Play school

Catch ’em young makes sense if you’re selling a product, an organisation or a belief system.

Catch ’em young makes sense if you’re selling a product, an organisation or a belief system. And the BBC has never lagged behind the commercial broadcasters and their advertisers in this regard. From its inception children’s programming was seen as crucial to its output. Dutifully at five o’clock, just in time for family tea, Children’s Hour began on the Home Service, with a medley of dramas, quiz shows, news bulletins designed to entrance five- to 15-year-olds. (Does anyone else remember the inimitable voice of Derek McCulloch as Larry the Lamb, or the gravelly tones of the avuncular David Davis?) Education was not the motivation; the BBC had the Schools Service for that, a generation of children stitching seams in sewing class while listening to Penelope as she kept on weaving (actually, if I remember correctly, the radio version had her knitting).