December 18, 1952 was a momentous day for children’s television in the UK, as classic characters Bill and Ben, the Flowerpot Men, made their first appearance on Watch with Mother.
The Flower Pot Men series was the creation of Westerham Arts – BBC Head of Children’s Programmes Freda Lingstrom and her friend Maria Bird – who had already had significant success with Andy Pandy, another show aimed at the very young.
The programme featured two stringed puppets made out of flower pots named Bill and Ben, who wore hobnail boots, had gardening gloves for hands and lived at the end of a garden.
The pair spoke in a nonsense language of made-up words and odd noises – Bill in higher, squeakier tones, Ben with a deeper voice, to differentiate them. They also had their names painted across their backs.
Whenever “the man who worked in the garden” went off to have dinner, Bill and Ben would appear and get up to mischief. They would talk to their friend Little Weed, a sunflower-like plant with a smiling face, and would occasionally be visited by a tortoise named Slowcoach.
The programme was only originally broadcast until 1954, but was repeated regularly over the next 20 years. In 2001 a new updated, stop-motion animation series of the programme was broadcast on the BBC.
[November 23, 1963: Doctor Who is first broadcast on BBC TV]
- Bill and Ben first appeared as radio characters, on Listen With Mother in 1951. They featured in three episodes in stories written by Hilda Brabban. Freda Lingstrom adapted these stories and the characters when they moved to television.
- Brabban was paid a guinea each for the stories, but according to her obituary, never received a penny in royalties from sales of the programme – which have been estimated at £2 million in today’s money.
- According to some sources, filming originally took place in a tin shed in the BBC’s Lime Grove studio complex, but was later moved to a purpose-built puppet studio.
- Voices of the characters were provided by Peter Hawkins, Gladys Whitred and Julia Williams. The narrator for each episode was Maria Bird.
- Hawkins created the characters’ trademark nonsense language, which is officially called ‘Oddle Poddle’ – but became known colloquially as ‘flobadob’, after Ben’s favourite utterance.
- Hawkins went on to make up the language of the Teletubbies, some 45 years later. Both series were criticised by some for hindering children from learning proper English.
- The original Bill and Ben puppets are now housed at the Museum of London.
- The modern Bill and Ben series was made by Cosgrove Hall, creators of Danger Mouse, for the BBC. It ran to 52 episodes, and was narrated by actor and comedian John Thomson.