Mary, Mungo and Midge
Cross posting from LivingGeography blog.
When people of a certain age get together, the talk often turns to children's TV programmes from their youth.One which I remember was set in an unnamed town, perhaps a New Town, with high rise blocks and a somwhat unusual trio of friends.
A girl called Mary, and her dog (who could talk) and a mouse (who could also talk, and play the flute...)
Mary Mungo and Midge was made by John Ryan, who also created Captain Pugwash. It was made using the same style of animation, with backgrounds and flat characters who were moved to create the animations in real time using levers in a system that Ryan called 'captions'.
It was first shown in 1969 (when I would have been 5 or 6 years old). I remember quite a few of the programmes and also have a DVD which features all the programmes.
The music was by Johnny Pearson and some of this can be heard on Spotify. Here's an example of the music which took me back when I found it.
The narration, and some character voices were provided by the well-known (at the time) TV newsreader Richard Baker. Each episode started with some introductory description:
"A town is full of buildings. Some tall, some short, some wide and some narrow. The buildings are flats and houses and factories and shops. They’re built in streets. The streets have cars and buses and lorries driving along them. . . . Do you live in a town?"
Greg Healey's 'Not in front of the Children' has a chapter exploring the programme and its cultural connections. It describes the programme as having an "almost utopian vision of modern urban living".
It broke the mould of children's TV as being set in pastoral locations.
The characters live in a tower block with paved areas and carefully tended flowerbeds. Each episode is based around a set piece celebration of modern living. They go shopping, visit the beach or post a parcel. These are quotidian experiences.
Everything in the programmes works smoothly. Healey describes the programme as resembling "a work of propaganda, designed to promote the rehousing and urban renewal schemes of Britain's post-war governments' (presumably to the parents of those children who were watching in homes around the country).
The town has a river which is bridged "so that the cars and buses and lorries can get to the other side".
The first episode called 'The Crane' shows a building site: a view familiar to many in the 1960s. The trio go and play on the building site (this is not to be recommended by the way and is surprising that it was featured in a children's TV programme. The message of the programme, according to Healey is that "the modern tower blocks that dominate the skyline are the future and that future is good".
The programme came at a time when some of the changes in communities which had been made were proving to be rather less than popular.
Communities had been ripped apart with whole streets demolished and people sent to various parts of cities rather than being kept together. The high rise blocks that were often put up in their place had structural problems, or a lack of open space and social isolation.
In cities like Leeds, the rubble from these 'slum clearances' were around for decades afterwards, and were a feature of the Beiderbecke trilogy of programmes.
In Sheffield, Park Hill Flats became symptomatic of the new problems when the developers created 'streets in the sky'.
You can search the blog for other posts on Park Hill as I have mentioned it several times. It has now been taken on by developer Urban Splash and represents one of the more desirable parts of the city to live in, with a view across the railway lines to the city centre.
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