Come and hide in the world of children's TV

Thus I have turned to the only logical thing: Children’s Television. By immersing myself in old episodes of The Family Ness and Byker Grove I have been able to swaddle my brain in the comforting warmth of a time before graduate recruitment. The most joyous moment of the week by far was rediscovering this:

Why don’t they make theme tunes like that any more eh?

If you’re looking for more than just entertainment (infotainment shall we say?), then the holy grail of kid’s telly in my house was Blue Peter. I’m sure I wanted to be Katy Hill and marry Tim Vincent for several years. The show is so called because it’s named after the flag hoisted by a ship in port when it is ready to sail.

The reasoning behind this title is that the programme is a voyage of adventure and discovery for the viewers. The blue ship logo was originally designed by Tony Hart of Take Hart fame. I recently discovered too that Connie Huq (longest serving presenter, with a degree in economics from Cambridge) went out with Richard Bacon (News of the World said he took coke) for 8 years!

As well as the trusty favourite of Blue Peter I have very much been enjoying a revival of No Sweat. Now unless you’re a true kid’s telly geek the name will mean nothing to you but I’m pretty sure that an alarmingly high proportion of people of our generation would be able to have a bash at singing “Man not a boy”, the lyrically perfect number 7 single that was spawned by the show. North and South, the band that were put together to film the show in response to a ceefax advert, split up soon after the second series ended. However one member has since graduated from Harvard and made it through to the Hollywood stage of American Idol.

For true escapism though you're going to need something a little less gritty (!) and a little more animated. And for this I prescribe Albert the Fifth Musketeer. As well as being fast, cool and nobody’s fool the tiny Frenchman is also, in my opinion, responsible for one of the supreme kid’s telly series.

Although if you like your cartoons with a little more linguistic creativity then look no further than the Poddington Peas. You wouldn’t think there’d be much scope in pea based names - but you’d be wrong. The show featured all of the following: Zip-Pea, Hap-Pea, Sweet Pea, Dump-Pea, Creep-Pea and my personal favourite always to be seen sporting an eye patch, Black Eyed-Pea.

With any luck then, this column will have rekindled a long lost love in you for all things CBBC - after all who needs a career when someone’s created a ‘Which Poddington Pea are you’ quiz? Maybe that’s how I’ll make my millions…

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