Living and Growing: Series 4 (1979)
Series 4 (1979) of the ITV Schools series Living and Growing from the 1970s & 1980s, covering Sex Education for primary, secondary school pupils.
Presenter Stanley Mitchell returns and these programmes are similar to the previous series in style and content.
Many of the programmes follow the Newman family, including the birth of baby Barry Newman
Previews
Each episode was previewed as part of a late-night series called Living and Growing: A Preview for Parents and Teachers. The half-hour previews consisted of a screening of the quarter-hour schools programme followed by a discussion between presenter Gerry Davis, Stanley Mitchell, a parent and a teacher.
The preview series was shown by Grampian on Sunday nights at 11:35pm starting from 14th January 1979, on the night before the first broadcast of each schools programme.
The preview series was also shown in 1979 by Scottish Television and Anglia Television. Scottish, who like Grampian were broadcasting the series in the spring term, showed the preview series first, on Tuesday nights around 11:30pm from 9th January 1979, nearly a week before the broadcasts for schools. Anglia broadcast the series in the summer term, and took the preview series after midnight on Monday nights (Tuesday mornings) immediately before their Tuesday broadcasts to schools.
Grampian continued to screen the preview programmes each year in advance of their broadcasts to schools. Anglia Television likewise took the preview series in subsequent years, but other ITV regional broadcasters did not.
Titles & Theme Music
The visuals for the opening titles are the same as used for the previous series of Living and Growing from 1975: a series of illustrations show a boy and a girl growing from babies to adults, and finally to be a family with a baby of their own. The title Living & Growing appears above the final illustration in a semi-circle, and the programme number and title are superimposed.
The theme music this time is a piece of library music called Funky Feeling by Miki Anthony, published by Bruton Music.
Episode List
| # | Title | Broadcast |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Family and Friends | 15 Jan 1979 |
| 2. | The Same Yet Different (1979) | 22 Jan 1979 |
| 3. | Differences in Detail (1979) | 29 Jan 1979 |
| 4. | Loving and Caring | 5 Feb 1979 |
| 5. | Preparing for a Baby | 12 Feb 1979 |
| 6. | Birth of a Baby | 26 Feb 1979 |
| 7. | A Close Look at Baby | 5 Mar 1979 |
| 8. | It's Your Life | 12 Mar 1979 |
The titles of episodes 2 and 3 were also used as episode titles in the subsequent fifth series of Living and Growing in 1983, so they are annotated with "(1979)" here to distinguish them.
The episodes were also sometimes billed by a more descriptive set of 'titles' indicating the subjects they cover.
- Social development
- Physical growth
- Physiology of sex
- Relationships, signs and signals
- Pre-natal care
- Preparing for birth
- Post-natal care
- Babies and families
Broadcasts
Grampian Television
Grampian Television broadcast this unit in the spring term each year from 1979 to 1982.
Scottish Television and Border Television joined their Caledonian neighbour in showing Living and Growing in the spring term at first. They shifted to the spring term network broadcasts in 1981, but returned to Grampian's spring transmissions again in 1982[1].
| Year | Term | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Channel | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1978-79 | Spring 1979 | Monday, 10:10am | Wednesday, 10:31am | Grampian | from 15 Jan | |||
| 1979-80 | Spring 1980 | Thursday, 10:48am | Friday, 10:09am | Grampian | from 17 Jan | |||
| 1980-81 | Spring 1981 | Tuesday, 10:48am | Thursday, 9:52am | Grampian | from 20 Jan | |||
| 1981-82 | Spring 1982 | Thursday, 10:16am | Friday, 10:43am | Grampian |
Other ITV regions
Most of the rest of the ITV regional companies broadcast these programmes in the summer term from 1979 to 1982.
Broadcasters following this pattern certainly included Thames Television in London, ATV and later Central Television in the Midlands of England, HTV in Wales and the West of England, Granada Television in the north west of England (the first time that I am sure Granada joined the rest of the ITV network in screening Living and Growing), plus Yorkshire, Anglia, Tyne Tees, Westward and Channel.
Ulster Television in Northern Ireland did not show Living and Growing in 1978-79, but did pick it up from 1979-80, following the summer term pattern adopted by most of the network.
Southern Television also took these programmes and by 1982 they were broadcasting them in the summer term.
| Year | Term | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Channel | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1978-79 | Summer 1979 | Tuesday, 10:23am | Friday, 10:45am | ITV | ||||
| 1979-80 | Summer 1980 | Tuesday, 9:30am | Friday, 10:31am | ITV | ||||
| 1980-81 | Summer 1981 | Tuesday, 10:26am | Thursday, 10:31am | ITV | ||||
| 1981-82 | Summer 1982 | Thursday, 10:28am | Friday, 10:24am | ITV |
In Autumn 1980 Thames Television made an extra run of the series, on Tuesdays at 10:48am. Thames then showed the programmes again in Summer 1981 alongside the rest of the network, but only on Thursday mornings at 10:31am.
Credits
| Presenter | Stanley Mitchell |
| Graphics | Juan Wingaard Lela Stanley Sandy Massie |
| Medical Illustrations | Ted Smith |
| Film Editor | Roy Smith |
| Educational Adviser | Sheena Young |
| Writer | Stanley Mitchell |
| Director | Alan Franchi |
Resources
There were teacher's notes available, republished for each term that the series was shown.
Related programmes
- Merry Go Round: Sex Education (1976)A parallel series for slightly younger children from the BBC.
Sources & References
- British Newspaper Archive newspaper articles and listings
- ITV Schools Annual Programme Guides.
- TV Times listings.
With thanks to Simon Collins.
- ↑ For Scottish Television broadcasts of these programmes, many newspaper listings don't reveal the individual programmes shown within 'Schools' slots by this time, but preview broadcasts on Tuesday nights in spring 1979 reveal that Scottish did carry the schools programmes that term. The spring 1980 broadcasts are described as 'partially networked' in the IBA annual report rather than 'local', meaning that at least one other region showed the series in spring 1980 as well as Grampian, and this seems to have been Scottish and Border. Thanks to Simon Collins for filling in more details of Scottish and Border schedules.
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