Images from Discogs, where some of these Beano Records might be bought.
By the summer of 1968, when I turned six, I think I was probably driving my parents a little bit nuts with my enthusiasm for pop music, which I would tape onto the faithful family Grundig reel-to-reel and play relentlessly:
I think it was fairly soon after that summer perhaps autumn/Christmas 1968 or early 1969, a stack of Beano Records arrived in our household. I still have them. They were children’s stories and classic novels, dramatised and set to famous classical music in the background.
My research for this Ogblog piece has uncovered the fact that they were formerly known as Tale Spinners and had been released initially (late 1950s and early 1960s) on Atlas Records and/or, in the USA, on United Artists Records. Here is the Wikipedia entry about them.
The Beano Label releases of the same material came later in the UK, 1965 from what I can gather, with 24 of the original batch (most of them) making the cut for Beano.
I ended up with 12 of them, although I think I started with a batch of 10. My guess is that dad bought them as remaindered items at the Slipped Disc in Clapham Junction. Possibly, knowing dad’s sometime trading methods back then, he swapped some of his dead stock of cine films for some of the Slipped Disc’s dead stock of records. Exchange is no robbery, as South London merchants were want to put it.
The cast was stellar – or better to say that many were proto-stars: Maggie Smith, Alec McCowen, Donald Pleasence, John Wood, Cyril Shaps, Paul Daneman, Derek Hart, Anthony Woodruff, Judith Whale, Tony Church, Geoffrey Bayldon, Ralph Hallett, Marjorie Westbury, Denise Bryer, Peggy Butt, John Baddley, Alan Rowe, Mary Law, Jocelyn Page & Robert Hardy, to name not all, many of whom went on to great fame and acclaim afterwards.
Here’s the list of my dozen Beanos, each with a link to the Discog entry, either for the Beano Record or for the original Atlas release. The latter tend to contain details on the fabulous cast of actors and actresses who performed each story. Sometimes the cast is listed, sometimes the images contain the cast list, occasionally neither is present:
- Robinson Crusoe
- Puss in Boots
- Hansel and Gretel
- The Brave Little Tailor
- Treasure Island
- The Count of Monte Christo
- Gulliver’s Travels
- Rip Van Winkle
- Davy Crockett
- Knights of the Round Table
- Beauty and the Beast
- Cinderella
The stories and the dramatic telling captured me, I have no doubt. But it was also the music – I think my parents main purpose – that got me hooked and I remember asking my parents what the music was and wanted to hear more of it. Here’s the list again with a quick note on the music of each:
- Robinson Crusoe – Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony
- Puss in Boots – Vivaldi (mostly The Four Seasons plus some horn concerto stuff I think)
- Hansel and Gretel – Tchaikovsky Francesca da Rimini and some Nutcracker Suite
- The Brave Little Tailor – Mozart Eine Kline Macht Musik – don’t be deceived by the record sleeve that reads “Gluck”. Mozart and Gluck would have both had a hissy-fit about that mix-up.
- Treasure Island Berlioz Fantastique Symphony
- The Count of Monte Christo Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony
- Gulliver’s Travels – Some Purcell and a Boyce Symphony or two
- Rip Van Winkle – Mendelssohn Midsummer Night’s Dream
- Davy Crockett – American Folk Songs – out of character and a one-off I believe
- Knights of the Round Table – Couperin (which seemed very strange to me back then)
- Beauty and the Beast – Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream
- Cinderella – Tchaikovsky Swan Lake Suite
Oh how I loved these records – some of them I’d listen to over and over again. At first I focussed on the children’s stories, possibly encouraged to leave the more “grown up ones” to one side for a while.
I especially remember being frightened by the Hansel & Gretel one, which is a really creepy, no-holds barred telling of that story. Francesca de Rimini is quite creepy music and the voices are American on that record. The mother…or evil step-mother…drones “something better be done, husband, something better be done”, to encourage the weak-willed spouse to go along with her plan to abandon the children. I had some nightmares about that aspect, yet I recall i wanted to hear the story over and over again, perhaps because, despite the nightmarish scenario, the children somehow get themselves out of trouble and into clover. One further memory about the Hansel & Gretel one. I remember my mother on one occasion, probably when I had been a bit naughty and aping the voice that she had heard countless times, saying, “something better be done, husband” to my dad and me having the collywobbles at hearing my mum say those words in that style.
I remember all of them pretty clearly and had a deep affection for those records.
Soon after, my parents sourced more records, several of which contained the music I had been listening to with these stories, which got me well and truly hooked on serious music, to supplant my interest in pop for several years.
I have pulled together a YouTube Music playlist of my twelve, mostly for my own convenience and/but you are welcome to use it. Do not be put off by the strikethrough on the link – anyone can access my playlists but if you don’t have a YouTube Premium account you’ll get adverts.
Alternatively, you can go to the source I used for that Playlist, where an enthusiast has pulled together all of the Beano ones into a YouTube channel named Beano Records Reboot. Finding that channel today (1 March 2025) has quite literally made my day, not least because I have lost much of the day wallowing with pleasure in that rabbit hole…not that Alice In Wonderland was one of the one’s I owned!
Which did I listen to the most? Hard to recall, but I remember with particular affection from the earliest times Puss In Boots, which I heard again today with great pleasure:
Latterly I recall wallowing in Treasure Island and dreaming of such adventure…
…which is a bit odd really, as my favourite true story about myself reveals me to be a landlubber who is a ludicrously timorous sailor whose timbers are all too easily shivered.
I wasn’t the only kid on our street with some of these Beano Records. I remember listening to some that I didn’t own, I think at the Cedar house or possibly the Benjamin house on our block. The Three Musketeers one, for example, I remember someone playing me at their house, just as I often played mine when friends were round. Those Beano Records were a wonderful part of my childhood, and that of many other youngsters of my generation.
On reflection, I am pretty sure that the purchase of these by my parents was about the music more than the drama. Someone must have recommended them for that purpose and I am grateful to that person, whoever they might have been.
Reflecting on my parents’ irritation at my pop music habits, I suspect that it was my mother who was angling hardest for a solution. Perhaps she even said:
…something better be done, husband, something better be done…
…to encourage my dad to get the records!
Thanks again to Ben at Beano Records Reboot @BeanoRecordsReboot – for his unwitting but hugely valuable help with this piece.
