But Emily loved him

how seventies children's TV shaped a life long love of words and music

I think Bagpuss may have been my first love. I would sit, cuddle my own real life Bagpuss (a natty pyjama case with a decidedly uncuddly hard plastic body from Guisborough market) place his tail at the exact same angle he had in the opening scenes and wish that I could inhabit Emily’s world.

not Bagpuss but just as loved

This pink and white striped cat was just one of a series of heroes of course. Keith and Maria from A Handful of Songs, Rory and Boots from Animal Kwackers, even the folk horror of Hartley Hare – each one made me happy beyond any four year old’s dreams.

cover of the 1975 Animal Kwackers album

Why am I talking about this? Earlier this week I happened upon an Instagram feed called Miffy dances. It’s a simple premise where a line of Miffys dance to various tunes, managing to be in time despite no obvious change to the animation. It delights me.

This led me to consider about the place of these programmes in shaping me, shaping what is important to me and what makes me feel safe and whole. If I think back to Bagpuss this simple show gave me songs sung by an army of mice. They sang of mending chocolate biscuit mills cleaning and re imagining ballet shoes, fixing sad straw elephants. Bagpuss also gave me songs like the Miller’s Song with lilting folk lyrics embedded in the wheel of the year

Shine the sun and rain the rain

Fall the shivery snow

Frost and hail and wind again

As the year will go

The Miller’s Song - Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner

Words like simple, whimsical, quaint abound when I read articles about children’s TV in the seventies and these are not undeserved. What I find when I think back to time spent watching these programmes is a feeling of love – not just for the characters but also for music and song. There was a simple expectation that music, singing, creativity would be inherent to my enjoyment of life and be one of the most important things I could consume as entertainment. There were a couple of programmes designed to educate (You & Me was fantastic for this) but mostly these programmes were designed to harness and encourage self-expression in the most gloriously exuberant way.

Which are better poems or lyrics?

An early poetry teacher was more than a little dismissive of song lyrics. This debate still surprises me. I can almost understand it - after all the musician has music at their disposal to enhance meaning in a way that a poet does not. Nonetheless, song lyrics have given me some of my most important codes for living, my most significant crystallisation of feeling. This may be about class - music was more accessible than poetry - it may be about being taught poetry in a way that was designed to make it appear to be puzzle that was only solvable by the top set girls. It may be that for me the combination of music and language is more powerful, more memorable. It may also be a debate that simply does not need to happen. It is rare to hear arguments about whether gouache or acrylics are as valid a medium for painting so why raise one way of using words over another?

What are the current equivalents?

I am child free by choice, so have little first hand insight into the way that children first encounter music and song. I do know that a great deal of state education in the UK is centered around targets and scoring which would seem to exclude the presence of lessons such as Music and Movement* which I remember loving. A qucik google reveals that Music education is supported by the means of Music Hubs. Lessons and access to instruments accrue a fee that would be beyond the means of many parents. It does not appear to be the inherent part of everyday life that it was. I may well be wrong – and I hope I am – but it seems that we are heading back to a pre-war circumstance where education in the arts is for those blessed with money and/or parents willing to invest in their children’s development.

Do children’s programmes fill the gap?

Pre-school programmes use music and song in abundance and whilst there is nothing quite as trippy as Animal Kwackers it all seems quite lovely. My nostalgic eyes long for the soft colours and muted tones of the seventies, but the vibrancy and joy of singing is still very much alive. What might be missing is community. Each of these programmes are can be streamed individually, watched according to child’s and parents’ preference. There will be some overlap I’m sure and I’m guessing they’re shown in schools (oh the excitement of the big telly being wheeled in!) but it’s unlikely that the same sense of unity will emerge as when you mention Bagpuss to a bunch of folk born in the seventies.  

And so I go full circle, from thinking about what these programmes mean to me, the value of the links with folk songs and stories (along with a healthy dose of bizarrity Pipkins I’m looking at you) and the joy of making up songs for every activity a habit that has never left me (much to my husband’s delight). My wild feeling was born in these shows and found it’s home in writing. I am very glad to be back in this world, and forever grateful to the creators of these gems designed to delight and bring joy and open a door to a world of daydreams.

*Music and Movement was part of the curriculum until 1974. It had solid aims of improving cognitive and motor skills. My lasting memory is of swaying wildly with over expressive arms. It’s a dance style that has served me well and means I always have a lot of space around me in nightclubs.