Autobiography #4

[robinturner]

All in all, these days were happy ones. They were dominated by routines and rituals, which I'm told are good for young children. The weekend lie-in in my parents' bed I mentioned was one; others included "elevenses" with tea and biscuits (I was a tea-drinker at an early age), classical music on the radio, punctuated by Listen With Mother ("Are we all sitting comfortably? Then let's begin.") and a range of wonderful children's TV programmes with odd names: Andy Pandy, Trumpton, Camberwick Green, The Flowerpot Men. The latter, along with it's more famous relative, The Magic Roundabout, was truly a child of the Sixties. The heroes were Bill and Ben, the (you guessed it) flowerpot men, so called because they were made of flowerpots (this kind of logic appeals to the young mind, I suppose). They moved aroud in an unco-ordinated way, and spoke their own language, which went something like "Shloba liplop globadoba shub". the effect was rather like a pair of paralytically drunk scat singers. There was also a weed, called Little Weed, who just said "weeeed!" and a tortoise called "shlogalog" or something along those lines. I have no idea what the creators of this series were smoking, but when they hit on the idea of a character called Weed, I don't suppose they were only thinking about dandelions. Turn on, tune into children's TV.