Life experience is in short supply for preschoolers and any form of television that broadens their knowledge of the wider world can only be a good thing. Together, this triumvirate will find themselves confronted with giant geese, running shoes that have come to life and the meteorological terror of a magic whirlwind. As with all good (or bad) witches, Heggerty Haggerty is joined in her adventures by the observant, yet anxious Black Cat and the mischievous Broomstick. Narrated and presented by George Cole, Heggerty Haggerty concerns the magical happenings of friendly witch Heggerty Haggerty's life. Castle also gets involved in the music and may just as easily find himself holding a baton and conducting three bands at once as he does dusting down his trumpet and playing along with the Abbotsfield School Jazz Orchestra. An accomplished musician himself, Castle meets such varied guests as The Royal Marines Corp of Drums, Acker Bilk and The Nolan Sisters. Roy Castle, of course, hosts Roy Castle Beats Time and uses it as a platform to interview a variety of musicians and allow them to demonstrate their musical talents.
Neither series (which were both produced by Alan Russell) received a repeat in the schedules. Two series of Roy Castle Beats Time aired in the mid 1970s on BBC1 with the first series going out at 5.15pm on Wednesdays and the second series filling up the 4.50pm slot on Fridays. Most people immediately reference Record Breakers when it comes to discussing Castle's legacy, but a year or two after that series started, Castle hosted a show which concentrated on his main love: music.
One of the nicest men to ever grace British television, Roy Castle had a varied career on TV thanks to his myriad talents.
Life for the gnomes adheres strictly to The Code of the Gnomes and songs feature heavily throughout the series. The two gnomes discuss the antics of the ‘big ones’ (humans) and are joined in the garden by their friends Bleep the robot, Henrietta the Tortoise (Jacqueline Clarke) and Chips the cat. Mr Fisher (Mike Grady) and Mr Wheeler (Tony Aitken) are two gnomes who live out the back of a fish and chip shop, so it shouldn’t take a great leap to see where the show’s title comes from. David Wood’s gnome based children’s show Chish 'n' Fips originally started life as a theatrical production in Christmas 1980, before being produced for television by Central Television in the mid-1980s for two series. What, though, are these stony souls thinking as we busy ourselves with our human lives and dramas? To get an insight into their thought process you should probably take a look at Chish 'n' Fips. Gnomes look like friendly old sods sat on their toadstools and brandishing not just a fisherman's rod, but usually a big smile.
The final episode finds Billy having to choose between protecting his own back or telling the truth and saving the tramp. Out of the wreckage, however, comes an injured tramp (Ray Smith) who blackmails the children. Taking place in the slag tips of Lancashire, The Hills of Heaven looks at the foolhardy antics of children Billy Walsh (David Haddow), Mick Mack (Malcolm Sproston) and Nancy Brindle (Katie Armstrong) who cause a series of coal wagons to derail in a coal yard. An omnibus edition of all three episodes later aired on BBC1 in 1980, but no further repeats have been forthcoming. The adaptation took place over three 30 minute episodes and aired on Wednesday evenings at 5.10pm. It also makes for fantastic television, so misadventure plays a big part in children's television as seen in The Hills of Heaven.īased on the John Farrimond novel of the same name, The Hills of Heaven was dramatised by BBC1 by Barry Collins and directed by Eric Davidson. Thankfully, these incidents prove to be valuable life lessons, but, at the time, they can seem absolutely terrifying. Mucking around and causing trouble is part and parcel of being a child, but every now and then things can go awry.