19 November, 1964
It was a grey, late autumn afternoon. The afternoon had been dull and drearily anticyclonic. We were in the living room of our home in Lichfield, my brother and myself, television turned on, curtains closed, coals glowing in the open fire (we had no central heating). On the television, Blue Peter, presented by Valerie Singleton and Christopher Trace. Chris was probably adding bits to his model railway and I’m sure Val must have been doing things with sticky-backed plastic even then. Were they making their Christmas advent crown, or did that come later? I’m pretty sure Bleep and Booster must have got a look in – their second serial had begun back in September.
5.30 rolls around. Suddenly, the friendly family atmosphere of Blue Peter is swept aside on a chilly breeze from the German Democratic Republic. Here comes something strange, the stuff of nightmares. Once seen, never forgotten.
The Singing, Ringing Tree, an East German fairytale fantasy, had been filmed in colour back in 1957. Now the BBC had bought it to be shown as part of their new Tales From Europe strand of imported classic serials, editing the feature-length original into three episodes. It was broadcast, of course, in black and white. I've since seen it in colour but in my memory it remains in monochrome, dream-like and still unsettling.
Tales From Europe had been running for only a few weeks, commencing on Thursday 1 October with The Tinderbox. Heidi followed, spanning four weeks from 22 October to 12 November. Did I watch them? I don’t remember. Fairy tales weren’t really my thing. Even in storybook form I found them a bit much to take, usually on account of the creepy illustrations that always seemed to accompany them. Now the same thing was about to happen on television.
Everyone who remembers The Singing, Ringing Tree remembers being scared by it. Ask them what they found scary and they will always give the same answer: the dwarf. I don’t think he put in an appearance until week two; but even before he did, there was already a slightly disturbing quality about The Singing, Ringing Tree. The whole production looked like a strange dream brought to life. It was all shot on a soundstage, and I think that was the key to its unsettling vibe – the scenes supposedly set outdoors had a weird artificiality about them, the tree itself being a notable example. I remember getting the same vibe five years later from Star Trek.
Fortunately, the serial only ran for three weeks, but it would be repeated several times. I’d got Tales From Europe marked down as one to avoid when it turned up again in 1966, but I still somehow managed to see fragments of The Singing, Ringing Tree on its second outing. By this time, I was ready to hide behind the sofa or change channels as soon as the dwarf appeared. Why was he so scary? I still have no idea. I think it was his face rather than his size that frightened me, and his strange way of moving, in little leaps and gestures.
The serial was repeated on no less than six occasions. On its third and fourth outings, in 1969 and 1971, I avoided it altogether. It was back yet again in 1976 and 1977, and even as late as 1980 it was being scheduled in the early evening. These later broadcasts added an extra dimension to the viewing experience – colour.
I wouldn’t get to see it in colour myself until much later. It was 28 December 1999, in fact, when I sat down to watch the VHS copy I’d got from my friend Tim Beddows, who had recently released it on his up and coming Network label. Network's video of the The Singing, Ringing Tree was the first time it had been widely available for decades. Rather than re-editing it into its serial form, it was presented as a complete feature film, albeit with the addition of Tony Bilbow’s English narration, which Tim managed to obtain at not inconsiderable effort. It was later released on DVD and, eventually, blu ray. For anyone who knew Tim well, as I did, there’s a kind of melancholic irony in the series’ original transmission date of 19 November. I won’t say any more, but if you know, you know.
Seeing the film again after so many years was a strange experience, but watching it in colour felt somehow wrong. To me, The Singing, Ringing Tree belongs in black and white, the half forgotten memory of a nightmare from childhood. And yet, even in colour, it retains that eerie other worldliness that had spooked so many young viewers back in the 1960s. The colour was sumptuous, but also slightly weird, with a kind of antique quality. It's fifties colour, as you can see from the frame grab above.
On the evening of Thursday 19 November 1964, The Singing, Ringing Tree and Blue Peter were the sum total of children’s television on the recently rechristened BBC1, with programmes not commencing until 5.05pm. Programmes later in the evening included Tonight at 6.55pm, followed by Top of the Pops (now into its eleventh month on air), and sitcom Meet the Wife – which would be deservedly forgotten today were it not for a passing reference on the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper album. This was followed by the weepy medical drama Doctor Kildare, whose theme music is still lodged in my mind six decades later.
For years, the mere mention of The Singing, Ringing Tree was enough to give me an instant mental picture of our living room on that dark November evening a lifetime ago. It still does. Far off in time it may be, but I remember it with unusual clarity. When people talk about the past being a different country, I think this is really what they mean: a place of the imagination, populated by bad-tempered princesses, outsized fish, talking bears and that scary little man...
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