''For the Children'' is a

British television Regular television broadcasts in the United Kingdom started in 1936 as a public service which was free of advertising, which followed the first demonstration of a transmitted moving image in 1926. Currently, the United Kingdom has a collection ...

programme targeted at children of school age. First broadcast on the BBC Television Service in 1937 at 3pm as the opening programme for afternoon viewing (as television would generally be broadcast from 3pm to 4pm and then later, from 9pm to 10pm). For its first two years the series was ten minutes in length. Suspended in 1939 along with the rest of BBC Television for the duration of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, it returned on 9 June 1946, running on Sunday afternoons and expanded to twenty minutes in length. The series featured a variety of different presenters and acts: story readings, puppet shows, songs. On Saturday 13 March 1937, George Queen's Pantomime Goose was shown in the ''For the Children'' slot, the opening programme before ''In Your Garden'' came on at 3:10pm. In October 1946 the "hugely popular" children's puppet

Muffin the Mule Muffin the Mule is a puppet character in a British 1946-1955 television programme for children. The puppet had been made in 1933 for Hogarth Puppets. The original TV programmes featuring the animal character himself were presented by Annette M ...

made his television debut on the show, accompanied by his "friend"

Annette Mills Annette Mills (born Edith Mabel Mills; 10 September 1894 – 10 January 1955) was an English actress, dancer, songwriter and television presenter, best known for presenting the children's television show ''Muffin the Mule''. Biography Early life ...

. The puppet's character was devised by the puppeteer

Ann Hogarth Margaret Ann Gildart Jackson (19 July 1910 – 9 April 1993) better known as Ann Hogarth (married name Margaret Ann Gildart Bussell) was a leading British puppeteer. She, her husband and "Hogarth Puppets" toured the world. She is best known for her ...

. Jane Phillips, 'Hogarth, Ann (1910–1993)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, 200
accessed 10 Feb 2017
/ref> ''For the Children'' was last broadcast in December 1952, when it was superseded by other BBC children's television programmes, including ''

Watch with Mother ''Watch with Mother'' was a cycle of children's programmes created by Freda Lingstrom and Maria Bird. Broadcast by BBC Television from 1952 until 1975, it was the first BBC television series aimed specifically at pre-school children, a developme ...

''.

References

Further reading