In the TV Times for the week November 24 /30 1963, a one page feature on Roberta Leigh appeared. Written by Diana Lancaster, we have reproduced the article in full along with the two pictures used to promote it.


Torchy Sparked Off The Space Puppets

A big portrait of Jeremy, now aged 13, hangs over the fireplace in Roberta Leigh’s Hamptead home.

Roberta’s puppet worlds first came alive for her son when he was two.

Hoppity the rabbit was first - but the puppets have kept pace with Jeremy’s maturing interests.

On Thursdays, in Space Patrol, the puppets flit from planet to planet in their space ships at 6,975 miles in a minute. (That is average speed allowing for take-off and landing.)

'Jeremy was watching television with me in America when he was two,' explained Roberta. 'A toy rabbit kept popping up and being told to go away. Jeremy was fascinated and asked me to tell him a story about the rabbit.

'The stories of Hoppity became a bed-time habit - then I began to tape them and write them down so he wouldn’t be lonely when I couldn’t be there. Soon Hoppity was in Small Time.'

Roberta’s interest in space began with Torchy, the Battery Boy, who took off for the stars in a rocket fired by sparklers.

'About six years ago, a publisher friend gave me a Russian science book about space research. Three weeks later I still remembered every technical detail. And in space I can use any amount of imagination and no one can contradict me,' she said.

Although Roberta Leigh made her name with romantic fiction, she decided (after 25 books) that she was hemmed in by too many rules which limited her imagination.

'Anything can happen in my puppet worlds. When I’ve created them, they’re more real to me even than the world I live in. And the characters grow.

'There’s not enough humour in children’s programmes. Most children have a surprisingly sophisticated sense of humour - and even if they’re too young to realise exactly why something is funny, they can feel it is and enjoy laughing.

'I get away from the stock situations and cliché characters. My puppets are creative - give the children something to think about,' she said.

Scientific details in Space Patrol are checked by Colin Ronan, vice-president of the Royal Astronomical Society. He keeps Roberta’s imagination in check.

'Distances are carefully worked out,' said Roberta. “I have a chart. For instance - it takes three days to get to Mercury, one-and-a-half days to Venus, 41 to Saturn, 140 to Neptune, 184 to Pluto - and 40 minutes to the moon.

'I never find it difficult to think of stories. The characters make themselves. I design the clothes and rockets and sets, but they gradually evolve as soon as I start working on them.

'The music is fun to make. I get many letters from the children saying how they like the electronic stuff.

'You can’t really expect to take off in a rocket to the strains of Victor Silvester or even the Beatles. We have a studio full of instruments for making space noises.'

Roberta left school in Wales when she was 17, married at 18, and Jeremy was born when she was 19.

'I hadn’t many friends in London. I started writing. I tore up the first novel. Then many were turned down,' she said.

'I prefer to write for children because I have to be sincere in what I write. It’s easy to believe in the children’s worlds. I still write romantic novels. I am writing one at the moment about the beauty business - but thought the situations are improbable, I can always believe in them.'

Jeremy is a little too old to believe implicitly in the puppets, although he still watches Space Patrol because he is interested in the technical details. His place, as a child critic of the stories, is taken by children who send hundreds of letters a week to Roberta.

'I love hearing from the children that like my puppets,' said Roberta.

'I was in the hairdresser’s this morning. A little girl was playing there, and I asked her what she liked on television. She thought. And said : ‘Pussy Cat Willum’.

'Then she came back a few minutes later and tugged at my skirt. ‘Like Hoppity,’ she said.

'Dear little child.'


© 1963 TVTimes & Diana Lancaster

(With thanks to David Gutteridge)

Back to Original Features