Lets go back to lunchtimes in the 80's. Rushing back from school, in the days before everyone took school lunches, for some fish fingers the TV would be switched on for a brief glimpse of Rainbow, Pipkins or Pebble Mill at One. In amongst it all was ATV's low budget gardening programme from Kings Heath Park in Birmingham. Gardening Today (renamed Gardening Time in 1982 when ATV became Central TV) was intended to feature a keen amateur gardener and a professional expert doing the sort of things you might like to try in your own garden. The two original presenters were Cyril Fletcher (famous from his stint on That's Life) and Bob Price, a horticulturalist. They were later replaced by Howard Drury and Arthur Billit.
Which brings us to the real star of the show which was its ridiculously catchy theme tune - a piece of baroque style music played on flute. For years this haunted me. Yet, as someone involved in baroque music I never came across it or anything like it. It does contain elements that are similar to Bach Brandenburg 3, but its not by Bach or any other Baroque composer.
In fact its a piece of modern library music by French composer Raymond Guiot called "Ardent Elizabeth" issued by the French library music company Tele Music. It sounds like part of a longer piece, but it only exists in 15 and 30 second versions. You can listen to them here on the Tele Music web site.
Update:
I have now located a 1 minute 43 second flute and harpsichord version:
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
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1 comments:
Great, I've wanted to hear this again for years "o) always used to watch this in my lunch break, yes I was a strange kid, and now 30 years later I garden and cultivate an allotment, must have been brainwashed.
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