'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)

Subject: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: Will Fly
Date: 31 Oct 12 - 08:30 AM

UK 'Catters of a Certain Age will remember "Children's Hour" on BBC radio in the late 1940s/early 1950s. One of the programmes that regularly featured was the "Toytown" story series, with the voices of Larry the Lamb, Denis the Dachshund, Mr. Growser the Grocer, etc. I was an avid listener to it in Glasgow on our bakelite 'wireless' set and always loved the theme music, which was composed by Leon Jessel in 1897. And here it is, to bring back some memories...

Parade of the Tin Soldiers

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: Will Fly
Date: 31 Oct 12 - 08:46 AM

Forgot to say: " It oughtn't to be allowed!" was the catchphrase of Mr. Growser the Grocer...

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Oct 12 - 08:55 AM

I never remember anything about him being a Grocer. Growsing seemed to be his fulltime avocation. A precursor of Victor Meldrew, with his "I don't believe it".

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 31 Oct 12 - 10:16 AM

Thanks for the video, Will. I remember that song from childhood, too.

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: GUEST,Seayaker
Date: 31 Oct 12 - 10:28 AM

I always got the impression that Mr. Growser was a retired civil servant or bank manager with too much time on his hands, hence all the growsing.

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: nickp
Date: 31 Oct 12 - 10:57 AM

"Mr Mayor, there's a dragon..."

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Oct 12 - 11:24 AM

You date it too late, Will. I remember very well listening to it in the mid-30s, and it was well estabd by then. (I learn from wiki that it ran from 1922-1964}. One should mention also that the announcers and presenters were all known as "Uncles and Aunts": Donald McCulloch, eg, who was also the voice of Larry the Lamb, was always "Uncle Mac".

A BTW: Larry the Lamb always spoke with an exaggerated bleat, so the late Peter Bellamy was sometimes called "the Larry the Lamb imitator" on the Scene; presumably only by those with long memories like yours & mine. ('The Mayor' was played by one Franklyn Bellamy. Franklyn was Peter's middle name. Any relation, does anyone know?)

Many thanks for the 'Parade'.

~M~

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Oct 12 - 11:33 AM

BTW Will ~~ Who provided the rhythm guitar backing? Did you double-track it on yourself, or is someone else playing off-camera?

I think we should be told!

~M~

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: Will Fly
Date: 31 Oct 12 - 11:34 AM

Ah, Michael, I was only recounting the years I listened to it. :-)

Derek McCullough -by the way - not Donald. "Uncle Mac" was, in reality, a bad-tempered sod who wasn't too fond children... But I still loved the "Children's Favourites" show on Saturday morning.

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Oct 12 - 11:53 AM

Of course ~ Derek. Sorry. Yes, the tale was that he didn't like children; but I wonder if that was just a bit of the perverse sort of folklore that always grows up about such things.

A point of minor interest: Norman Shelley, one of the Dennis the Dachshund actors, is also credited, with how much truth I know not, with having delivered some of Churchill's radio speeches to the nation during the war when Winston was too busy to do it himself.

~M~

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: Will Fly
Date: 31 Oct 12 - 12:00 PM

When I started work at the Beeb in the '60s, I met Uncle Mac once - and a grumpy old sod he was!

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Oct 12 - 12:09 PM

The 'Churchill was really Norman Shelley' myth is vigorously contested in the wiki entry on N Shelley, and well debunked in

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/myths/myths/an-actor-read-his-speeches

It was apparently the result of a confusion: Shelley had recorded one of WSC's speeches for the US market, with his approval and even to his amusement. The canard that they were all delivered by him was apparently the invention of David Sinclair, the notorious Holocaust-denier & all-round nasty, together with the other canard that Churchill was an excessive drinker, which he wasn't,

Sorry to drift so far from Toytown; but one of that programme's actors [who apparently was himself instrumental in confirming & spreading the 'speeches' lie] was much involved in all this so I think it has some relevance.

He was Winnie-the-Pooh on Children's Hour also, BTW!

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Oct 12 - 12:17 PM

& Derek McC was commentator for the first broadcast FA Cup Final in 1927. According to wiki, Will, he lost a leg in a traffic accident in the late 1930s, and was in constant pain thereafter. Perhaps that explains his grumpiness in the 60s when you met him in his old age. He appears to have been genuinely dedicated to his Childrens Hour role.

~M~

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Oct 12 - 12:43 PM

So far as Churchill's drinking is concerned, it does seem pretty clear he could put it away. I like the comment by Professor Warren Kimball of Rutgers, who wrote several erudite books on Roosevelt and Churchill, who said that Churchill was not an alcoholic -"no alcoholic could drink that much!"

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: GUEST,Jane Ann Liston
Date: 01 Nov 12 - 08:01 AM

Having heard some of the 'Toytown' programmes in the 1960s I was delighted to find them recently aired on Radio 7/4 Extra. As well as 'It ought not to be allowed' Mr Growser was also fond of saying 'It's disgrrraceful'. And there was Ernest the policeman, who spoke in a voice resembling Walter Gabriel. My favourite character is Dennis the Dachshund, who spoke with a German accent and in mixed up sentences, presumably akin to the German word order. Dennis was always up to some scheme and leading Larry astray and as such he anticipated Major Dennis Bloodnok, Sid James (in 'Hancock's Half-Hour') and also Yoda.

Perhaps it was Dennis's influence which led to Larry becoming Editor of the Sun, or have I got that wrong?

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 Nov 12 - 11:49 AM

I thought Larry became a TV actor...

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 Nov 12 - 11:53 AM

BTW Will ~~ Who provided the rhythm guitar backing? Did you double-track it on yourself, or is someone else playing off-camera?

I think we should be told!

Must have missed this, Michael - for which apologies. Yes - I recorded the lead mandolin first, then added the backing guitar. I recorded the lead on a portable Zoom H2 recorder and uploaded the track to my Mac Book Pro (using Garageband software). Then, while playing the mandolin track back to myself, I recorded the guitar on to the Zoom - and then uploaded that track to the Mac and synched both up...

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: GUEST,Mary Fletcher
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 04:33 AM

Is there a recording of the program online?i remember the way someone on the council said things were 'absolutely disrrrraceful,Mr Major'

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: GUEST,FloraG
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 04:15 AM

I still play that tune is sessions sometimes. People my age usually smile before joining in.
Its so much more difficult to learn new tunes now we don't have the test card.
FloraG

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 12:22 PM

Any resemblance to SW1A 0AA is entirely deliberate.

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 06:36 AM

The Toytown party:


And .. There .. was .. Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble & Grubb.
Oh how sinful, Having a skinful,
Right in the middle of our pub.
Over there was a smelly little bear,
Somebody said "That's pooh!"
And we all got blue-blind, string-tangled drunk,
At the Toytown annual do.

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 11:46 AM

Thanks for the performance, Will. I'm impressed by your quick, precise notes.

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: Will Fly
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 12:21 PM

Thanks, leeneia - it wasn't easy to play as I recall...

Subject: RE: 'It oughtn't to be allowed!' (Toytown)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 08:47 PM

I see I posted a couple of times to this way back, but I never got round to opening up the link to Will playing the Parade of the Tin Soldiers till just now.

Lovely stuff, Will. I urge other people who missed it to give it a listen.

And yes, it brings back good memories.

I sometimes suspect that Toytown was one of the things lying at the back of the minds of Jimmy Perry and David Croft when they were writing Dad's Army.