Derek James looks back at Anglia TV's Romper Room

Tell me, tell me, tell me do.

Magic Mirror, tell me today,

Have all my friends had fun at play?

And then…if you were very, very lucky Miss Rosalyn would actually see YOU because she said your name on the television.

It was 60 years ago when a show was launched on Anglia TV which turned hundreds of boys and girls into TV stars.

In the summer of 1964 the wonderful Romper Room was launched on the small screen. A show which I am sure some of you will remember  with great affection.

This was a pioneering “infant teaching” series which made tea-time tingle for the young and young-at-heart.

It could be a chaotic kindergarten which was designed to help boys and girls aged between four and six to enjoy some group play.

And by Jove they did.

This was children’s television which was loved by people of all ages.

Such a simple yet brilliant idea. TV for the young and young at heart and one of the best loved little shows on Anglia Television.

The idea and the title came from Baltimore in America in 1953 with a producer named Bert Claster and his wife, Nancy, a former nursery school teacher was the original hostess.

Other stations in the States and across the world wanted to copy the idea but the Clasters insisted they stick to the pattern they had created and training presenters.

When Anglia decided to show The Romper Room. More than 40 people applied to be the presenter and the person chosen was former children’s nurse Rosalyn Thompson of Attlebridge who went off to Baltimore for a fortnight’s training by the Clasters.

Rosalyn, the first nursery nurse at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, was the perfect choice. The boys and girls and the viewers loved her

For each edition children from across the region travelled to the Norwich studios where Miss Rosalyn looked after them while they had the chance to run, jump, shout, paint, bang wood and the rest.

All with the help of her puppet bees, Mr Do Bee and Mr Don’t Bee, she also talked to them about washing, cleaning their teeth and safety at home and outside.

She  presented more than 2,000 shows but left in 1976 after marrying series director David Kenten. Biddy Massen took over until the series ended in 1977 after 13 years.

“I loved every minute of it. The children were marvellous and the programme was watched by people of all ages,” she told me years ago.

“We once had personnel from two Royal Navy warships visiting Anglia and I remember a bearded Petty Officer telling me how he always watched Romper Room,” she said.

So many of us did…and loved it.