Thanks Murray! At least I know I wasn't imagining it.

Here is the reply from the list where I posed the question (he gave me permission to post it here) - it has interesting points on ownership which have been raised in other threads over the time.

Regards Rana

___________________________ The posting:

I e-mailed the web master at http://www.horstjankowski.com about this, and got the following reply:

Dear Peter,

With reference to your question as to whether Horst Jankowski's "A Walk in the Black Forest" was ever used as a theme tune by the BBC, I very much doubt this, based on the following relevant information, that I have taken directly from an interview which Horst gave to WDR, a radio station in Germany.

" I had originally written that tune as "Eine Schwarzwaldfahrt" in 1961 for a radio show. It was a travel programme and I recorded a couple of tracks about famous places like, Paris, the Alps and that kind of thing. "Eine Schwarzwaldfahrt" was about a beautiful trip through Germany's Black Forest. It became successful in America first, in 1964, three years after I had recorded it. The whole story is a very unfortunate part of my career. In the sixties American producers were coming to Europe to buy music for TV shows."

"This was much cheaper for them than producing it at home since here they didn't have to pay musicians and the union. I sold them four tracks from the radio programme, including "Eine Schwarzwaldfahrt" and they paid me 125, - Deutschmarks, which seemed OK at the time. I signed a piece of paper and started work on something else. We musicians were pretty stupid back then. Not long after that, my song was used in an American TV show, and became a huge hit there under the title " A Walk in the Black Forest". It was only then that I realised what exactly I had signed. I wouldn't get any royalties, all rights were owned by an American company. It took me seven years, several lawyers, and lots of money to get the rights back. After seven years, of course, the song was no longer a hit and didn't even make back the money I had spent on the lawsuit. Although I went on to sell lots of albums, I didn't make a penny from "Black Forest!"

So, there we are then Peter, there is no mention of England or the BBC. On the contrary it would seem that "A Walk in the Black Forest" was in fact used for an American TV show!!

I hope that this information helps to answer your question.
yours sincerely,
Phil. (Kent).

I Also did a Google search, and found a reference at Guardian On Line, where someone suggested that it was used for Desmond Morris' "Animal Magic" programme. However, Animal Magic started in 1962, 3 years before "A Walk In The Black Forest" became a hit in August 1965, and was hosted by Johnny Morris, not Desmond Morris, so I'd have to qualify that source as unreliable.

Warm regards Peter

--Previous Message-- : On another list I follow, some one : asked about a 60s TV programme : which had this as the theme music : - I seem to remember this but : can't recall what the programme : was - he suggested an : "outdoor" type programme : - any help out here? : Cheers : Rana