Decimalisation, John Craven’s Newsround and Election Time

I have always been interested in what is going on in the world. Actually, let me qualify that. I am no longer interested in what is going on in the world because the world is such a depressing place at the moment. As a child, however, I was taught that it was vital to keep up to date.

I do remember one event from 1971 with a large amount of clarity, Decimalisation came into effect on February 15, which was called Decimal Day. That was when the UK switched from Pounds Shillings and Pence (20 shillings to the pound and 12 pence to the shilling meaning we could calculate in a base of 240) to Pounds and New Pence (with 100 pence in the pound, a much easier base for calculation). There was a programme called Decimal Five which introduced the concept. I loved the theme tune, and recalled it instantly when I heard it again, which was not unusual for me at the time as I was starting to get used to TV, but I was also interested in the content because it was going to affect my pocket money! At school we were taught to use both systems so we were ahead of the game in a sense.

I was watching the adult news fairly regularly from the age of about 7 and not long after that John Craven’s Newsround started. It’s first programme went out on April 4 1972, and I hardly ever missed a bulletin as I was growing up. The way that the news was communicated to us was straightforward, serious but completely accessible. At times John would explain that although things seemed bad we shouldn’t worry unduly about these frightening events. The contrast between the sensationalist, deliberately confrontational and shallow adult news of today and this jewel in the crown of British TV could not be greater. Today’s journalists should be made to watch old episodes to remind them what their jobs are actually about!

One of the most significant backdrops to the early 1970s were the Troubles in Northern Ireland involving the IRA. They were scary times, but whenever an attack took place Newsround explained the context and the effects in instantly accessible terms, removing the confusion we often felt and reducing our worries. It was public service television at its greatest and I genuinely believe that John Craven’s Newsround is the most important programme ever produced for children. Here is a great example of the programme from December 6 1973. Listen to the brilliant language use that made this so easy to understand.

A final memory comes from 1974, the year of two elections. In February, a month before my 9th birthday, we had an election in the UK called by Ted Heath’s Conservative Party (a vastly different organisation from today’s party) and my school St Andrew’s had a mock election with candidates, manifestos and a hustings where the candidates for each party put forward their positions on a range of issues and answered questions from other pupils. It totally fascinated me and when the election was held, ending in minority government by Harold Wilson’s Labour Party with support from Jeremy Thorpe’s Liberal Party I was already a political animal! As an aside, the Conservative Party won the St Andrew’s mock election by a landslide, perhaps unsurprisingly in a private school where many of the parents were quite rich! Here is a very good review of the events from Politicoteacher