Calendargirl, l didn’t literally mean that the TV version came before the radio version, simply that the timing of Watch With Mother was just before that of Listen With Mother on the weekdays when they were broadcast. In actual fact, l believe that they were conceived at a similar time in the early fifties. I was four years old in 1969 and both were well loved and well established by then.
I have always loved light music as my Dad did. It is now considered a genre in its own right, as it should be, as the composers of light music and film/TV music were/are every bit as talented as those of more “serious” music. Indeed, they reached a far wider audience and very much appeal to the emotions as they take us back to happy times. I still love Elizabethan Serenade, as it regained popularity in 1977 for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. Many of these theme tunes were still very much heard well into the seventies when I was a growing up. Marching Strings is one good example as the theme tune to Top of the Form. Others are still used daily even today - By a Sleepy Lagoon (Desert Island Discs) and Sailing By (The Shipping Forecast) have already been mentioned. One other is Barwick Green, which is better known to millions to this day as the theme tune for The Archers.
The American composer, Leroy Anderson (1909-1975) was a huge proponent of the light music genre and many of his pieces are instantly recognisable. As a side note, he was also fluent in eight languages. The Typewriter is perhaps his most famous piece, but there are many others. My Dad was a big fan of his music (as am l). Forgotten Dreams is a beautiful, haunting piece and I arranged this for flute and piano, which my daughter and I played at his funeral. I still well up when I hear it.
