The Jacksons

From LookingAndSeeing.co.uk - a website about schools broadcasting

The Jacksons was one of the first series specifically designed to interest and inspire struggling school children by harnessing the entertainment value of broadcasting.

It was a family serial all about Mr and Mrs Jackson, their children, and their neighbours the Webbs, as they encountered day to day problems and social issues such as getting a job (Ken Thinks of a Job, autumn 1960), a dance at the youth club (Fancy Dress Night at the Youth Club, summer 1962) and the marriage & subsequent moving house of Betty Jackson (Betty Gets Married, summer 1961), all designed to help children feel more confident about dealing with such issues in their own lives.

The Jacksons also tried making and doing things that children could try for themselves (Ken Starts a Garden, spring 1957; Judy Joins The Library, summer 1962).

The series was produced as an on-going drama serial, and the characters grew older and make lasting changes in their lives, even though the children listening in at school would have grown out of the series after a year or two, and new listeners would not know what had happened before. Harry Jackson wacs a schoolboy who had his 15th birthday in the second ever episode (Happy Birthday, autumn 1956), and by the end of the series he was a 21-year-old factory worker (Harry's Twenty-First, autumn 1962). There were recurring characters such as the travelling Uncle Bert, and storylines were continued across the year, just like a modern soap opera. As the series went on and the Jackson children grew up, the series focussed more on the younger children of their neighbours the Webbs.

All the programmes were presented as "BBC recordings" in the Radio Times, and according to records on the free online version of the BBC Programme Catalogue they were recorded several months in advance of broadcast, for instance an episode broadcast in March 1963 was recorded in the previous December.

The series was apparently drawn from an experimental term of radio programmes broadcast in Scotland^[1], which may have been Round and About. The concept and format of The Jacksons gave inspiration to a schools television series called Friday Magazine in 1960, which then developed into the successful family serials of Television Club, lasting for another decade.

[edit] Location

The series is set in the fictional small country town of Fenton, where the Jacksons live at 23 Willow Street. They have a garden with a greenhouse.

The town is on the River Fen and has its own railway station and hospital amongst other amenities. There is a Youth Club in the town where the children gather, and the local newspaper is the Fenton Gazette. One of the neighbouring towns is called Canfield.

A map of the town was printed at the end of the teacher's notes each term, and is reproduced below.

A map of the town of Fenton. Number 23 Willow Street, where the Jacksons live, is in the top right.

[edit] Characters

Here is a list of the characters who appeared in The Jacksons, either regularly or from time to time. In order to offer a standardised list, the ages given for the characters are their ages in the summer term of 1962, as this is when I have the most comprehensive information available.

[edit] The Jackson family

Ken Jackson riding a pony, 1960

• Mr William Jackson ("Bill"), aged 45
  Mr Jackson works at Netley's Garage.

• Mrs Margaret Jackson ("Meg"), aged 44
  Mrs Jackson worked in an office before her marriage.

• Betty Jackson, aged 22
  The Jacksons' only daughter works in a large shop called Truman and Hope's in the neighbouring town of Canfield. She got engaged to Johnnie Bates in September 1960 and married him in June 1961 at the local St John's Church^[2], to become Betty Bates. She moved out of the family house to live in a flat with Johnnie.

• Harry Jackson, aged 20
  After leaving school Harry works at Willett's typewriter factory in Fenton as a mechanical engineer.

• Ken Jackson, aged 16
  Ken attended secondary modern school until 1961, and in the autumn of that year enrolled as a Police Cadet.

• Chip
  Ken's dog.

[edit] The Webb family

The Webbs are the next-door neighbours of the Jacksons and have younger children. They live at 21 Willow Street.

• Mr Webb ("Jack")
  Mr Webb is a town councillor.

• Mrs Webb ("Rosie")
  

• Mary Webb, aged 17
  

• Judy Webb, aged 16
  

• Tom Webb, aged 12
  Tom has pen friends including Jean Dubois from France. He went in to hospital to have his tonsils out in 1962.

• Richard Webb ("Ricky"), aged 6

[edit] Other characters

These are other characters who appear with the Jacksons from time to time.

• Mr Joseph Chapman ("grandfather")
  Mrs Jackson's father.

• Mrs Mary Jackson ("grandmother")
  Mr Jackson's mother.

• Uncle Bert
  A relative of the Jacksons who travels widely and returns to tell the Jacksons of his adventures. During the series he visited Australia, Canada and America, amongst other places.

• Johnnie Bates
  Got married to Betty Jackson in 1961.

• Charlie Best
  Harry's friend.

• Molly
  Another of Harry's friends.

• John Grant
  Ken's friend.

• Tom Seward
  Another of Ken's friends, an explorer.

• Dave Brewster
  Drives the lorry at Netley's Garage where Mr Jackson works.

• Mr Netley
  Owner of the garage where Mr Jackson works.

• Mr Caswell
  His allotment backs on to the Jacksons' garden. He keeps bees.

• Mr and Mrs Nicholls
  Next-door neighbours of the Jacksons, on the other side from the Webbs. They live at 25 Willow Street.

• P.C. Dent
  A local constable.

• Mr Pollitt
  Keeps a shop in Fenton.

[edit] Contributors

The actors who appeared in the programmes were never credited in the Radio Times or the teacher's notes to the series, so I have very little information about who played whom. The listings in the free online version of the BBC Programme Catalogue for the few surviving episodes identify Stanley MacKenzie as the narrator.

Other actors listed as participating in the episodes are Michael Spice, Katherine Parr, Hamilton Dyce, Jean England, Peggy Butt, Terry Raven, Nigel Anthony, John Bull, Alaric Cotter, Susan Richards and Ann Totten, however the cast lists of the two listed episodes are completely different and only Terry Raven appears in both episodes.

If anybody has any more concrete information about actors in the programmes, please get in touch.

The series editor / producer in the 1960s was Rita Udall. She first wrote for the series in 1959-60, this may be when she took on the producer role too.^[3]

[edit] Writers

A large number of episodes, including the first six episodes of the series, were written by Philippa Pearce who would go on to become the acclaimed author of children's books including Tom's Midnight Garden.

There seems to have been a team of regular writers who provided most of the scripts for the series. The following list shows the regular writers, how many episodes they were responsible for, and when their episodes were first broadcast.

• Garry Lyle (39 episodes, 1957 - 1963)
• Philippa Pearce (24 episodes, 1956 - 1960)
• Charles E. Stidwill (23 episodes, 1957 - 1962)
• D. J. Saint (22 episodes, 1956 - 1961)
• Margaret J. Miller (18 episodes, 1959 - 1963)
• Phillip Mann (16 episodes, 1958 - 1960)
• Hugh David (13 episodes, 1957 - 1960)
• Jeffrey Segal (13 episodes, 1960 - 1963)
• Edward Blishen (12 episodes, 1960 - 1963)
• Ronald Smurthwaite (7 episodes, 1961 - 1963)
• Richard Wortley (6 episodes, 1960 - 1962)
• Rita Udall (5 episodes, 1960 - 1961)

Other writers (and their number of scripts in brackets) were: John Allen (2), L. P. Ball (1), Alan Boucher (1), John Brodie (1), Peter Claughton (1), Alaric Cotter (2), Moira F. Doolan (1), Beryl King (1), Sam Langdon (3), Guy Lethbridge (1), Charles Mason (1), Cameron Miller (1), Rose Segal (4) and Honor Wyatt (1).

An almost complete list of the writers of almost every episode can be found on this site's episode list for the series.

Please note there are three episodes whose writer credits are not known to me.

[edit] Episodes

There was a new episode of The Jacksons every week throughout the school year for seven years, from 1956-7 to 1962-3, during which time over 200 episodes were produced. A full list of the titles, broadcast dates and writers is available on this website.

According to the free online version of the BBC Programme Catalogue, recordings of only 2 episodes - less than 1% of those produced - have been kept by the BBC, the rest may be lost forever. I am not aware whether recordings of other episodes are held by the National Sound Archive or other collections, if anybody has any information about this please get in touch.

The episodes in the BBC archive are:

• Episode 195, Ricky Webb in Hospital
• Episode 210, The Youth Club Makes a Plan

[edit] Episodes that were never made

Every year the BBC used to send an annual programme guide out to schools, listing all the programmes they planned to broadcast in the coming school year. When these were printed, scripts were being prepared for the episodes of The Jacksons to be broadcast in the autumn term, but there were only provisional plans for the rest of the school year.

Several of the 'potential' episodes of The Jacksons listed in the annual programmes were never made. Here are some of the titles which were planned but abandoned:

• Harry Goes to a Concert (spring 1961)
• Sailing a Boat (summer 1961)
• A Visit to the Docks (summer 1961)
• Ken Meets a Writer (summer 1961)
• Buying a Television Set (spring 1962)
• Train Spotting (summer 1962) - Tom started collecting stamps instead
• Hamsters (summer 1962)
• The Cricket Match (summer 1962)
• The School Trip (summer 1962)

[edit] In Scotland

The Jacksons was always broadcast at 2:30pm on Monday afternoons on the Home Service. However it was never heard in Scotland - the series Scottish Heritage was broadcast in the timeslot instead.

Scottish listeners had their own series for "less able" children of about 13: Round and About was broadcast in Scotland only on Mondays at 11:20am. Episodes of Round and About were only 15 minutes long, shorter than The Jacksons programmes, and offered a range of documentary or magazine programmes including some dramatisations of famous texts - for instance The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle, produced in 3 episodes in summer 1961, and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickins in autumn 1957.^[4].

[edit] Sources & References

Sources used in compliing this page. I have never heard any of the programmes themselves.

• BBC (1960) Broadcasts to Schools Annual Programme 1960-1
• BBC (1961) Broadcasts to Schools Annual Programme 1961-2
• BBC (1962) The Jacksons Notes for the Teacher Summer 1962
• Fawdry, Kenneth (1974) Everything But Alf Garnett: A Personal View of BBC School Broadcasting, London: BBC. ISBN 0 563 12763 5 Page 94.

1. ↑ Information about the origins of the series from Fawdry (1974).
2. ↑ Radio Times listing said Betty and Johnnie got married at "the local church", I am inferring from the map that this was St John's Church.
3. ↑ Rita Uddall credited as editor in BBC (1962) and as producer on records for both surviving episodes in the free online version of the BBC Programme Catalogue, from 1962-3.
4. ↑ Information about Scottish broadcasts, and about Scottish Heritage and Round and About, from BBC (1960), BBC wallcharts summer 1962 and programme listings in the regional variations of the Midlands & London edition Radio Times.