Listen with Mother

Listen with Mother was a BBC radio programme for children which ran between 16 January 1950 and 1 October 1982.[1] It was originally produced by Freda Lingstrom and was presented over the years by Daphne Oxenford, Julia Lang, Eileen Browne, Dorothy Smith and others.[2]

History

It was first broadcast on the Light Programme in a fifteen-minute slot every weekday afternoon at 1.45, just before Woman's Hour. Consisting of stories, songs and nursery rhymes (often sung by Eileen Browne and George Dixon) for children under five (and their mothers), at its peak it had an audience of over a million listeners. From 7 September 1964 the programme moved to the BBC Home Service (later renamed BBC Radio 4).

Listen with Mother's final week's programmes (widely reported in the press) featured Wriggly Worm stories, presented by Nerys Hughes and Tony Aitken and directed by David Bell. These stories were broadcast on the Listen with Mother programmes throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.

Listening Corner, which replaced Listen with Mother on 4 October 1982, began with repeats of the Wriggly Worm stories. Collections of Listen with Mother stories have been published by Hutchinsons/Random House. Two collections of Wriggly Worm stories ('Wonderful Wriggly Worm' and 'Wonderful Wriggly Worm Rides Again'), by Eugenie Summerfield, have been published by Book Guild. Listening Corner continued until 24 August 1990, ending three days before the launch of BBC Radio 5.

Theme music

The Berceuse from Faurés Dolly Suite

The theme music, which became synonymous with the programme, was the Berceuse from Gabriel Fauré's Dolly Suite for piano duet, Op. 56. It was recorded for the programme by Eileen Browne and Roger Fiske, though Julia Lang in an Anglia Television interview in the 1990s said that during her tenure, when she finished reading the story she had to get up (noiselessly), rush across to the piano in the studio and play the Berceuse live.

"Are you sitting comfortably?"

Each story on Listen with Mother opened with the phrase "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin." (sometimes "...Then we'll begin")[3] The question, originally an ad lib by Julia Lang on 16 January 1950, became so well known that it appears in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations[1] It has been incorporated and sampled by many artists and musicians. For instance, in the episode "The Idiot's Lantern", in the revived series of Doctor Who, it was used by the alien presence known as "The Wire" appearing on a television screen and addressing its first victim, the hapless Mr. Magpie. It was also used as the opening line in the film The Others. English actor John Wood used the line in the 1983 film WarGames. It was also used on the song "It Doesn't Really Matter" by the Canadian band Platinum Blonde on their 1983 Standing in the Dark album.

The phrase was used as the title, and was included, in the lyrics of the Moody Blues song, "Are You Sitting Comfortably?" from the 1969 album, On the Threshold of a Dream. It was also used at the beginning of the Slade song "Did Your Mama Ever Tell Ya?", which appeared on the band's 1976 album, Nobody's Fools. It was also used in band alt-J's song, "Hand-Made", from the 2012 album "An Awesome Wave". It was used also in the opening monologue of "Fargo" in Season 3 Episode 4.

See also

  • Watch with Mother
  • Sandmännchen The German equivalent to Listen with Mother, that starts with the opening "Nun, liebe Kinder, gebt fein Acht. Ich habe euch etwas mitgebracht" (Now, dear children, pay attention. I have brought you something) in the same way that Listen with Mother started "Are You Sitting Comfortably? Then I'll Begin"

References

  1. 1 2 "January Anniversaries: Listen with Mother 16 January 1950". The BBC Story. Archived from the original on 2014-01-09.
  2. ↑ Whirlygig nostalgia site - Accessed 25 Jan 2011
  3. ↑ "Are You Sitting Comfortably?". Random Radio Jottings. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
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