A programme for children under five
Today's story for our under-fives is ' The Fairy,' by Jean Sutcliffe. For our small listeners the whole world is, in a sense, a fairy world, inasmuch as they are as yet too young to have sorted out clearly the real from the unreal, the actual from the imaginary. For them, animals may talk and dolls have lives of their own. Their imaginary companions are invented from the life around them; they are their own re-creations of things they know or have heard of. On the rare occasions, therefore, when, as in today's story, fairies invade our programmes, they are matter-of-fact little creatures, not markedly distinguishable from the children themselves, for our under-fives, have no need of exotic beings from a world as yet unsuspected. For the remainder of this week we are kept unquestionably in the real world by the true -and by now well-known — exploits of ' Jacko the Monkey,' also written by Jean Sucliffe.
Had there been a ' Listen with Mother ' programme in 1851, what would our childrtn have heard? Mothers-and fathers— may be amused at a possible answer if they tune to the Third Programme on Friday at 10.0 p.m. or on Saturday at
6.40 p.m., to ' Listen with Mamma.'
Elizabeth A. Taylor