| History |
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Bill & Ben were made by Kim Allen and Maria Bird was responsible for the music and narration. Audrey Atterbury and Molly Gibson were the puppeteers and the man behind the voices of Bill & Ben was Peter Hawkins with Gladys Whitred as Little Weed. |
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The original Bill & Ben puppets are on permanent display at The Museum of London. |
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| Story |
| Each episode started with - |
 'Once
upon a time there was a little house.And all round the house was a beautiful garden. And down at the bottom of the garden was a place where the man who worked in the garden left his things while he went into the house to have his dinner...' |
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In each episode they would be joined at the bottom of the garden by an assortment of weird and wonderful things including musical vegetables, flying boots, a Potato Man and Slowcoach the tortoise. |
| Each episode ended with - |
| 'Goodbye Bill, Goodbye Ben. Bill & Ben, Bill & Ben, Flower Pot Men.' |
| Gallery |
Bill
& Ben were invented by Freda Lingstrom who also wrote the scripts.
Twenty-six
15 minute black and white episodes were produced and shown on 'Watch with
Mother' on Wednesdays. The original programmes, produced between 1952 and
1954, were repeated through the 1950s and 1960s.
Bill and
Ben, the Flower Pot Men lived at the bottom of the garden in their own
'especially large' flower pots. They spoke their very own special language
called 'Oddle-poddle', which was not popular with mothers of the time who were
trying to teach their children to speak properly. Their co-star was Little Weed.
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Its the gang - hello |
Stop sitting there, and get a job |
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Hello Mr Potato Man can we eat you, we're hungry |
Please visit us again |
| Exhibition - Bill and Ben | |
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Its Slowcoach, looking for Bill and Ben! |
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