Listen with Mother

First heard on 16 January 1950, the BBC radio programme Listen With Mother offered a mix of nursery rhymes, stories and music for the under-fives and their mothers but, over the years, developed a following across the generations.

The show was broadcast – initially on the BBC Light Programme before moving to the Home Service (later Radio 4) – in a fifteen-minute slot at 1.45 pm every weekday afternoon (when children would be ready to concentrate after their lunch, and mothers would have time to sit with them).

The presenters – including Daphne Oxenford, Julia Lang and Dorothy Smith – adopted an intimate tone, talking as though to each child alone.

The centrepiece of the programme was the story, preceded by the calming phrase, “Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin”. The question, originally an ad-lib by Julia Lang, became so well known that it ended up in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

Each episode ended with the Berceuse from Faure’s Dolly Suite, played on the piano by Eileen Brown and Roger Fiske.

There was a public outcry when it was announced in 1982 that Listen With Mother was ending, and a petition supported by MPs and celebrities was delivered to Downing Street, along with a letter of protest from concerned professors of education.

The final broadcast was on 10 September 1982.

Presenters
Daphne Oxenford
Julia Lang
Dorothy Smith
Catherine Edwards
Jean Sutcliffe
Eileen Browne