Mrs. Slocombe's Pussy: Growing Up in Front of the Telly

by Stuart Jeffries

Book by Jeffries, Stuart

Genres: Nonfiction

378 pages, Hardcover

First published February 7, 2000

About the author

Stuart Jeffries worked for the Guardian for twenty years and has written for many media outlets including the Financial Times and Psychologies. He is based in London.

Reviews

[Phillip Edwards · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stuart Jeffries works for The Guardian, he expects to have spent eleven years in front of the television by the time he is 72, and when he wrote this book he was half-way there and had 150 TV channels to choose from. Sadly, not one of them showed Carol Hersey, the much missed girl pictured playing noughts and crosses against some clown-dummy-monster on the Test Card. It gave some children nightmares. (Snorky from the Banana Splits had the same effect on me.)

(For the benefit of youngsters, the test card was shown on British TV when it shut down for the afternoon in the 1970's. No, seriously. It really did. No Jeremy Kyle, no Deal or No Deal, nothing. Just a pretty pattern and some bland music. Imagine instrumental versions of Westlife hits playing over a shopping centre tannoy.)

Jeffries' aim in writing this book is to counter the notion that: "television viewing is a chain of coffee spoons leading through an unfulfilled, worthless life."

Early on it is quite amusing and enjoyable, especially for people of my generation who grew up with Andy Pandy, Top Cat and P.C. McGarry No.452 of Trumpton. (All together now: Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grub!)

I laughed out loud at his description of the way he ate custard tarts while watching Bill & Ben as an infant by sucking out the filling, then putting the case on his head and saying 'flobadopalop'! And his comparison of Trumptonshire with Walmington-on-Sea is just inspired - why had I never seen the similarities before?

He also suggests that the development of reality television has put us on the road to a future like that in David Cronenberg's film of J.G. Ballard's Crash. But it was his egg-headed likening of Sooty to the Greek philosopher Cratylus that was a better clue to the way the book was going to develop.

Have you ever been happily stroking a pussy and then suddenly it snaps at you without warning? Well that's what happens here. When he finally got down to Mrs. Slocombe's Pussy, it transpired that he hates Are You Being Served? He sees in Grace Brothers a metaphor for everything in Great Britain he finds contemptible.

What started as an amusing ramble down memory lane became a philosophical commentary on society by the analysis of popular television. It's only TV, it doesn't need in depth deconstruction and analysis does it? I found his intellectualizing a little tiresome.

He also launches an assault on Billy Connolly's anti-PC ranting and the "thick people in his audiences" pointing out that

"political correctness isn't a term invented by social workers; rather, it is one that is consistently invoked to defend everything from telling anti-Irish jokes to the notion that Benny Hill was a comic genius."

There are some good bits later on: his description of a 'duel' between overblown darts commentators for example, and it has a frightening amount of trivia. (Either he's been keeping a diary of his television viewing since childhood, or he must have done an incredible amount of research.)

At the end there is a helpful TV-ography, with humerous potted descriptions of the programmes talked about in the book, although they are listed in order of their appearance in the book rather than alphabetically.

I borrowed Mrs. Slocombe's Pussy from the mucky books section of my local library (sadly now defunct). It wasn't as funny as I thought it was going to be, so this is one pussy I'm glad I didn't splash out on.


[Adapted from a review I posted on dooyoo.co.uk in 2001.]

[Ffiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stuart Jeffries writes a nostalgic memoir based around his favourite TV programmes.He shares personal anecdotes and a recollection of his feelings and experiences related to his television viewing.He reflects on simple things in a meaningful way.

These days TV offers stories full of melodrama and perversity.TV created a world of illusion.All those who grew up in front of the television made TV programmes their internal world.Prior to the television world of illusion, peoples internal worlds were made up of substantive stories,their internal programming was strengthened by stories about good character and things connected to the natural world.This author writes about a TV age of relative innocence, before that subversion agenda got its foot well and truly in the door...[quote] "We used to worship the sun and its movement structured our lives,then the liturgy (Christianity) overlaid that structure.It (TV) helpfully divided up our lives into times rituals even public moods.Television since the coronation in 1953 offered a structure that borrowed from both the sun and the church:it had it seasons,its reassuring parade of moods and events it gave us common memories shared heritage and a vernacular."

This is a book that details a less cynical age before the agenda pushers fully realized the propagandising potential of the media.

* TV programmes are currently being used by entertainment corporations to overturn normal values. Anyone who watches Peppa pig can't help but notice that Daddy pig is very submissive when in conversations with Peppa and Mummy pig. They both treat him like he is a fat idiot, dismiss his opinions,mock him and enjoy belittling him. The cartoon Family Guy mocks family values,the disabled and has one regular character who is a paedophile. Is it any wonder our culture has become confused and warped.

[Matthew Eyre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb look at the TV of my youth. There were only three channels, and even then, you had to have a separate aerial for BBC2! I had an aunt who would not watch ITV and a friend whose TV got stuck on ITV, so that's all they watched. Luxury, as the Four Yorkshiremen might say. As Stuart says, it was a strange era where the Two Ronnies produced an inuendo laden show, week after week, yet took great umbrage when Not the Nine O'Clock exposed this hypocrisy with a brilliant parody. Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end: but they did :-(

[eLwYcKe · Rating 2 out of 5]

This looks fun, I thought. Love that title! It’s a disappointment. Mr.Jeffries is rather sniffy and severe about his subject matter, after all, why name your book after a character in a television programme you obviously loathe? One can only wonder why he bothered. If I’m going to read a warm, cosy nostalgia-fest about British TV from when I was growing up, I’d rather read a book by someone who loved it as well.
Two stars: one for the title, one for the cover.

[Ann Baxter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite interesting - I agree with some of the observations , my era

[Kevin Tanner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the Tv is from my youth so was a nice trip down memory lane. The extrapolation that the characters from "Are You Being Served" all represented a facet of the state of the British Empire at the start pif the 70s was fairly well drawn but i think very revisionist! Overall - if you grew up in Britain in the 70s/80s you will enjoy the read.