Not in Front of the Children

Ivor the Engine, Mr Benn, Mary Mungo and Midge - children's television animations that still capture the imagination, fifty years after they were first shown. For a little over a decade, from the end of the 1950s to the early 70s, the emergence of a new and exciting genre of children's entertainment produced a host of much loved kids tv. Made during an important phase in Britain's history, these creative and often unusual series shed their own light on the problems faced by the country, as it struggled to reinvent itself for the modern, post empire world. Not In Front of the Children looks at this period of national upheaval through the prism of these shows and discovers a unique perspective on key issues such as motorway schemes, slum clearances, education reforms and the emergence of teen culture. Take a trip back in time to the world of your childhood years with this quixotic look at the age that made modern Britain. "From Ivor The Engine to Scooby Doo, Greg Healey has trained his lens on the cherished TV touchstones of a generation of children, simultaneously zooming in on the infinitesimal detail and pulling back to frame these programmes within an infinitely wider socio-political and cultural context. Meticulous, absorbing and revelatory, Not In Front of The Children lends beating hearts to hitherto two-dimensional cartoon characters, overturning many long-held assumptions and fallacies along the way. It's a story about us as much as it is about them - and you'll never think of those dreamily-remembered TV episodes in quite the same way again." -Marco Rossi, Record Collector Magazine / Shindig! Magazine