Pat Heigham
When small, we did not have TV, but the next door neighbour used to let me in to watch his – that was in the days of "Whirligig" with Humphrey Lestocq.
see: Wikipedia: Whirligig (TV_series)
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(l. to r.) Mr. Turnip, Humphrey Lestocq (HL), Sheilah Ward, Peter Hawkins, Patricia Driscoll, Steve Race, Hank, Francis Coudrill, Cassy, Sooty and Harry Corbett
Alec Bray
And Mr. Turnip, of course. I used to go round to my grandmother’s house of a Saturday afternoon to watch this (my parents did not have a TV till I was 15 (and at 18 I was working in TV). It was a pain, because it was on when the footy finished, and all the cars leaving Reading FC’s Elm Park Ground going past my grannie’s house would set up the most awful interference. (Many cars not supressed in those days!)
But I could not complain too much. You see, my great uncle, Harry Bray, had been Secretary of Reading FC (and during the 1925/6 season when the club found themselves without a manager, Harry took over. The promotion battle went all the way to the last match of the season but Reading won through and were promoted to the Second Division.) And my great aunts had, in their youth, run a boarding house for the Reading players….
Harry was also a teacher, and taught at the school opposite to my grandmother’s house – and where my mother went to school.
Pat Heigham
I remember a ‘cartoon’ or puppet series – Hank the Cowboy – done in the style of the Wurmser animations, I thought, with his horse Silver King and a naughty Indian Chief – Big Chief Guzzlegrub.
At boarding prep school, we were sometimes allowed to sit on the floor of the headmaster’s drawing room in our dressinggowns and watch “Sportsview” I had no interest in sport, but wouldn’t object for the benefit of the rest of my dorm colleagues. Who would have thought that years later, I would be working on the programme in LG!
Alec Bray
Hank and Silver King:
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The info below has come from this site:
http://www.turnipnet.com/whirligig/index.htm
“… These characters were all the creation of Francis Coudrill (assisted by Alfred Wurmser)… Many of the scenes involved quite complicated mechanics with cams and cogwheels moving the eight-inch-high figures. Coudrill produced the shows from start to finish, including the music and all the voices…“
Well, well…
See Hank in colour at YouTube: Hank and Silver King
