1 9 7 8 – 1 9 8 4 (UK)
This Yorkshire Television production featured former Play School presenter Valerie Pitts reading children’s stories direct to the camera for 10 minutes while the illustrations from the book were shown (much like Jackanory).
In the third series, Roy Kinnear took over as the story reader.
Gammon and Spinach ran for seven series as part of the lunchtime ITV schedule. The title came from a line in the children’s song, A Frog He Would A Woo-ing Go, which was also the theme song to the series, as sung by Mike Sammes.
The animated opening and end titles showed a gentleman frog walking through woodland and changing into Edwardian bathing gear for a dip in a pond.
Valerie Pitts died on 31 March 2021, aged 83.