two animators of Joe, Emily (the girl in the sepia pictures at the start of every episode of Bagpuss) and an animator from Bod took to the stage and talked about their work.

The two ‘Joe’ women were positively batty, but you couldn’t help admiring what they had achieved. They met one day, back in the early 60s, while wheeling a total of seven children (four for one, three for the other) around a south London park. Neither had any money, and neither a husband, so to make some money they decided they’d write a children’s book. Joe was born. This done, they made it into a short film, which they sent to the BBC and - as much a surprise to them as anyone else - it was commissioned on the spot as a series of 13 episodes, each 15 minutes long.

It was a baptism of fire, as neither had done anything like it before, but between them they fulfilled their contact and put out the shows, before going on to work on more colourful, better-known programmes, Postman Pat and Trumpton among them.

The latter of those two, quite incredibly, was recorded in a back-bedroom in Richmond, and they’d had to stop the recording every time a plane flew overhead on the Heathrow flight-path so as not to ruin the sound-track. For each episode they got paid just £15, with no royalties or repeat fees thereafter.

I warmed to them almost immediately, and they really were fascinating to listen to. Indeed, I was surprised that I found them more engaging than the Bod guy, who I’d been particularly looking forward to hearing. He did reveal one interesting fact, though: all of the Bod stories were based on Buddhist proverbs, which kind of makes sense when you look at many of the characters’ stereotypically eastern features.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 at 12:59 am and is filed under Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.