Goodbye Brian Cant
19 June 2017 was a sad day indeed. It was the day we lost the wonderful Brian Cant, a figure who was much loved by millions, and whose voice instantly evokes memories of happy childhood days. For all those who were little British persons watching television somewhere between the mid 1960s and the mid 80s, the words spoken by Brian Cant in his gentle and laconic baritone voice are certain to provoke a warm glow of nostalgia. To anybody growing up in that era, Brian Cant WAS children’s television. He was the face and the voice of the real world of fun, frolics and imagination. Name your favourite children’s programmes, and Brian Cant was more than likely to be in there somewhere – Play School, Play Away - programmes designed to encourage children to try out the ideas presented - and the shows that I loved in particular Camberwick Green (1966), Trumpton (1967) and Chigley (1969), the iconic children’s stop-motion animation shows featuring characters everyone of that generation remembers fondly. These shows possessed a gentle charm, with whimsical characters living life at a most civilised pace indeed. I'm told that the portrayal of the world in Trumponshire is not real, it's an idealisation that skirts over some harsh realities. Well I never, who would have thought! I’ll write more on this at the end, because I think the idealised affirmation of community values and practices making for an orderly existence possesses a reality that is deeper and greater than the divisions and iniquities of 'real' society - they set the objective standard with which we come to criticize dominant institutions. I'll go for Trumptonshire any day.
Suffice to say, to be able to tell stories, sing, and devise activities that spark the interest of children and keep them captivated for any length of time is no mean achievement, and I speak as one who was an easily bored child who was indeed captivated by Brian Cant. He had a very warm and inviting manner, and he would tell his stories and get his ideas over in a very child-friendly way. He was on the level. I never got the sense he was talking down to me or slipping something I didn’t like or didn’t want to do past me. He was trustworthy. He could even have presented ‘Maths is Fun’ and I would have believed him. That was his gift, and it was extraordinary. Me, I loved the Play School, and went through the windows many times, as did many others: “Here’s a house. Here’s a door. Windows – one, two, three, four ... Ready to play? What’s the day?” Whatever the day was, it was always a good day to be alive. Cant’s voice is instantly recognised by millions, I am sure.
Brian Cant, ‘Mr Play School’, first appeared on the show in week three, in May 1964, the year before I was born, and he was still there when the show closed its front door for the final time in March 1988, when I was about to get my head down to study for my finals. So that was another 21 years or so for his next crop of youngsters to come good. According to that reckoning, there must be students graduating in 2009 who would have been raised on Play School. That's some influence for the better, I'd say.
It was a golden age of children’s television. And Cant defended children’s TV against the criticism that it was stupefying for kids. “No-one would suggest sitting there doing nothing but watching television, that’s obvious,” he said. “But programmes like Play School were always done with the idea that when it finished, the children could go away and try things themselves.” I loved the Play School invitation to ‘use your imagination’ and then go away and try things out. We did, too. I’m not sure that building a den around the local garages with beer barrels from the local social club was one of our better ideas, mind, especially when irate garage owners brought the police in to deal with us. But there you go, we were using our imagination and trying things out. And we responded creatively to the suggestion that you could do anything, build anything and go anywhere with a few puppets, a stuffed toy, a cardboard box – or equivalent – and imagination. Such was Brian Cant’s skill to engage minds and inspire new thoughts and deeds with precious little by way of props.
Play Away was a show designed to appeal to an older audience than that of Play School. It had a livelier pace, lots of games and gags, and singing, of course.
Bric-a-Brac also merits a mention, in which Cant is a shopkeeper who talks directly to the viewers. Cant would find items beginning with a letter from the alphabet and then, using word play, would proceed to talk engagingly about them.
There was plenty of other stuff (he was a guest presenter on Jackanory and starred in Dappledown Farm (1990-2003), and even turned up as a photographer at the end of my all time favourite films, The Sandwich Man), but these were my favourites, any one of which would have made Brian Cant the tops for me.
In 2007, Brian Cant was named number one in a children’s magazine poll to find the best-loved voice of UK childrens’ television. That came as no surprise to those of us who were there.
That’s quite an accolade. We are dealing with a world of precious memories here. And the competition in the UK over this period is stiff indeed. I mean, to beat Oliver Postgate, the creator of Ivor the Engine, Bagpuss and my particular heroes The Clangers (very sane creatures indeed), into second place is a remarkable feat indeed.
At the 2010 Children’s BAFTAs, Cant rightly and deservedly received the Special Award for his outstanding contribution to children’s television.
BAFTA Chief Executive Amanda Berry OBE said: “It gives the Academy great pleasure to honour the work of one of the best loved presenters in children’s television. Brian Cant’s work has touched generations of young people, their parents and grandparents, and his influence on the producers and presenters of the 21st century is arguably second to none. This BAFTA Special Award is in recognition of his unique contribution to this incredibly important genre.”
"Playing a hugely significant part in so many children’s lives over the decades, Cant holds a very special place in the heart of the nation."
That's all very true. Incredibly, that award was the first official recognition he had ever received. But it doesn’t really matter – everyone touched in some way by Brian Cant – and that was every little person in the UK from the sixties to the eighties – knows he was the tops.
His co-presenters Floella Benjamin and Derek Griffiths paid tribute to Brian Cant’s "comedy genius." Is genius too strong a word? What is genius? To change the world for the better. And that is something, by engaging and inspiring the little folk of the world, that Brian Cant did.
Now a Baroness if you please, Floella Benjamin, said in tribute that ‘He was totally devoted to making children happy – he introduced children to comedy with zany jokes and his funny sketches.’ He was good fun. OK, we are all nostalgic for our childhood years, and everyone’s childhood years are the best. And Brian Cant was the face and voice of children's television in our time and place. So, obviously, he will be held in great affection. But he really was special, and brought an added magic to those years, standing out from the others as the one children were drawn to.
In being honoured with the Children’s Bafta award of 2010, Brian Cant said: “One of the main rules of those ‘Play School’ days was that we should play to the camera as though we were talking to one child, in whatever circumstance. It could be somebody in a tower block, a nice semi-detached somewhere, or a Royal palace. You had to phrase everything so, whoever was watching it, they felt you were talking to them.”
And that statement encapsulated his appeal in a nutshell – he was personal and universal at the same time, he addressed all as each and each as all, without distinction or favour – all were favoured in the most direct and intimate way. And that’s genius.
Everyone’s childhood is a wonderful age. But it really was a good time. As Johnny Ball says, “it was an absolutely wonderful age, wonderful period. And Brian was absolutely right for all of that work - it was lovely." I could never quite warm to Johnny Ball, I never trusted his smile, I always thought he was up to something, and I never did buy his view that ‘maths is fun’, I wanted songs about engine drivers and such like.
I’m judging from what many others have been saying, and I think I can say without fear of contradiction that Brian Cant the man was as warm, gentle and kind as his voice and manner suggest him to have been. It was through that voice and manner that millions of children came to know him, and they were unanimous in their view. Johnny Ball has confirmed that Cant was every bit as nice as he appeared on television: "He was like Blackpool rock - break him anywhere, and you've got Brian Cant right through the middle. He was just lovely." The kids knew it all along, though. Children can tell, they see through the pretence. In the words of Sir Tony Robinson: "Brian Cant was my mentor and friend on Play Away. We wrote and performed together for two years. Always patient, courteous and funny." From Karl Sabbagh, these words: “He was one of the nicest, most unpretentious people I ever came across and when my children met him he put them completely at their ease.”
A man completely without pretension and self-importance, Cant expressed surprise in an interview that so many remembered him as a legend of children’s television: “It’s obviously very kind and very rewarding to have that effect, but I can’t believe it was that important to everyone.” It was. And he was.
In an interview for the BBC, where he revealed that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's in 1999, Cant said the one thing he wanted children to take away from his work was "that I made them laugh, I made them feel happy". He did, and in spades.
Now, back in the world of Trumptonshire, where many of us grew up …
Cant would open each episode of Camberwick Green with the words: “Here is a box, a musical box, wound up and ready to play. But this box can hide a secret inside. Can you guess what is in it today?” And then he would introduce us to the townsfolk of the village, going about their daily activity. The first episode of Camberwick Green featured ‘Peter the Postman’, an inspiration to one and all, I think. Then there was Windy Miller and PC McGarry and Paddy Murphy, garage men, fishmongers, salesmen, bakers, chimney sweeps (we had an open fire at home at the time, and a regular coal man). Captain Snort and Sergeant-Major Grout ran the local military academy Pippin For. Most of the characters had a theme songs and travelling songs of their own, and we knew them by heart. And every week the villagers of Camberwick Green were shown dealing with some disturbance or other in the village, a shortage of flour, a swarm of bees, a water shortage and seeing off an unwanted electrical substation being built in the village – the Green is good as it is, it doesn’t need the false promises of development! Your urban regeneration is a degeneration! All issues settled and all being well in the world, the narrator bade a fond farewell to the puppet character who was shown at the beginning of the tale, who them slowly descends back into the musical box. Apart from the box, which everyone loved of course, the show was familiar rather than fantastical; it was actually about ordinary folk getting on with living in the everyday life world, more a celebration of local characters and the things they do to bring the community to life.
And the same applied to Trumpton, an imaginary town that was a short way away from the imaginary village of Camberwick Green. I always remember the way each episode began, with a shot of Trumpton Town Hall Clock: "Here is the clock, the Trumpton clock. Telling the time, steadily, sensibly; never too quickly, never too slowly. Telling the time for Trumpton". We had a clock in my own home town that was always wrong, and thus not very sensible at all. We really could have benefited from the help of Mr Platt the clockmaker. But, again, the sight of the local townspeople going about their everyday business was all very familiar, every place had a mayor and a town clerk, important people no doubt, florist, greengrocer, printer, and Chippy Minton the carpenter and his apprentice son Nibbs. All of them doing important work in the community. And everyone remembers Miss Lovelace the milliner walking along the busy streets with her trio of Pekingese dogs. Who remembers the names of the dogs? I do. Mitzi, Daphne and Lulu. It’s the kind of knowledge that stays with certain kind of folk. And absolutely EVERYONE remembers Captain Flack of the fire brigade’s roll-call every week (but one): "Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grub." Why “Pugh, Pugh”? Because they were twins! "Right men, action stations!" That always sounded like the precursor to some real action, and was very exciting, except that nearly always the action men of the fire brigade were called upon to resolve merely minor matters. Poor Captain Flack never got to tackle the actual fire that he seemed to long for. "No no! Not the hose!" he would bellow after the call to action stations.
Chigley portrays life going on in a small community in a fictitious village or hamlet near Camberwick Green in Trumptonshire. This had characters making guest appearances from the other series. The characters I remember most from Chigley were Lord Belborough of Winkstead Hall and his butler Brackett, who also operate a private railway that seems to run through most of Trumptonshire, transporting goods on Bessie the engine, a very enjoyable ride indeed, "Time flies by while I'm the driver of a train....” (You see, I told you I could sing). And the time flew indeed. All issues resolved by the end of the day, once the 6 o'clock whistle had sounded the end of the working day at the local biscuit factory, Lord Belborough would order everyone to the grounds of Winkstead Hall, where the workers would gather for a dance, the good Lord would play his vintage organ, and the episode would fade out with no outstanding issues.
That's quite a fantastical vision for a time beset with industrial disputes … A very cozy world, really, with everything and everyone playing their different parts. So, yes, it's a very idealised view of how the real world out there operates. But we don’t need the Guardian obituary dismissing ‘the evident nonsense that a crime-free Britain ran like clockwork and that adult life was an orderly affair.’ It takes no great insight to point that obvious fact out. Mind your own business, Plato said, we require a ‘well-tempered harmony’ if we are to make our affairs orderly indeed. That’s the ideal affirmed here, everyone having a role to play, and playing it to the best of their abilities. That wasn't the social world we lived in, and it still isn't. That doesn't invalidate the ideal, it is a demand for its realisation. I have no trouble at all in affirming that view, against the social and class divisions and unjust distribution of roles and rewards in contemporary society. I rather like the vision of that tripartite world of town, village, hamlet all scaled to human proportions and dimensions, with a part to play for everyone, all life lived close to the ground and in close proximity. In the Anglo-Saxon, 'neighbour' refers to one who 'builds nearby.' These characters were all builders and neighbours. That’s the ideal standard, the ‘ought’ by which we come to criticise the ‘is’ and demand its transformation. (Sorry, I can’t resist a little philosophising here, it surely can’t be a coincidence that I went on to specialise in the great philosopher Immanuel Kant – if only Kant could have sung ‘Time flies by when I’m the driver of a train’ as well as Brian Cant!).
And Brian Cant would provide a very fine singing voice for the little songs that carried the tales on in every episode. An idealised portrayal of a class divided, iniquitous reality it may have been, but these are the right values, surely? A functioning society practising a division of labour that people are happy with. Anyhow, this was my sixties, and they stayed with me. And others.
Brian Cant brought a warmth and good humour to proceedings that those he inspired, I am sure, brought into the real world outside, bringing those little townscapes of the mind to life.
Goodbye, Brian Cant, then. But as to Windy and friends, there can never be a final goodbye. Those characters are engraved on the heart and will stay with us forever.
Brian Cant will be missed by all those many little folk, now big folk, who went through the windows on Play School so many times for so many years. I’m sad to see him go. And eternally thankful for the joy. His voice accompanies lots of good memories from my younger days. Time flies when you are having fun. And the time flew.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOd0DJ_iaAQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-hQ6-biWoo