This is a new series of articles about BBC programmes from the 40s and 50s, when the corporation was a much-loved institution broadcasting material the listeners wanted to hear. This time I will be including some early TV shows.
TOP of the Form is probably most notable for the nature of its demise. When it was killed off in 1986 the producer, Graham Frost, was reported to have said that the competitive nature of the show jarred with modern educational philosophy, and promised a new non-competitive schools quiz where there would be no right or wrong answers.
This quote is all over the internet but I cannot find the source of it – though it certainly sounds like a BBC man talking. (The new quiz show never materialised.)
Many readers will remember the theme tune of Top of the Form. It is called Marching Strings, and was written by Ray Martin. I will come back to him at the end.
(The first few episodes were introduced by Debussy’s Golliwog’s Cakewalk, heard here in a recording by Debussy himself. I don’t suppose it is ever played these days, which is a shame.)
Top of the Form started life as a general knowledge competition between London boys’ schools, each fielding teams of four ranging in age from under 13 to under 18. It was largely the invention of Joan Clark, who had previously produced a weekly quiz featuring two teams of four adults, called Quiz Team. The first episode of Top of the Form was broadcast on the Light Programme at 7.30pm on Sunday, May 1, 1948. The question master was Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, one of the BBC’s most distinguished war correspondents who had sent notable reports from an RAF Lancaster bomber during a raid over Berlin, from the Battle of Anzio, Lord Haw-Haw’s broadcasting studio and the Belsen concentration camp. Here is an interesting feature on the Berlin broadcast.
And here Vaughan-Thomas reports on the German surrender.
The following year the programme took on its familiar format, touring the country and broadcasting from the schools it visited. Two question masters were required, and Vaughan-Thomas was replaced by Lionel Gamlin and Robert MacDermott. Girls’ schools were now allowed to take part.
The questions were set by Boswell Taylor, a prolific writer about whom I can discover very little. However the subjects were far from random – before the recording session the contestants were asked to fill in a questionnaire listing their interests, books they had recently read and their favourite music. (The BBC website article about the programme says this thoughtfulness was because the producers understood that the pupils were ‘under stress’. Not cheating, then. I doubt if participants on current quiz shows such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire? or The Chase are treated with the same consideration.)
The programme had a couple of experimental outings on television in 1953 and 1954, but it was not until November 1962 that the imaginatively named Television Top of the Form took to the air. Here is one of several sets of opening titles, which clearly were not considered to merit much time or expenditure:
Another version features in a reminiscence by a contestant from 1973, when Geoffrey Wheeler was the question master.
Viewers probably didn’t realise that the contestants were not picked for their brains alone. According to Wikipedia, ‘The team chosen to represent the school on television was not the choice of the school. In the 1970s, the school put forward twelve people, and the BBC would pick the four best contestants, in terms of personality or charm (and possibly reasonable physical appearance).’
The TV version lasted until 1975. Meanwhile its radio counterpart soldiered on regardless, and here is an episode from October 1980, with question masters Tim Gudgin (who later read the football results on the BBC’s sports programme Grandstand) and Paddy Feeny.
(Oddly enough I couldn’t find any of the TV shows on YouTube.) It tended to feature grammar schools; in later years comprehensives sometimes featured, and there was an increasing dominance by independent schools. Obviously it had to go, and the last programme was aired on Tuesday December 2, 1986. Conservative MP John Heddle described the show’s ending as ‘sheer socialist clap-trap’. It was replaced by a challenging new show called Pop of the Form, with questions solely on pop music and DJs as question masters.
In 2008 BBC Radio Four broadcast The Top of the Form Story, including interviews with quizmasters and competitors, but in keeping with the Corporation’s policy of burying interesting old programmes, the website says it is not currently available. Why not?
The programme gave rise to some spoofs including this one by Morecambe and Wise:
And this by the Monty Python team:
I can honestly say I watched the Monty Python one with increasing incredulity, and not the faintest twitch of a lip. How on earth was this deemed to be comedy? It is now clear that it was the beginning of the end of humour. I have to say, though, that the Morecambe and Wise effort is pretty dire.
So back to the writer of Marching Strings, Ray Martin. He was born Kurt Kohn in 1918 into a Jewish family in Vienna, and studied the violin. At the age of 20 he came to England in 1938 and was ‘discovered’ by Carroll Levis, a Canadian broadcaster who ran a touring talent show in Britain. However before his career had a chance to take off he was arrested as a possible spy and sent to an internment camp in Australia. Having been cleared, he was returned to Britain in 1941 and joined the Army, serving in the Intelligence Corps. At the same time he was an arranger and composer for the Royal Air Force Central Band. Later he formed his own orchestra.
After the war he worked for EMI as a producer and arranger, while writing many scores for TV and films under a variety of pseudonyms. He wrote Marching Strings as ‘Marshall Ross’. All the internet authorities I have found say he wrote it in 1952, but this must be wrong as it was being used for Top of the Form by 1949.
One of his film scores was for Yield to the Night (1956) which starred Diana Dors as a character vaguely modelled on Ruth Ellis. Hitherto stereotyped as a ‘blonde bombshell’, Dors proved to be a talented actress. Here is the opening sequence from the film, featuring a fabulous 1955 Ford Thunderbird 40A and a glimpse of a seamed stocking:
Finally a word about the T-Bird. Here are some stills from the film, and here is a similar model.
It was introduced by Ford as a response to the new Chevrolet sports car, the Corvette, below:
The Thunderbird was a two-seat convertible with a 4.8 litre V8 engine, and went on sale in October 1954 as a 1955 model for $2,695 (£1,995). The 1955 models were coded 40A. Although the top speed on the clock was 150mph, Ford marketed the Thunderbird as a ‘personal car of distinction’, emphasising its comfort and convenience rather than its sportiness. It was a roaring success, outselling the Corvette by more than 23 to 1 in 1955 with 16,155 Thunderbirds sold against 674 Corvettes. Over the years the design was modified, some models including a back seat. Production finally ceased in 2005, by which time 4.4million had been sold.
Here is a restored 1955 model for sale for £59,995. Tempting, isn’t it?
PS: The last couple of series of Top of the Form changed the title music to Emerson Lake and Palmer’s Fanfare for the Common Man, presumably to seem ‘with it’. Here it is performed live in a freezing Montreal Olympic Stadium in 1977.
