Lizzie Dripping

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Lizzie Dripping was a British television serial made by the BBC between 1972 and 1975, written by Helen Cresswell and set in a country village, about a young girl with a vivid imagination who starts a relationship with a local witch whom only she can see and hear.

BBC children's series set in the imaginary village of Little Hemlock about a mischievous 12 year-old girl, Penelope Arbuckle (played by future Blue Peter presenter Tina Heath), and her imaginary witch friend (Sonia Dresdel), who only Penelope (and the TV audience) could see.

Penelope was the Lizzie Dripping of the title, the name being a provincial term in the Nottingham area for a plucky girl who has difficulty in telling the difference between fact and fiction. The character was created by Helen Cresswell for a single Jackanory Playhouse presentation entitled "Lizzie Dripping and The Orphans" in 1972 and commissioned as a full series the following year. Told entirely from the young girl's point of view with a narrative supplied by Heath for moments when Penelope was thinking (Hannah Gordon did the honours in the pilot). The series was filmed in the Nottinghamshire village of Eakring, where Cresswell lived at the time. Only eight episodes were made, the first four in 1973 and the other four two years later and in between there were three Lizzie Dripping books all published in 1974.