Camberwick Green

1966 (UK)

"Here is a box, a musical box, wound up and ready to play..."

So started the first episode of Camberwick Green, the classic children's animated series, brought to us by Gordon Murray and Co. Following the success of this series in 1966, he then went on to give us two more classics in the shape of Trumpton and then Chigley.

At the start of every episode a musical box would play and out of the rotating top would pop the "secret" of that particular episode. The secret would always be the main character of the story that was about to begin and had children rapt right from the outset.

The series was about these people, the jobs they did and the small but vital part each played in a friendly, tight-knit rural community. The single most remembered character from the series has to be Windy Miller, a wheeler-dealer who appeared to have his hand into everything.

Every time Farmer Bell couldn't sell his eggs to any of the shops in Trumpton it was because Windy Miller had undercut him by flogging off his cheap home-made ones. When the dairy smashed all it's milk bottles by accident it bought cheap milk from Windy bloody Miller. He even had a special arrangement with the army at Pippin Fort

Even though there were only 36 episodes made, Camberwick Green remains one of the most popular children's programs ever made by the BBC. Originally, the series was an expensive gamble for creator Gordon Murray, whose pilot film was finally accepted by the BBC.

All the scripts were written by Gordon Murray (Alison Prince co-wrote Trumpton) and the songs by Gordon Murray and Freddie Phillips. Bob Bura and John Hardwick handled the animation.

Developed as Candlewick Green, when Murray's BBC contract arrived he was only too happy to hurriedly sign even though it erroneously referred to the title of Camberwick Green, which obviously stuck.