Tony Hart's Gallery

So here's a thing that happened. Tony Hart died. Great, gentle artist man. If you didn't grow up with BBC 1 you'll have no clue what I'm talking about so you can move on to something more interesting right now.

If you remember Hart Beat or Take Hart, then you'll remember that Tony showed us all how to draw or made us want to draw, (although, according to this patronising bbc article, he 'gave a generation of children enthusiasm for homemade art' - WTF???).

I loved art as a child. I was going to be an Artist when I grew up. That was the plan after the going to be a nun phase and before the going to be a vet phase. I was going to be an Artist, and live in the Attic in Castlebane, where I'd paint great pictures and be nice to my Mammy. Not a bad plan as child career plans go.

So of course I loved Tony Hart's art programmes. And the bit I loved most, was 'the gallery'. Kids across Great Britain and Northern Ireland could submit their drawings to the gallery, where they'd be broadcast to the sound of music.

I loved the gallery mainly because it was competitive. It gave you the name, location and age of each child artist. And I would sit glued to the screen judging the artists by their age. 'Fifteen and can only draw like that - shite' I'd think to myself. 'Nine and she's still doing mammy and daddy pictures? Pathetic!' I'd gloat. But I'd remember the devastation of seeing a marvellous drawing with an age near or lower than mine. Sometimes this would drive me to outperform myself, to improve my art, to strive for greater heights. More normally I'd just think 'Probably got her Mammy to help', this being my Mam's answer to any situation where a child outperformed one of her own. She wasn't big into 'helping' as this was seen as 'cheating'.

The other thing I LOVED about the gallery was the music. This, I knew, "Cavatina", a very beautiful classical guitar piece by Stanley Myers, most famous as the theme from The Deer Hunter. So while I watched the art of the youth of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the majestic, haunting and ultimately desolate tones of Cavatina would sound in my head. And in the years since, I've often remembered the gallery in Tony Hart's shows, and remembered that great music, but thought it odd that the producers chose such a difficult but moving piece of music for 'homemade art'.

Turns out they didn't. Turns out, they used Left Bank Two, a now famous piece of anonymous library music that you can hear here...WTF was I on as a child?



While I'm hobbling down memory lane, I guess I should admit that after watching Tony's programme I'd always head off to my sketchpad, pencils and paints, and I'd create a masterpiece that I would post off to the BBC, so MY art would appear to the world. MY art would shine. MY art would show all those other kids what they should be achieving, how pathetic their artistic output was. But somehow, it never happened...