Web Page  No 2420

6^th November 2017

First Picture: The Appleyard Family

 Second Picture: The Opening Screen to the TV show

 Third Picture: Poor picture of a scene from the only surviving episode

Forth Picture; Christmas with the Appleyards. Note the jumper!!!

The Appleyards

The Appleyards was a British television soap opera aimed especially for children. It was made and transmitted fortnightly by BBC Television from October 1952 to April 1957, from their Lime Grove Studios. It was produced and directed by Naomi Capon.

Transmitted live on a Thursday afternoon from 4:30 to 5 p.m. with a Sunday repeat (which was not usually a recorded repeat of the first show but the same cast repeating a live performance). Each episode was about 20 minutes in length. The programme told the story of the Home Counties family Mr and Mrs Appleyard and their three children: John, Margaret, and Tommy. They were usually accompanied by their neighbour and best friend Ronnie Grant.

In the show's first year (1952) the episodes were aired live and never recorded, thus no episodes from the 1952 season exist. From 1953, the episodes were tele-recorded, but the BBC ended up wiping most of them. Only one episode (entitled "Family Treat" and originally aired on December 29th, 1956) of the entire run of 68 exists in television archives as of 2017, and can be found on YouTube. In the early days the theme music was piped into the studio from a 78 rpm recording.

Its tales of serial ordinariness made it the junior version of the BBC’s own The Grove Family, which ran for the same period. Unlike later soaps, which continue in real time, as the younger Appleyard child actors grew, they were replaced, so in this little corner of suburban England time appeared to stand still.

The title was not to the liking of the BBC Controller of Programmes, at the time, Cecil McGivern, who famously suggested that it sounded more like ‘a suet pudding with a mixture of cement’.

The last episode finished with Mrs. Appleyard and Tommy sitting on a porter's trolley at the end of a railway platform, when she announced that as most of the family were now grown up it was time to end the series.

It was of its time but also a ground-breaking family sitcom, popular with both adults and children alike but particularly the latter who saw it as embodiment of their own family. The catchy light music was called "Looking Around" by Colin Smith and recorded by conductor Robert Farnon.

As the series developed a new character, an eccentric elderly male neighbour who was always getting into the family’s activities. He was always cadging meals and was not popular with the rest of the family but Mrs Appleyard took pity on him.

Towards the end of the series the eldest son was getting married with the younger son as best man, they arrived late at the church because they could not find a bow tie for the groom and the younger son provided him with a fancy revolving one! During the wait at the church the neighbour started to sing “There I was Waiting at the Church” making himself less than popular.

A reunion programme, "Christmas with the Appleyards", went out at on Christmas Eve 1960 and was sandwiched between   The Lone Ranger at 5.00pm in an episode called “An Eye for an Eye” with
“Christmas with the Appleyards” at 5.25pm billed as a special Christmas reunion featuring the original members of the former serial  and The News at 5.50pm. This was followed by The Sports Programme and then between 6.00pm and 6.28pm by Juke Box Jury

The programme was not the starting place for many future TV actors as “The Grove Family” was with Ruth Dunning and Christopher Beany.

The cast list for “The Appleyards” did vary a bit.

Constance Fraser was Mrs. Appleyard for 76 episodes, 1952-1960

Douglas Muir as Mr. Appleyard for 64 episodes, 1953-1960

Derek Rowe as Tommy Appleyard (75 episodes, 1952-1960)

David Edwards as John Appleyard (58 episodes, 1952-1960)

Robert Dickens as Ronnie Grant (44 episodes, 1952-1960)

Pat Fryer as Margaret Appleyard (37 episodes, 1953-1960)

Also Carol Olver as Margaret Appleyard (32 episodes, 1954-1957)

All a far cry from the soap Opera of today!!!!

Keep in touch

Yours

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

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News and Views:

On this day 6^th November 1960-1965

On 06/11/1960 the number one single was It's Now Or Never - Elvis Presley and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Bootsie & Snudge (Granada) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

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