Jill Murphy
Jill Murphy (5 July 1949 – 18 August 2021) was a British author and illustrator of children's books. First published in 1974 at the age of 24, she was best known for the ''Worst Witch'' novels and ''Large Family'' picture books, with sales amounting to several millions. Her books have also been adapted for stage and television. She has been called "one of the most engaging writers and illustrators for children in the land". Biography Early life Born in London, the daughter of Reeney (Irene) and Eric Murphy, Jill Murphy was brought up in Chessington, Surrey. Reminiscing about growing up in post-war Britain, she said: "I had a classic 1950s childhood. My mum was at home, because in those days that's what mums did. My dad worked in an aircraft factory. He was up really early in the morning, came home exhausted at night and I didn’t really see him." She won a scholarship to the Roman Catholic grammar school in Wimbledon. She showed an interest in writing and drawing at the age of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chelsea Art School
Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London based in London, United Kingdom, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation. It offers further and higher education courses in fine art, graphic design, interior design, spatial design and textile design up to PhD level. History Polytechnic Chelsea College of Arts was originally an integral school of the South-Western Polytechnic, which opened at Manresa Road, Chelsea, in 1895 to provide scientific and technical education to Londoners. Day and evening classes for men and women were held in domestic economy, mathematics, engineering, natural science, art and music. Art was taught from the beginning of the Polytechnic, and included design, weaving, embroidery and electrodeposition. The South-Western Polytechnic became the Chelsea Polytechnic in 1922 and taught a growing number of registered students of the University of London. At the beginning of t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Togo
Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its capital, Lomé, is located. It covers about with a population of approximately 8 million, and has a width of less than between Ghana and its eastern neighbor Benin. From the 11th to the 16th century, tribes entered the region from various directions. From the 16th century to the 18th century, the coastal region was a trading center for Europeans to purchase slaves, earning Togo and the surrounding region the name "The Slave Coast". In 1884, Germany declared a region including a protectorate called Togoland. After World War I, rule over Togo was transferred to France. Togo gained its independence from France in 1960. In 1967, Gnassingbé Eyadéma led a successful military coup d'état, after which he became president of an anti-communist, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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ITV Network
ITV is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network. It was launched in 1955 as Independent Television to provide competition to BBC Television (established in 1936). ITV is the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, it has been legally known as Channel 3 to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time, BBC1, BBC2 and Channel 4. ITV was for four decades a network of separate companies which provided regional television services and also shared programmes between each other to be shown on the entire network. Each franchise was originally owned by a different company. After several mergers, the fifteen regional franchises are now held by two companies: ITV plc, which runs the ITV1 channel, and STV Group, which runs the STV channel. The ITV network is a separate entity from ITV plc, the company that resulted from the merger of Granada plc and Carlton Communications in 2004. ITV plc holds the Channel 3 b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Worst Witch (film)
''The Worst Witch'' is a 1986 British musical fantasy television film based on the 1974 children's book of the same name by Jill Murphy. Plot The film follows the plot of the 1974 book. The story centres around Mildred Hubble, who is invariably the "Worst Witch" at Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches. Mildred causes many mishaps, including being late for school, making all of her classmates fall down, Mildred and her friend unintentionally turning themselves invisible, and transforming the class bully Ethel into a pig. The climax surrounds Miss Cackle's notorious evil twin sister, Agatha, plotting to take over the Academy. Ultimately Agatha is foiled by Mildred, and Mildred establishes herself as the hero for the academy. Cast * Fairuza Balk as Mildred Hubble * Diana Rigg as Miss Hardbroom * Charlotte Rae as Miss Cackle/Agatha * Tim Curry as The Grand Wizard * Sabina Franklyn as Miss Spellbinder * Su Elliot as Delilah *Danielle Batchelor as Maud Warlock *Anna Kipling as Ethel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Puffin Books
Puffin Books is a longstanding children's imprint of the British publishers Penguin Books. Since the 1960s, it has been among the largest publishers of children's books in the UK and much of the English-speaking world. The imprint now belongs to Penguin Random House, a subsidiary of the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. History Four years after Penguin Books had been founded by Allen Lane, the idea for Puffin Books was hatched in 1939, when Noel Carrington, at the time an editor for '' Country Life'' books, met him and proposed a series of children's non-fiction picture books, inspired by the brightly coloured lithographed books mass-produced at the time for Soviet children. Lane saw the potential, and the first of the picture book series were published the following year. The name "Puffin" was a natural companion to the existing "Penguin" and "Pelican" books. Many continued to be reprinted right into the 1970s. A fiction list soon followed, when Puffin secured the paper ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Halloween
Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. It begins the observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints ( hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed. One theory holds that many Halloween traditions were influenced by Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain, which are believed to have pagan roots. Some go further and suggest that Samhain may have been Christianized as All Hallow's Day, along with its eve, by the early Church. Other academics believe Halloween began solely as a Christian holiday, being the vigil of All Hallow's Day. Celebrated in Ireland and Scotland for centuries, Irish and Scottish immigrants took many Halloween customs to North America in the 19th century,Brunvand, Jan (editor). ''Ame ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Disney Channel
Disney Channel, sometimes known as simply Disney, is an American pay television channel that serves as the flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney General Entertainment Content division of The Walt Disney Company. Launched on April 18, 1983 under the name The Disney Channel as a premium channel on top of basic cable television systems, it originally showcased programming towards families due to availability of home television sets locally at the time. Since 1997, as just Disney Channel, its programming has shifted focus to target mainly children and adolescents, with a major focus on girls. The channel showcases original first-run children's television series, theatrically-released and original television films and other selected third-party programming. As of , Disney Channel is available on basic cable and satellite in over 190 million American and global homes. Original programming/content on/from the channel spans television, online, mo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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ITV (TV Channel)
ITV1 (formerly known as ITV) is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the British media company ITV plc. It provides the ITV (TV network), Channel 3 public broadcast service across all of the United Kingdom except for the central and northern areas of Scotland where STV (TV channel), STV provides the service. ITV1 as a consistent national channel (with dedicated slots for regional news and other regional programmes) evolved out of the old ITV (TV network), ITV network – a federation of separately owned regional companies which had significantly different local schedules and branding. During the 1990s, the differences between the schedules in each region gradually reduced – partly through the consolidation of ownership and partly through the standardisation in the volume and scheduling of regional programmes. In 2002, a major change of appearance occurred when all ITV regions in Engl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Worst Witch (TV Movie)
''The Worst Witch'' is a 1986 British musical fantasy television film based on the 1974 children's book of the same name by Jill Murphy. Plot The film follows the plot of the 1974 book. The story centres around Mildred Hubble, who is invariably the "Worst Witch" at Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches. Mildred causes many mishaps, including being late for school, making all of her classmates fall down, Mildred and her friend unintentionally turning themselves invisible, and transforming the class bully Ethel into a pig. The climax surrounds Miss Cackle's notorious evil twin sister, Agatha, plotting to take over the Academy. Ultimately Agatha is foiled by Mildred, and Mildred establishes herself as the hero for the academy. Cast * Fairuza Balk as Mildred Hubble * Diana Rigg as Miss Hardbroom * Charlotte Rae as Miss Cackle/Agatha * Tim Curry as The Grand Wizard * Sabina Franklyn as Miss Spellbinder * Su Elliot as Delilah *Danielle Batchelor as Maud Warlock *Anna Kipling as Ethel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Television Film
A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for initial showing in movie theaters, and direct-to-video films made for initial release on home video formats. In certain cases, such films may also be referred to and shown as a miniseries, which typically indicates a film that has been divided into multiple parts or a series that contains a predetermined, limited number of episodes. Origins and history Precursors of "television movies" include ''Talk Faster, Mister'', which aired on WABD (now WNYW) in New York City on December 18, 1944, and was produced by RKO Pictures, and the 1957 ''The Pied Piper of Hamelin'', based on the poem by Robert Browning, and starring Van Johnson, one of the first filmed "family musicals" made directly for television. That film was made in Technicolor, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Worst Witch Strikes Again
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of pronoun ''thee'') when followed by a v ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855 as ''The Daily Telegraph & Courier''. Considered a newspaper of record over ''The Times'' in the UK in the years up to 1997, ''The Telegraph'' generally has a reputation for high-quality journalism, and has been described as being "one of the world's great titles". The paper's motto, "Was, is, and will be", appears in the editorial pages and has featured in every edition of the newspaper since 19 April 1858. The paper had a circulation of 363,183 in December 2018, descending further until it withdrew from newspaper circulation audits in 2019, having declined almost 80%, from 1.4 million in 1980.United Newspapers PLC and Fleet Holdings PLC', Monopolies and Mergers Commission (1985), pp. 5–16. Its si ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |