Birthdays Come but Once a Year

Having looked at a list of several hundred (alleged) celebrities who share my birthday today and recognising very few of them, Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac and Julius Caesar excepted, it was a big relief to find the attached story on the Daily Telegraph website! Click HERE to read the article.


I used to be a big fan of Andy Pandy and it has come as a big shock to discover he was attached to strings . . . Didn't he have two companions - Teddy and Looby Lou? And what about the Woodentops with Spotty Dog and the third Watch with Mother star - Muffin the Mule? and the creme de la creme of children's shows - Rag, Tag and Bobtail? 


Andy Pandy, so the story goes, was first broadcast in England in July 1950 just as I was being born in Cyrenaica. Then two years later when my parents returned to England and were housed by the local council - like hundreds of others - in an estate formed from old wartime Army nissen huts - they got a television. Oh Joy! Those were the days, my friends. Ah, nostalgia - a powerful thing.


Right - LISTEN UP! - and enjoy!


ANDY PANDY







THE WOODEN TOPS







RAG, TAG AND BOBTAIL







MUFFIN THE MULE

Alice in Wonderland?

This Victorian photograph of a child shows her new dress and a pair of remarkable slippers. I wonder why she isn't looking at the camera? I wonder, also, about the size of the chair. Could this be Alice in Wonderland? Sadly, no. A spidery hand has written on the reverse: "Miss Dorothea Bradford at an early age"