Harris, Fred

Fred is a former schoolteacher. He is an actor, who became a popular Play School presenter, making his debut on 16th July 1973 (earning £45 a programme). This began a 15-year association with the programme, which would see Fred appear in 382 editions.

The earliest surviving footage within the BBC archives is Wednesday 26th June 1974 – his seventh week. The programme began with co-presenter Sarah Long drawing a picture dot-to-dot of a steam engine.

Fred recited the week’s poem with actions in the pet’s area. Sarah read Mouse Trouble by John Yeoman and Quentin Blake. Fred introduced a film (through the round window) of a tennis racket being made.

The programme was scripted and directed by Albert Barber.

Fred attended both the Here’s a House – A Celebration of Play School book launch at BAFTA in 2010 for volume one and the 50th anniversary reunion of Play School’s first edition at Riverside Studios in May 2014.

As well as Play School, Fred also presented on the following programmes:

• Ragtime (BBC One, 1973 and 1975);
• Make It Count (Yorkshire TV, 1977 – 1979);
• Play Away (BBC Two, 1979 and 1981);
• Numbers at Work (1980 and 1983);
• Chock-a-Block (1981);
• Figure It Out (ATV);
• Basic Maths (Central TV).

He presented several series related to technology including Micro Live (BBC Two, 1983 and 1985 – 1987) and Investigating Science (BBC Two, 1986 – 1987). From 1989, until the time of writing, Fred could be seen regularly on the BFBS children’s programme Room 785.

Television acting credits include:

• End of Part One (LWT, 1979 – 1980);
• Star Turn (BBC One, 1979);
• The Adventure Game (BBC One/Two, 1980);
• Up Our Street (BBC One, 1985);
• Alfonso Bonzo (BBC One, 1990).

Radio credits include:

• Comedy sketch show The Burkiss Way (BBC Radio 4, 1976 – 1980). This grew out of a sketch show for The Half-Open University (BBC Radio 3, 1976);
• Week Ending (BBC Radio 4, 1976);
• Jim the Great (BBC Radio 2, 1977);
• Presented Introducing Science – alongside Carol Leader for many years;
• Marks in His Diary (BBC Radio 2, 1982);
• Listening Corner (BBC Radio 4, 1984 and 1989);
• The Press Bang (BBC Radio 2, 1986);
• Science Scope (BBC Radio 4, 1988);
• The Litmus Test (BBC Radio 4, 1993);
• Trumpton Riots Again (BBC Radio 4, 1997).

Interview

Paul R. Jackson met Fred at his London home in January 2009. What follows is a series of extracts from that interview.

Fred recalled his early career: “I was in a theatre company started by friends and I was off with flu and started watching the programme and fell in love with it. When I was teaching, I would go past Radio Rentals every day and see someone like Derek Griffiths messing about on 20 television sets and became a fan of Play School.

“I played flute, recorder and congas in a three-piece pop/folk genre band called Pigbin and we impressed The Strawbs and were asked to support them. I was 22 and handed my notice in from teaching to be a full-time musician, but one of the group decided not to take the plunge to full-time musician, so I had to do something else.

“I joined a theatre group (Kamillion) in Southampton, that toured schools and I started doing odds shifts at Radio Solent when one of the DJs asked me if I had ever done any television? I replied: ‘No, I’ve never even thought about it.’

“He said: ‘What you want to do is look at the last name you see on the credits and write to that person.’ I told him: ‘I’d love to do Play School, it’s a fantastic programme.’ So I wrote to Cynthia Felgate.

“I didn’t hear anything for three months and suddenly got a letter in February/March 1973, saying they were holding auditions the following week. I managed to juggle my schedule around and attended the audition at a boy’s club in Kensington with Cynthia Felgate, Peter Ridsdale-Scott and Michael Cole.

“There were around 60 people, split roughly between men and women from, we were told, about 1,000 that had applied. Only those twelve chosen would go on to a camera audition in studio. Jon Glover was another successful applicant.

“I met Bill Blezard who asked if I had bought any musical instruments and I told him that I had a recorder but it was in the key of E. ‘Is that possible?’ I asked and I remember Bill’s great reply: ‘Geographically it’s possible.’ Bill was absolutely clever and could play anything.”

Fred recalled his audition piece: “I was asked to bring along something of my own and decided I was going to do sock puppets. I brought along a box of socks of different colours and needed to end with the right coloured one.

“In the run through I was very nervous and director Carole Ward came up to me and said ‘Don’t let me down Fred, my money’s on you.’ That gave me confidence that when I accidentally pulled out the wrong coloured sock, instead of flapping about, I said ‘You need an old sock’. Then sniffed it and said ‘Preferably a clean one’ and threw it over my shoulder.

“The camera crew fell about laughing. Carole gave me the confidence, so it’s thanks to her I got the job. Passing the audition was a dream come true. I hadn’t known then that Carole had been a presenter herself and Toni Arthur, who was assisting in the auditions, was very helpful assuring me that everything would be ok.

“Many years later, producer Michael Cole told me that he had been looking for someone to co-present Ragtime (1973 and 1975) and that he had chosen me to do two weeks of Play School as a trial.

“Christine Secombe directed my first week and Michael my second. He told me that if he got on with me, he would offer me the work on Ragtime. Thankfully we did, as there was no guarantee of more work afterwards on Play School.

“Ragtime became my favourite programme that I worked on during my career – with Play School a close second!”

With the mention of Ragtime, Paul asked Fred why his co-presenter Maggie Henderson hadn’t been used as a Play School presenter apart from a one-off appearance on an outside broadcast.

“Maggie was a very controlled actress, who liked to rehearse over and over, facing a mirror as if it were a camera and might possibly have found it hard to work in a more improvised setting like Play School. Perhaps that was why she was never asked to present the programme further.”

Paul asked Fred if the pubic hair story associated with Hamble was true: “Yes it was. I know Derek Griffiths has told this story before, but it certainly happened to me when I came back after lunch to record a scene bathing her in the bath and found someone had drawn them on her before a take. I always got on well with the crew and they sometimes played these jokes on the presenters.

“I was aware of Brian, Johnny Ball, Derek and Carol Chell but had not seen that much of the programme before. I remember finding that the seasoned presenters had total respect for the viewer.

“There was a total ban on the word ‘we’, as it was impressed upon presenters that we shouldn’t assume a relationship with the viewer. We also weren’t allowed to mention mum and dad, as you could never assume they were watching with a parent.

“In my second week I was wearing rolling skates for some reason and during the song they flew off. I just picked them up and went off on my hands and knees – you had to be able to improvise at times.

“In my third week (October 1973), which I presented with Chloe Ashcroft, I read Spike Milligan’s poem Bambly Boo. We had some visitors to the studio and they came over to see the pianist Bill Blezard.

“They said it was bizarre the way he could play in sync with Katoo dancing and wondered who had taught the bird to dance in time with the music. Bill could play anything and Katoo, encouraged by Wendy Duggan off camera, would be nodding to get Katoo to imitate a dance.

“I was later told by Simon Brett, producer on The Burkiss Way, that he once saw me playing a watchmaker and that it had shown that I had an ear for comedy and he invited me to join the radio comedy show.

“Years later, I was stopped in the street by a young child, and because of my Afro looking dark hair he said: ‘It’s that coloured man off the telly’ – thinking I was Derek Griffiths!

“Once I worked on a week directed by Peter Charlton and did my biggest ever ad-lib as we had under-run by two minutes. Just before the take for the Let’s Build a Snowman song, I had to mime the whole building process.

“There had been no time to rehearse with the pianist who kept up brilliantly. It was very liberating to do such things.

“The production team were very protective of scripts and if you were giving a talk to a group, they would expect them to be collected back in.

“Viewers didn’t understand the hard work it was without having autocue and we only had one rehearsal for all five programmes and later they added a music rehearsal day as well.

“The programme gave me a good grounding and taught me that it was not a mass media but we were talking to individuals and would need to engage with the viewer and be respectful of them.

“I particularly got on with director Terry Marsh, as she also had a science background. We later worked on Micro Live together and after she had tried her hand at presenting became a better director, as she knew what was required.

“The first few times I worked with the infamous Katoo I referred to him as her, so for a while I wrote it on the set to remind me what sex he was.

“Little Ted was always my favourite toy as he could be moved slightly to make him wave.”

Fred couldn’t single out a favourite moment but “one of the most frustrating things was to try and make Carol Chell corpse, but she was always far too professional for that.

“On one occasion I was playing a milkman and came to the door and in the script it said: ‘I’ll have a gold top and a carton of yoghurt.’ On the take, I decided to throw in an extra line adding: ‘Oh we’re trying some new flavours madam. We’ve got cheese and onion or liver and bacon.’

“I thought she would crack a smile, but not at all. She looked at me and quite intelligently put one hand on her cheek and said: ‘Oh I think liver and bacon sounds rather nice’. At which point I fell about – the way she had said it cracked me up. So that one backfired and I never did manage to make her laugh.”

Fred recalled that he was asked to help out at later auditions for new presenters: “An unknown female presenter named wannabee presenters as ‘munchkins’. I was seen as reliable and didn’t make waves, so used to help with auditions as an established male presenter.

“To stop you being like a munchkin, Cynthia said we should stop using words ending in ‘y’, so I called Humpty ‘Humptish’ instead, which then made her understand you couldn’t do that for everything.”

Fred recalled working with Chloe Ashcroft: “Chloe always made me laugh – we used to set each other off. The opening titles used to say: ‘Ready to knock, Turn the lock’ and so on.

“The first day I worked with Chloe (15th October 1973) and after it had said: ‘Ready to knock’ I whispered, ‘Show us your cock’. She started laughing and that made me laugh, so when the camera panned to us we were rather jolly.

“The following day she tried to do the same to me. So it went ‘Ready to knock’ and she said ‘Give us a flash – oh no bugger’, which made me laugh at her getting it wrong!

“Sarah Long was a quieter presenter, whereas Chloe and Toni Arthur were both boisterous and I loved working with them. In a two-hander you had to delegate, otherwise it would look rather odd and you would need to know who would fill in the gaps.

“There was never a rota of presenters as they didn’t want regular teams performing together as it might give a set of good presenters but on the down side a weak set as well.”

Fred remembers: “One of the directors told me: ‘We mustn’t let them know we are having such fun because they’ll split us up’. So Albert Barber, whom I worked with many times – for ages we pretended to be very cool about working together as if we didn’t enjoy it. Fortunately they fell for it, so we were put together over and over again.”

In May 1974, Fred first worked with Play School stalwart presenter Julie Stevens. He recalls: “Julie was the one person who taught me how to understand the business. For example, eye lines. Vision mixers would know where the natural cut would come, so she said look down from camera one and then look up at camera three.

“For example, director Peter Wiltshire was a one-off and Julie explained that if you were working with him and the studio was lit, you should make sure you were doing something, as Peter would cut to you without you knowing!

“Peter also had a special affinity with the toys. Humpty appealed a lot to children with disabilities, as he rolled around which they could identify with. From time-to-time, the toys became worn out and eventually were replaced with a new Humpty and Peter always ensured they widened his eyes so he looked right before appearing on the programme.”

Fred recalled a strange encounter with some insects: “Once director Peter Wiltshire had this large tray with mounds of earth and we were due to do an item about lots of creepy crawlies.

“During rehearsals they had gone to sleep under the earth so couldn’t be seen very well, so Peter ordered staff to get lots more of these creatures which were kept under a cover until just before the recording. Once the studio lights came on, all these insects came to life and came over the top and down my flared trouser leg!

“In 1976, our young son was two and when the programme started, he instinctively listened to the different sounds from the programme and would then quieten down again once the programme had finished.

“I later worked for TV Training at BBC Elstree helping on courses for both presenters and directors as a way of paying back what I had learnt working on the programme.

During the 1970s, Fred worked for both the BBC and ITV. Paul asked if there were any differences: “In 1975, I wrote to Lewis Rudd at ITV about doing some science programmes and received a flat ‘no thanks’, whereas his colleague Paul Martin, head of science and maths programmes, said come up and talk about your ideas. That lasted 15 years doing different programmes for ITV Schools, with Central TV.

“It was a different working environment – at the BBC on studio day they would bend over backwards to look after you, whereas at ITV they involved you more as a presenter in the production side. But when you got on the studio floor you were a small cog in a larger wheel.”

 

Personal information

Clips of Fred on The TV Room

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Online presence

Acknowledgements