Magpie was a children's television programme shown on
ITVITV is a public service network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up under the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC. ITV is the oldest commercial television network in the UK...
from the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. It was a magazine format show intended to compete with the BBC's
Blue PeterBlue Peter is a long-running BBC television programme for children. It is shown on CBBC, both in its BBC One programming block and on the CBBC Channel.It is named after the blue-and-white flag hoisted by a ship in port when it is ready to sail...
, but attempted to be more "hip", focusing more on
popular culturePopular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture...
. The show's creator Lewis Rudd named the programme
Magpie as a reference to the
magpieMagpies are passerine birds of the crow family, Corvidae. The names 'jay' and 'magpie' are to an extent interchangeable, although this does not accurately reflect the evolutionary relationship between these birds...
's habit of collecting small items, and because of "mag" being evocative of "magazine", and "pie" being evocative of a collection of ingredients.
Thee programme, made by
Thames TelevisionThames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992. It was both a broadcaster and a producer of television programmes, making shows both for the local region it covered...
, was first transmitted on 30 July 1968, which was Thames Television's first day of broadcasting.
Magpie was a children's television programme shown on
ITVITV is a public service network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up under the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC. ITV is the oldest commercial television network in the UK...
from the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. It was a magazine format show intended to compete with the BBC's
Blue PeterBlue Peter is a long-running BBC television programme for children. It is shown on CBBC, both in its BBC One programming block and on the CBBC Channel.It is named after the blue-and-white flag hoisted by a ship in port when it is ready to sail...
, but attempted to be more "hip", focusing more on
popular culturePopular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture...
. The show's creator Lewis Rudd named the programme
Magpie as a reference to the
magpieMagpies are passerine birds of the crow family, Corvidae. The names 'jay' and 'magpie' are to an extent interchangeable, although this does not accurately reflect the evolutionary relationship between these birds...
's habit of collecting small items, and because of "mag" being evocative of "magazine", and "pie" being evocative of a collection of ingredients.
Broadcast history
Thee programme, made by
Thames TelevisionThames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992. It was both a broadcaster and a producer of television programmes, making shows both for the local region it covered...
, was first transmitted on 30 July 1968, which was Thames Television's first day of broadcasting. It was shown once a week for the first year, but from then until it ended in 1980 went out twice a week. The first presenters were the former
BBC Radio 1BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the BBC which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock or interviews. It is aimed...
disc jockeyA disc jockey is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, dis
k referred to phonograph records, while dis
c referred to the Compact Disc, and has become the more common spelling...
Pete Brady,
Susan StranksSusan Stranks is a British actress, television presenter and producer.-Career:Susan was just ten years old when she played the role of Emmeline Foster in the 1949 film The Blue Lagoon....
, and
Tony BastableAnthony Leslie Bastable was an English television presenter who was best known for being one of original presenters of the children's programme Magpie.-Early life:...
. Brady left the show in 1969 to be replaced by
Douglas RaeDouglas Rae is a British television producer and executive, and a former children's television presenter....
, and Bastable left in 1972 when he was replaced by
Mick RobertsonMick Robertson is a former presenter of the ITV children's television magazine programme Magpie.-Early career:...
.
Jenny HanleyJenny Hanley is an English actress, the daughter of Dinah Sheridan and Jimmy Hanley.She remains best known for being one of the presenters of the ITV children's magazine programme Magpie....
replaced
Susan StranksSusan Stranks is a British actress, television presenter and producer.-Career:Susan was just ten years old when she played the role of Emmeline Foster in the 1949 film The Blue Lagoon....
in 1974. This lineup remained until 1977, when
Tommy BoydTimothy Leslie Boyd , better known as Tommy Boyd, is an English radio and television presenter, who now lives in Chichester, West Sussex.-Early career:...
replaced Rae.
Approximately 1000 episodes were made, each of a duration of 25 minutes.
Like
Blue Peter,
Magpie featured appeals for various causes and charities. Notably however, it asked for cash donations rather than stamps or secondhand goods, familiar on
Blue Peter. The cash totaliser was a long strip of paper which ran out of the studio and along the adjacent corridor walls.
The show's mascot was a
magpieMagpies are passerine birds of the crow family, Corvidae. The names 'jay' and 'magpie' are to an extent interchangeable, although this does not accurately reflect the evolutionary relationship between these birds...
called Murgatroyd.
Theme song
The theme tune was played by the
Spencer Davis GroupThe Spencer Davis Group was a mid-1960s British beat group from Birmingham, England. In its heyday the group consisted of Spencer Davis, Steve Winwood, Muff Winwood and Pete York; Jimmy Miller was their producer...
under the alias of
The Murgatroyd Band, and written by their guitarist
Ray FenwickRay Fenwick is a guitarist and session musician, best known for replacing Steve Howe in The Syndicats, and as the lead guitarist of Ian Gillan's post Deep Purple solo project, the Ian Gillan Band.-Biography:...
. The main lyric was cribbed from an old children's
nursery rhymeThe term nursery rhyme is used for ‘traditional’ songs for young children in Britain and many English speaking countries, but usage only dates from the nineteenth century and in North America the older ‘Mother Goose Rhymes’ is still often used.-Lullabies:...
:
- One for sorrow
- Two for joy
- Three for a girl
- Four for a boy
- Five for silver
- Six for gold
- Seven for a secret never to be told
- Eight for Heaven
- Nine for Hell
- Ten for the Devil himself
or, alternatively,
- Eight for a wish
- Nine for a kiss, and
- Ten for a big surprise!
The first seven lines of this song (from "One for sorrow" to "Seven for a secret never to be told") have been used in the last verse of the song Magpie, by
Patrick WolfPatrick Wolf is an English singer-songwriter from South London. Patrick utilises a wide variety of instruments in his music, most commonly the ukulele, piano and viola...
.
The rhyme refers to an old English
superstitionSuperstition is a credulous belief or notion, not based on reason, knowledge, or experience. The word is often used pejoratively to refer to folk beliefs deemed irrational. This leads to some superstitions being called "old wives' tales"...
concerning the portent of the number of magpies seen together in a flock. The TV programme version altered the final lines to:
- Eight's a wish and
- Nine a kiss
- Ten is a bird you must not miss (a tongue-in-cheek admonition not to miss future editions of Magpie).
Steam engine
In 1973, Magpie adopted a steam engine,
"Black 5" 44806LMS Stanier Class 5 4-6-0 No. 4806 is a preserved British steam locomotive. It was built at Derby in 1944.- Service history :Numbered 4806 by the LMS, after nationalisation in 1948, she had 40000 added to her number under British Railways...
and renamed her "Magpie" (Blue Peter already had a locomotive named after their show). After an eventful history, it is still being used today on the
Llangollen RailwayThe Llangollen Railway is a volunteer-run preserved railway in Denbighshire, Wales, which runs from Llangollen to Carrog, at 7.5 mile long , it is easily the longest preserved Standard-Gauge line in Wales.Work is being carried out on an extension to Corwen, with the trackbed cleared to Bonwm Halt,...
, although now under another name.
Magpie also adopted a boat originally called Mankadu, and renamed Thames Magpie. To many, its present existence is unknown.
External links