Theme Tunes

I've had the notes for this post ready for about a fortnight but keep being too tired to write it. Let's see if I can manage it today ...

This is a trip down memory lane for me, specifically to television series shown in England in the 1960s and 1970s. Some of them may be familiar to you, depending on your age and where you grew up. The links I've included occasionally show clips or stills from the programmes and some of these are in colour. We didn't have a colour television until after I'd grown up so my memories are all in black and white.

It occurred to me a while ago that what I remember mostly about watching TV in my childhood is not particularly the content of the programmes but their theme tunes. So, that's what I'm going to talk about today.

One of the first tunes I remember (and can still sing today) is the song that introduced 'The Adventures of Robin Hood'. This was an ITV series shown here between 1955 and 1960. I was born in 1960 so the programmes that my brother and I watched in the mid 1960s must have been repeats. I have vague memories of swashbuckling forest based adventure but mostly what I liked was the theme tune.

Written by Carl Sigman and sung by Dick James, this jaunty song still makes me smile.

At around the same time we were also watching 'Robinson Crusoe'. This was originally a French series, later dubbed into other languages. The English version was shown on and off from the mid 1960s for many years. The theme tune I knew was written specially for the English version by the Franco London orchestra. 

I can't say that I noticed that this was dubbed, or in fact anything much about it but I did like the music.

The next one was also dubbed and, this time, I did notice. Perhaps it was because I was a few years older or maybe the dubbing wasn't done well. 'White Horses' was produced jointly by TV companies in Yugoslavia and Germany and was set on a stud farm for Lipizzaner horses. I wasn't remotely interested in horses and had no idea what was going on most of the time but oh, that song ...

'White Horses' was written by Michael Carr and Ben Nisbet for the English version of the programme in 1968 and was sung by the Irish singer Jackie Lee. It was released as a single and reached the top ten of the UK singles chart so it wasn't just me that liked this one.

These three programmes were all aimed at children but the ones with the themes I remember from the 1970s were for general audiences. 'Z Cars' was a police series set in a fictional northern town near Liverpool. It was shown here between 1962 and 1978 but I remember watching it with my family in the early 1970s.

The theme tune was very modern for its time and this was the first one I remember picking up by ear and playing on my recorder (I bet the rest of the family loved that). It was written by Fritz Spiegel and Bridget Fry and was inspired by the Liverpool folk song 'Johnny Todd'.

This was another one that got into the top ten of the charts. The theme has had an interesting after life as it has long been associated with Everton Football Club who are based in Liverpool. One of the actors from the programme, Leonard Williams, died in 1962. He was an Everton fan and had watched them play a few days before his death. The theme tune was played before their next match in tribute to him and it sort of stuck. This next video is from the first game played in the team's new stadium a few weeks ago. Wait for the siren which always heralds the start of the music,

I may not remember much of what happened in all these programmes but I can honestly say that I never even watched the next one. I find the opening credits and the music very nostalgic but when I watched a few episodes recently, they were completely new to me.

'A Family at War' was an ITV series that initially ran between 1970 and 1972. It tells the story of the fictional Ashton family in Liverpoool (again) during the Second World War, starting in 1938 and going right through to the end of the war.

The theme was played to a picture of a child’s sandcastle on a beach, topped with the Union Jack as the sea came in. This obviously symbolised Britain’s position, especially in the early years of the war when invasion was an ever present threat and the Battle of Britain raged. The music this time is classical, from the end of the first movement of Vaughan William's Sixth Symphony. 

The last theme I want to share with you today is from 'Crown Court' which was a courtroom drama series that was shown right through the 1970s and into the '80s. It was on in the early afternoon and I remember watching it when I came home for dinner from Grammar school. Each episode was only 25 minutes long and three episodes made up a 'case'.

It was like a play as all the action took place inside the court room. Interestingly, the jury was made up of members of the public within the Granada TV area whose names were taken from the Electoral roll (which is how jurors are chosen in the UK). This meant that the writers had to write two endings each week to allow for either verdict.

Unusually, this programme had two themes, one for the start of the programme and another for the end. The opening credits were accompanied by part of the fourth movement of Janacek's Sinfonietta and conjured up the majesty of the court.

The closing theme 'Distant Hills' was composed by Peter Reno and has a more wistful feel to it I think.

Does anybody else remember these themes or do you have your own favourites?