The Wind in the Willows

An adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's classic story The Wind in the Willows with original songs. Mole and Rat live on the riverbank and enjoy messing about in boats. Their friend Toad decides that he enjoys driving motor cars. Mole ventures into the Wild Wood and goes missing, but is rescued by rat.

Toad's friends try to stop him from driving around dangerously, but he escapes from them, "borrows" a car and ends up in prison. Meanwhile Ratty and Mole search for the missing son of their friend Otter. Toad escapes from prison but finds that the creatures from the Wild Wood have taken over Toad Hall...

The programmes are presented by Jacqui Dankworth from "Willow Cottage" - from where she can see Toad Hall through one of the windows - retelling the story as if it had recently happened. The story extracts are dramatised with multiple actors and sound effects.

This unit did not have a theme tune, but each episode begins with a short instrumental extract from the song to be featured in that episode.

Time and Tune had previously covered Scenes from The Wind in Willows in spring 1986, more than fifteen years earlier, with completely different songs in a different style. This new production includes more of Kenneth Grahame's original storyline than the 1986 production.

Songs

All eight songs from this unit, with a short extract from each.

A Lovely Day to Be Alive

Upon the Open Road

Wild Wood

Toad's Song

The Piper

My Home

The Battle Song

Friends and Heroes

Credits

The singers were also credited (at the end of episodes 5 & 10), but I don't know how to spell their names! If anybody has the Wind in the Willows CD and can send in the credits, please get in touch by email or on the forum.

Episodes

The ten episodes from this unit were first broadcast in the spring term 2003, on Thursday mornings at 3:15am on BBC Radio 3.

They were repeated in autumn 2004, spring 2007 and autumn 2008, and for each of these repeats the series was also available as RealAudio files on the BBC School Radio website "Listen Again" service, with each episode available for seven days following its radio transmission. In 2004 the Listen Again files were taken from the school radio tapes, with short announcements before each episode about the content of the programme and available resources. But for later repeats the Listen Again files only contained the episodes as broadcast.

#	Title	Broadcast
1.	A Lovely Day to Be Alive	16 Jan 2003
2.	Upon the Open Road	23 Jan 2003
3.	Wild Wood	30 Jan 2003
4.	Foolish Toad	6 Feb 2003
5.	The Piper	13 Feb 2003
6.	My Home	27 Feb 2003
7.	The Battle Song	6 Mar 2003
8.	Friends and Heroes	13 Mar 2003
9.	Rehearsal and Performance 1	20 Mar 2003
10.	Rehearsal and Performance 2	27 Mar 2003

Resources

The Wind in the Willows was accompanied by the usual illustrated pupils' pamphlets (available in a pack of 5 originally costing £9.99) containing the words and tunes to all of the songs, and booklet of teacher's notes (originally costing £3.99) which also came with a copy of the Playscript.

In addition the songs from the unit were available on a cassette or CD, and on the original transmission the Time and Tune programmes were available on a set of School Radio Tapes. For later repeat runs the episodes were available on CD, as well as the Listen Again service on the BBC School Radio website.

An abbreviated set of teacher's notes, containing basic information about the episodes and classroom preparation but none of the lyrics or music, was published on the BBC School Radio website to accompany the repeat runs in 2007 and 2008.

Sources & References

• BBC (2002) BBC Primary Catalogue 2002-03. Wetherby: BBC Educational Publishing. p.119
• BBC (2003) BBC Primary Catalogue 2003-2004. Wetherby: BBC Educational Publishing. p.111
• BBC (2008) Time and Tune teacher's notes autumn 2008 online version (available online)
• BBC Active (2007) BBC Active Spring 2007 Primary Catalogue. Harlow: BBC Active. p.101
• Recordings of Time and Tune: The Wind in the Willows all 10 programmes

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