Listen with Mother was a BBC radio programme for children which ran between 1950 and 1982. It was originally produced by Freda Lingstrom and was presented over the years by Daphne Oxenford, Julia Lang, Eileen Browne, Dorothy Smith and others.[1]
It was first broadcast on the Light Programme in a fifteen minute slot every weekday afternoon at 1.45, just before Woman's Hour. Consisting of stories, songs and nursery rhymes (often sung by Eileen Browne and George Dixon) for children under five (and their mothers), at its peak, it had an audience of over a million listeners. Like Woman's Hour, it was subsequently transferred to the BBC Home Service (later renamed BBC Radio 4).
The theme music, which became synonymous with the programme, was the Berceuse from Gabriel Fauré's Dolly Suite for piano duet, Op. 56. It was recorded for the programme by Eileen Browne and Roger Fiske.
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The programme's opening phrase "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin." The question, originally an ad lib by Julia Lang, became so well known that it ended up in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations[2] It has been incorporated and sampled by many artists and musicians. For instance, in the episode "The Idiot's Lantern", in the revived series of Doctor Who, it was used by the alien presence known as "The Wire" appearing on a television screen and addressing its first victim, the hapless Mr. Magpie.