Belated London post: 5 December 2011 - the V&A Museum of Childhood and Broadway Market

Well this was a gem of a find --- Neil had been to Broadway Market earlier in the year (whilst me and the girls were indulging in Much Ado), and mentioned that to get to it you had to go to Bethnel Green tube station on the Central Line and walk past the Museum of Childhood.

Walk past?

I don't think so.

Turned out this wasn't as he thought just the Tower Hamlets museum of childhood, but rather a spectacular outpost of the Victoria and Albert Museum: the Museum of Childhood is a full blown brilliant space with a great collection and lots to see and do.

As you go in the wonderful entrance-way, you currently encounter an exhibition of Julia Margaret Cameron's photographs of children. There is also a brilliant display called The Stuff of Nightmares, featuring the tale of Fundelvogel.


There are the expected collections of children's toys and amusements through the centuries --- everything from Star Wars memorabilia to 18th century dolls-houses, from baby's rattles from many centuries ago to the latest must have robot toys.

But the exhibitions are so much more than 'just' these treats - there are also several excellently put together displays on themes, as exemplified by the Magic Worlds show (on til 4 March 2012) on magic and illusion, fantasy and enchantment. It covers everything from children's magic sets to Derren Brown, from Grimm's Fairy Tales to Walter Crane's Flower Fairies, from Middle-Earth to mermaids. It's beautiful, fascinating and covers every medium of product, story-telling and imagery. Gloriously displayed to please both enquiring young minds and memory-driven adults.

'Go for it!" - going, going, gone...: the end of children's radio on Radio 4

*Sob*

After years of squeezing children's radio programmes from the analogue stations, Radio 4 is finally abandoning 'Go for it!' the excellent children's programme currently airing on Sunday evenings. The story was snuck into the final segment of headlines at 6pm and I can't even find much trace of the announcement on the BBC site.

Admittedly, the BBC have a fair point in that GFI isn't really reaching its target audience of 4-14 year olds. The show pulls 450,000 per programme on Sunday evenings squashed between obituaries, listener feedback and selections of the week's best radio: it's a peculiar location in the schedule. So is it very surprising that the average is apparently in their mid-50s? (though isn't this very close to Radio 4's general audience profile?). And I guess though I'm not THAT old, all the listeners who I know who are fond of Barney and his weekly GFI-ers are over 40.

But the programme allows a rare space in the network - and on analogue radio - for children's voices to be heard at all: for their point of views and their insights to be articulated. On the day when the Guardian publishes a piece by Tanya Byron that we're becoming a nation terrified by young people, do we really want to be getting into the habit of isolating their voices from the networks?* When questioning writers, musicians, artists and programme makers, they ask not just the obvious questions, but also often very savvy ones -- and I don't think I have ever heard a contributor appear less than engaged with these young interrogators.

Besides, I defy anyone who heard the marvellous edition talking to children about death, to not have been touched or found it incredibly useful to help talk with children experiencing the death of loved ones. Michael Rosen must be gutted to hear of the demise of this always enjoyable programme.

Is it enough to just head CBeebies radio to Radio 7 between 5 and 8 am on weekdays? Given this targets specifically those aged 0-6? Where will the 7-14s be heading and what is the BBC doing to create the next generation of audiences for its output?

Sigh.

*Hat tip to Cloud for his timely contribution