Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Mr Squiggle

Today at work i noticed a guy with a pen around his ear and teased him that he was trying to be like Mr Squiggle

One of the men in the office didnt know who Mr Squiggle was and it made me think what young children where missing out on these days. A show that you could see creativity without any badness in it at all, showing how drawing was a cool thing to do.

Mr Squiggle used to be on ABC Australia, he was a marionette with a pencil for a nose, who visited his friends from his home at 93 Crater Crescent on the Moon, flying in his pet rocket (named Rocket).

What he did was every episode he would create several pictures from "squiggles" sent in by children
from around the country. I used to think how clever he was as some of the squiggles that where sent in seemed pretty hard to make a picture from but he did each time.

Mr. Squiggle was created by Norman Hetherington, and the character first appeared on the Children's TV Club on ABC TV, but was spun-off into his own programme which first aired on 1 July 1959. Hetherington voiced all the show's puppets, while his wife Margaret wrote the scripts. The last episode went to air just over 40 years later on 9 July 1999.

Mr. Squiggle was always helped by a human female assistant in all of the show's incarnations; they included Miss Gina (Gina Curtis), Miss Pat (Pat Lovell), Miss Jane (Jane Fennell), and later series featured Roxanne (Roxanne Kimmorley) and Rebecca (Rebecca Hetherington, Hetherington's daughter).

At the start the show used to run for 30 minutes but in the 90's the show went to five minutes

The characters where Mr Squiggle, Rocket, Blackboard, Bill the Steamshovel and Gus the Snail

It seems the picture would be drawn upside down (Hetherington manipulated the puppet from above by viewing the drawing upside down), and then Mr. Squiggle would gleefully declare: "Upside down! Upside down!" – asking his assistant to turn the picture the right way up and reveal the completed drawing.

Aww memories, when to me time was innocent still.


Sunday, November 7, 2010

Bi-Centenary of Liverpool NSW

Liverpool NSW is celebrating its Bi-Centenary today November 7 2010. It is the area i lived in as a child,and i have seen the area change from a Town to a City. To when a car sales yard used to be in the middle of Liverpool where there now being a Shopping Centre.

Part of the Bus Depot at the station being used as a car park it being dirt and foundations of a building (i was told it used to be the Horse Smithy)

Some History about The City of Liverpool

On November 7, 1810 Governor Lachlan Macquarie founded Liverpool.

Liverpool is named in honour of the Earl of Liverpool, then Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Liverpool is Australia's fourth oldest town behind Sydney, Parramatta and Hobart.

Unlike these cities, Liverpool was the first free planned settlement of Australia.

After planning the Town Square, Macquarie appointed emancipated architect Francis Greenway to design a church. In 1818 he laid the foundation stone and named the church St Lukes, the church still being used today.

In 1822 the foundations were commenced for Liverpool Hospital (now Liverpool College of TAFE.) Liverpool was chosen as the site of a major hospital because of its ‘pure air and sweet water'.

The coming of the railway, opened in September 1856 and the electric telegraph in 1858, provided speedy, safe transport and communication and began the transformation of Liverpool into a major regional city.

In 1828 Liverpool was one of the first country areas to open a Post Office. The first postmaster was Mr Meredith.

Click to read a timeline of what happened in Liverpool

The Liverpool Herald, Liverpools oldest Newspapers has been archived click to read editions of the Newspaper from 1898 to 1907