Back in the day, when the telly was our babysitter while Mum and Dad were doing the milking, my older brother would frequently beat me up.
He would whack me with cushions, laugh at my preoccupation with Peter Tork from The Monkees and generally make fun of me.
He’ll deny all of it now, of course, but I distinctly remember telling him, in all earnestness: ‘If a policeman said I was allowed to kill you, I’d do it.’
A few years later, he was fighting for his life after a dreadful scooter accident, and I’m ashamed to say my first, fleeting thought was ‘ooh, maybe I can have his bedroom’, which is terrible, but that’s how it is with children.
We’ve patched up our differences now, which is just as well.
But one of the things we did enjoy together was sitting down on a weekday night (was it a Wednesday?) to watch Animal Magic with Johnny Morris.
A Facebook friend posted about this children’s programme recently, which jogged my memory.
Gosh, I loved that show. As soon as the theme tune started, we were transfixed. Johnny Morris’s voices for the animals were brilliant. This anthropomorphic treatment of animals fell out of fashion latterly but, I think, as children it gave us a real empathy for the creatures in Johnny’s zoo.
We know now that captivity is not right for wild animals. All those cages and confined spaces and humans lining up to gawp and stare.
But Morris was an environmentalist and his kindness shone through, and the nation’s love for animals flourished as a result.
When I was seven, I wanted to be a zookeeper when I grew up, solely because of Johnny Morris and Animal Magic. This yearning went on a for a couple of years before I declared at nine or ten that I wanted to be a journalist on the strength of seeing the screwball comedy film His Girl Friday.
And I never got to muck out the lion or wash the elephant.
Animal Magic was staple fodder for my generation. It went on from 1962 to 1983. Classic stuff.
Wikipedia tells me: ‘The signature tune, “Las Vegas”, performed by Group Forty Orchestra, was written by Laurie Johnson for KPM in 1960.[3][4] It more recently featured as the theme music for BBC Two comedy W1A (2014–2017). Around 1980, the original orchestral version was replaced by a funk arrangement (featuring an electric guitar with a wah wah pedal).’
I know which one I prefer!
Maddie Grigg 