Living and Growing: Series 1 (1968)
Series 1 of the ITV Schools series Living and Growing from the 1960s, covering sex education for primary and secondary school pupils.
The very first series of Living and Growing was made in 1967 and presents viewers with a factual, straightforward and clear introduction to sex education, based on the birth of a child in a traditional family unit, and child development as it affects young viewers and their relatives.
Local gynaecologist Dr. K. John Dennis speaks directly to camera in a kindly and jocular fashion about the human life cycle and family groups, differences between the sexes, menstruation and in simple terms how humans produce a baby. The mother and baby are followed through pregnancy and birth. In the penultimate programme a group of schoolchildren in the studio ask Dr Dennis about topics that he hasn't covered in the earlier episodes, such as the birth of twins and breast feeding.[1]
The final programme revisits the whole life cycle of a girl being born, growing up and having a baby of her own. This key, summary episode was often used as an example of the whole series and was entered for - and won - the prestigious Japan Prize for Educational Television in 1968.
Buoyed by this success these local programmes were picked up by a few other regional ITV broadcasters, before the programmes were remade for a much bigger launch across much of the UK in 1970 - this is covered as series 2.
These programmes approach sex education through family life and relationships, and sex as an act of love. They make plenty of assumptions about the role of women, the aspiration of little girls to grow up to by typists and little boys to be engineers, and how sad but inevitable it is that unmarried mothers are likely to have their babies taken away. Little more than a decade later Grampian TV's education officer reflected that, viewed with hindsight, these first programmes were "staggeringly sexist and moralistic"[2].
However it is this underlying moralistic tone and normalising of a nuclear family that perhaps served to dampen the controversy that inevitably accompanies the idea of sex education for younger children. There was some debate about these programmes, and some local areas decided not to permit their schools to use the programmes - notably in Glasgow, where Grampian TV was based - but this was nothing like the storm that brewed up a couple of years later when the BBC announced a new series of factual, biological sex education programmes for primary schools, in the series Nature and Merry-Go-Round.
Previews
Allowing parents, teachers and local authorities to preview these programmes before they were seen by children, was a core principle behind Living and Growing. Grampian TV arranged screenings for teachers of several episodes in late 1967, before broadcasts began, as a result of which some alterations were made to episode 4 covering the act of fertilisation before it was shown on TV[3]. Some other ITV regional broadcasters arranged similar preview screenings of their own before they took up the series, though of course they were not in a position to alter the programmes only to prepare the audience.
Grampian, 1968
When the series was broadcast for schools for the first time, as a local series on Grampian TV alone in spring 1968, it was preceded by a late-night preview broadcast of each episode for parents and teachers, one week before each schools broadcast, surrounded by an introduction and discussion with Dr Dennis.
Episodes in this original preview series were scheduled for 30 minutes, to include the 18 minute schools programme, and were simply billed as Living and Growing. The preview series was broadcast from 11th January to 29th February 1968, around 11pm on a Thursday night on Grampian. It was only ever screened once, and only in the Grampian TV area. Entirely new preview series were produced by Grampian for subsequent units of Living and Growing.
London Weekend Television, 1969
When Living and Growing was screened in London on Sunday mornings roughly around the summer term 1969, a completely separate preview series was produced by the local broadcaster London Weekend Television. In a series of 10 minute programmes, London presenter Alec Taylor discussed the subject of each week's broadcast with Dr Dennis
These previews ran at 12:30am on the Friday night/Saturday morning preceding each Sunday morning broadcast, as the last programme of the day before the channel closed down, from Saturday 12th April to Saturday 24th May 1969. They were only screened once, and only in the London area. They were billed as simply Living and Growing or sometimes Living and Growing Preview.
Episode List
| # | Title | Broadcast |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Programme 1 | 18 Jan 1968 |
| 2. | Programme 2 | 25 Jan 1968 |
| 3. | Programme 3 | 1 Feb 1968 |
| 4. | Programme 4 | 8 Feb 1968 |
| 5. | Programme 5 | 15 Feb 1968 |
| 6. | Programme 6 | 22 Feb 1968 |
| 7. | Programme 7 | 29 Feb 1968 |
| 8. | Programme 8 | 7 Mar 1968 |
Broadcasts
| Year | Term | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Channel | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1967-68 | Spring 1968 | Thursday, 1:58pm | Grampian | From 18 Jan |
Regional broadcasts
This particular unit of programmes was shown by Grampian TV only once, in spring 1968 as shown here, but it was also picked up by some other ITV regions over the next few years, before the more widely-seen remake series arrived in 1970.
Tyne Tees Television in the north-east of England was first to pick up Living and Growing, screening it in Autumn 1968 on Fridays at 10am for schools.
Later Anglia Television in the east of England took the series in Summer 1969, with schools broadcasts on Mondays at 2:42pm.
In London there were two different companies providing television programmes by this time, Thames Television on weekdays including schools programmes, and London Weekend Television on weekends. It was London Weekend Television who picked up this first series of Living and Growing for screening in the capital city, showing it not as a schools programme but as a general educational programme for adults and children to watch, on Sunday mornings around 10:40am in Summer 1969. It was accompanied by a specially-made series of short preview programmes, shown in London on the preceding Friday night (see above). This was the first and last time that Living and Growing would be seen in London until 1976 when the third series came along as a schools programme.
Credits
| Presenter | Dr K. John Dennis |
| Writer | Dr K. John Dennis & Peter Webb |
| Director | Peter Webb |
| Editor | Elizabeth Garrett |
Resources
There were teacher's notes available.
Links
- Scotland On-Air: Living and GrowingA detailed guide to the first and second series.
Sources & References
- Grampian Television (1974) 'A Report on 'Living and Growing in Rogers, Rex S. (ed) Sex Education: Rationale and Reaction. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521098580. pp.227-238
- Gregory, Maya (2015) Beamed Directly to the Children': School Broadcasting and Sex Education in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s' in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society vol. 25. Cambridge University Press. DOI 10.1017/S0080440115000092 (available online) pp.187-214
- Horsburgh, Frances (1970) 'The Man Behind TV Sex Series That Has Grown on Us' in Press and Journal 5 March 1970. p.8
- McGill, Gordon (1967) 'Bon-Accord Gossip: Usual Fear about Sex Education Does Not Unduly Worry Him' in Evening Express 7 September 1967. p.6
- TES (1967) 'Living and growing on television' in Times Educational Supplement 15 December 1967. p.1376
- TES (1969) 'Sex programmes praised' in Times Educational Supplement 7 February 1969. p.405
- TV Times listings.
- Weltman, Joseph (1978) 21 Years of Independent Television for Schools, 1957 to 1978 as published with Independent Broadcasting no 16, May 1978, London: IBA
- Young, Sheena (1982) 'Factors influencing development of long-running television series for schools' in Journal of Educational Television vol. 8, no. 3. Taylor & Francis. DOI 10.1080/0260741820080303 pp.181-185
- ↑ Detail of the content of these programmes from Grampian (1974). Although published in book form in 1974 this report dates from five years earlier and was summarised in TES (1969), so it does relate to this first series and not the remake second series.
- ↑ Young (1982) says "That first, pioneering programme was both brave and successful. It measured and fitted the society of 1969 (...) but viewed to-day it is staggeringly sexist and moralistic. Little girls grew into shorthand typists who married young engineers, had babies and then stayed home, as 'mummy' to be looked after by 'daddy'. There were telling, straight to camera lectures about the plight of young girls who had babies without a husband to support them. The presenter made assumptions that no-one a decade later would dare to present, and yet, for 1969, the tone and the message were correct."
- ↑ TES (1967) says "Teachers' comments were sought. and as a result of these one of the programmes shown, number four in the series, is to be changed. lt was on the subjects of Menstruation and Fertilization."
Topics
School topics covered in this programme. Click to find other programmes covering the same topics, but bear in mind topics are a new addition to the site in 2023 and not many are set up yet.
Keyword tags
Some features of this programme. Click to find other programmes with the same features, but bear in mind tags are also a new addition to the site in 2023 and not many are set up yet.
More
Do you know more about this programme?
- Do recordings of these original programmes still exist? The National Library of Scotland and STV archive only offer the 1970 remake series (copyrighted to 1969 when it was made) and Maya Gregory who published academically about these programmes in 2015 was unable to view any copies.
- Is there any more detailed information about the content of these original programmes, perhaps newspaper reviews from 1968 or 1969 (I haven't found any so far)
- Did Anglia show all 8 episodes in 1969? It was only a 6 week broadcasting term on ITV, with cricket shown in the afternoons after those 6 weeks, so if they did they must have doubled some up in the same week. If they didn't, which episodes did they skip?
Want more on this programme?
This site attempts to cover thousands of programmes and it will take ages to update them all. If you would like to see this one updated soon please click on the star to 'vote' for it and I will do my best to prioritise it!
Voting is anonymous and you can vote for as many programmes as you like. The number in the box above shows how many people have already voted for this programme. You can also see a list of all the votes so far.
More programmes
Some random programmes for age 9-11 from the 1960s
| World History (1966) | |
| BBC Schools Radio | |
| 1966-1973 | |
| History |
| Nature Study | |
| BBC Schools Radio | |
| 1927-1965 | |
| Science |
| Discovering Dance | |
| ITV Schools | |
| 1968 | |
| Movement |
| Music Workshop | |
| BBC Schools Radio | |
| 1964-2015 | |
| Music |