Child Of The 1980's

Rentaghost first hit BBC1 in 1976 and ran for nine series right through to 1984.  Created by writer Bob Block, the show was a childrens comedy about a group of ghosts who ran a ghost hire company, unsurprisingly called Rentaghost.

The original line up of spooks, which I personally only have very vague memories of, were Fred Mumford, Timothy Claypole and Hubert Davenport.  Mumford was a recently deceased man who was a bit of a loser in life, so decided to make something of himself in his death by setting up Rentaghost.  I do recall he often used to go and visit his Mum and Dad for advice, but I can only assume that they realised he was already dead!

Hubert Davenport was a prim Victorian gentleman, who I always mistook for Jon Pertwee’s Doctor Who, whilst Timothy Claypole was a medieval court jester who didn’t really have a proper understanding of the technology of the day.

The three ghosts would be hired to carry out various types of ghostly duties such as haunting mansion houses, or so the theme tune, sung by Claypole actor Michael Staniforth claimed.  In truth most episodes (certainly in later series anyway) revolved around some kind of problem caused by one of the ghosts – usually Mr. Claypole!

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Lego was always one of my favourite toys, but by the time you reach a double digit age the normal Lego Town or Space Lego sets begin to become a little too simplistic to hold your attention – despite the fact that when you reach adulthood you’ll be more than happy to go back to these sets! In an attempt to increase sales in this older age group the Lego company came up with the idea of making some more challenging kits that would hold an older child’s interest.

Initially launched in 1977 the Expert Builder sets consisted of accurate scale models of vehicles such as tractors and bulldozers.  These kits contained both many more pieces and also introduced a number of new building pieces, including larger wheels, cogs, axles, clip in pegs and the long building pieces that had rows of holes in the sides for the pegs and axles to slot through.

I remember the pictured red tractor very well, as it was the first such set we had in my household, bought by my Dad for himself to play with!  This seemed particularly funny to me at the time, as it was the first time I had seen an adult by a toy for themselves.  I was allowed to play with the finished model, but (at least at first) I was not allowed to help in the building of the set.  Of course, I would have only been around five at the time so I don’t blame my Dad at all – I would only have lost the pieces somehow!

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When I first heard about this book it immediately went on to my Christmas list, and I’m pleased to say that Father Christmas delivered (or more accurately, author Dean Wilkinson did – thanks for the copy Dean). Having now had a chance to peruse its contents here are my thoughts on this rather spiffing tome.

After a brief introduction by Mr. Wilkinson and a rather funny two part foreword by TV’s Ant and Dec the book wastes no time in launching you into no less than one thousand questions about children’s television shows dating from the 1960s to the present day. Luckily for me a great many of the questions are about 1980s shows, and those that are about older shows are often programmes that were repeated during the eighties (for example Gerry Andersons puppet shows such as Thunderbirds and Stingray). For the audience of today you’ll find questions on the afore-mentioned Ant and Dec, Spongebob Squarepants and New Doctor Who.

The questions are grouped in themed blocks of ten, sometimes centred around a specific show whilst other categories might be about a certain actor or studio. For example there’s a section entitled “The Legend of Brian Cant” (I quite agree) and others on the combined works of Hanna Barbera and Cosgrove Hall. Another variety of questions ask you to find matches for two groups of ten things, for example puppets with their human sidekicks or different shows with their writers.

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