Picture Book (TV series)

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"Picture Book" redirects here. For the album by Simply Red, see Picture Book (album).

Picture Book was a BBC TV series that first appeared in 1955. It was the Monday programme in the Watch with Mother cycle and was created by Freda Lingstrom. It was initially introduced by Patricia Driscoll. The programme encouraged children to make things. Patricia Driscoll had the catch phrase "Do you think you could do this? - I am sure you could if you tried". Patricia Driscoll left in 1957 to play the part of Maid Marian with Richard Greene in the ITV series, The Adventures of Robin Hood. She was later replaced by Vera McKechnie.

Each Monday the book would be opened showing a picture (drawing) of a house and we would go through a window (the camera would zoom in on the picture) and a scene be shown and a story would be told about it. It was something different every week.

The 1987 VHS release by BBC Video featured Sausage, a puppet dog, the Jolly Jack Tars (a group of sailors), making paper lanterns and growing mustard and cress. A further episode was included on a Watch with Mother 2 Video released in 1989, the main feature being the creation of hills and a valley using a sand tray. This was a regular item featured in the programme. Both episodes were taken from the 1963 series, hosted by Vera McKechnie.