Bertha

***Bertha*** is a British stop motion-animated
 children's television series about a factory machine of that name,
comprising 13 episodes that aired from 1985 to 1986. Other major
characters in the series were Mr Willmake (factory owner), Mr Sprott
(Bertha's chief designer) and Tracy (Mr Sprott's young assistant). All
the characters were designed by Ivor Wood, and the series was produced
by his company, Woodland Animations. It was broadcast on BBC Television.[1]
A series of six storybooks based on *Bertha* was published by André Deutsch
 at the same time as the series was broadcast. They were adapted by Eric
 Charles and illustrated by Steve Augarde, who was also responsible for
the artwork and music in the children's series *Bump*.

## Plot

The series is set in an industrial estate occupied by the *Spottiswood & Company* factory, a small manufacturing plant producing a wide range of goods ranging from cuckoo clocks
 to windmill money boxes. Each episode focuses on a machine called
Bertha that can produce any item requested of her. In each episode the
factory experiences a crisis affecting its daily production schedule,
which Bertha invariably solves with the help of her factory worker
friends.

## Production

*Bertha* was created by Woodland Animations, who also produced the shows *Postman Pat*, *Charlie Chalk* and *Gran* for the BBC. Episodes were written by Eric Charles and Stephen Flewers, and designed, produced and directed by Ivor Wood, co-founder of the Woodland company. Roy Kinnear and Sheila Walker voiced the characters, and Kinnear narrated. The main title music featured the singing of Guy Fletcher (songwriter). The songs "Tracy's Robot Song", "Mrs Tupp" and "Isn't it Nice?" from the *Bertha* 12-inch vinyl record feature the vocals of Stefanie de Sykes.

## Main characters

* **Mr. Willmake** – Manager of the factory
* **Miss McClackerty** – Mr. Willmake's secretary
* **Mr. Sprott** – Chief designer
* **Tracy James** – Mr Sprott's Assistant
* **Mr. Duncan** – Works Foreman
* **Ted Turner** – Chief machine operator (who shows a number of influences of the veteran TV presenter Bruce Forsyth).
* **Roy Willing** – Assistant machine operator (unknown if he was named after the narrator Roy Kinnear)
* **Mrs. Tupp** – The tea lady
* **Panjid Singh** – Forklift truck operator, often has accidents that are no fault of his own!
* **Nell** - Packer
* **Flo** – Stacker
* **T.O.M** – Talk Operated Machine, a robot designed by Tracy and built by Bertha to perform odd jobs around the factory. According to the song *Tom the Robot* from the Bertha 12" vinyl record, he is said to be Bertha's robot son
* **Bertha** - The title character, an old machine at the factory

who has been modernised over the 50 years she has worked at the factory.
 She helps the rest of the Spottiswood & Company factory during each
 episode in some way or another

## Goods manufactured by *Bertha* throughout the series

* Windmill-shaped money boxes
* Garden gnomes
* Beach balls
* Nuts and bolts
* 365 springs
* Inflatable Plastic bears
* Bathroom sponges
* Cuckoo clocks
* Humming tops
* Jack-in-the-boxes
* Jigsaw puzzles
* Watering cans
* Building blocks
* Electric kangaroos
* T.O.M (Talk Operated Machine). – a robot
* A mechanical toy soldier for a contest
* Data Warehouse reports

## Original broadcast dates

*Bertha* premiered on BBC1 on 1 April 1985 at 3:55pm. The next six episodes were shown over the following weeks, omitting the Easter and May Day
 holidays, and episodes 8–11 were first broadcast at the end of an
autumn rerun. The BBC did not comply with an ordered schedule for the
airing of the program, and the last two episodes premiered in 1986
during a third run at 1:45pm and 1:30pm.

## Merchandise

Merchandise for the programme was, and is, very minuscule, the merchandise listed are the only items that have been discovered.

### UK VHS and DVD Releases

In 13 April 1987, after the episodes were shown on TV, the BBC released one video of the show.

At some point during 1985, Bertha was featured on a Marks and Spencer
 (St. Michael) exclusive VHS release called 'Cartoon Favourites' along
with *The Family-Ness*, *Ivor the Engine*, *Bagpuss* and *Pigeon Street*, the "Mouse in the Works" episode of Bertha is on this release.

In 6 November 1989 one episode of Bertha was on the VHS release which was exclusive to W.H.Smith 'Postman Pat and Friends' alongside *Postman Pat* and *Charlie Chalk*

In 2 September 1991, one episode of Bertha was featured on the BBC VHS release 'Postman Pat and Company' alongside *Postman Pat* and *Charlie Chalk*

Hallmark and Carlton Home Entertainment released the first four episodes on a single video in 1994.

In 2004 Entertainment Rights released a DVD of the show containing 3
of the same episodes as the Hallmark/Carlton Release, albeit replacing
the Best Machine Competition with 'More Speed, Less Work (albeit
mistitled the best machine competition)':

In 2011, Classic Media released a DVD entitled "Fun with Friends: Volume One" Containing one Episode of Bertha:

Bear, Ethelbert the Tiger: Ethelbert and the Camel, Friendly Monsters: A
 Monster Holiday, Fun Song Factory: Happy, Little Red Tractor: Circles
in the Corn, Merlin the Magical Puppy: Merlin and the Summer Fair,
Postman Pat: Postman Pat at the Seaside and Preston Pig: Snout Scouts

### Australian DVD Releases

While there are no known Australian VHS' of the programme, there have
 been two DVD releases of the entire series released by Reel
Entertainment, on the DVD cover, it claimed that the show was made by
"The Makers of *Postman Pat* and *Thomas and Friends*."
 However this is only true for Charlie Chalk (since the slogan was used
on all the Woodland Animations DVD's in Australia), because Jocelyn
Stevenson (Writer of Charlie Chalk), became the executive producer on
Thomas and Friends from the Seventh Season onwards

### Photobooks

In 1985, to accompany the Programme, Some Photobooks were released
with altered titles to fit the style of the books, these were very
similar to the Postman Pat photobooks, where the front cover would be an
 original illustration and all pictures within the book were images from
 the TV Programme:

- Bertha and the Great Painting Job (The Great Painting Job)

- Bertha and the Windmills (The Windmills)

- Bertha and the Mouse in the Works (A Mouse in the works)

- Bertha and the Best Machine Competition (The Best Machine Competition)

- Bertha and the Lost TOM (T.O.M Get's Lost)

- Bertha and the Flying Bear (The Flying Bear)

### Vinyl Record

In 1986, after Broadcast ended, the BBC's record label released a 12" vinyl record containing songs from the TV Series:

All songs written and composed by Bryan Daly.

Tracks marked with an \* did not feature in the TV Series, however it
is possible that the song 'Mr. Duncan' was to feature in the episode
"More Speed, Less Work" but was not included due to it making the
episode too long, the same case with 'Mr. Willmake' possibly featuring
in the episode 'Bertha's Birthday'

The album was also released on cassette with the reference number of: ZCR 585, however the cassette has never surfaced

### Board Game

In 1987, Falcon released a board game using illustrations similar to
those seen on the front covers of the photobooks. The Game itself does
not differ much from the Monopoly series of board games, but with this,
if a player lands on T.O.M, they are allowed to ask Bertha to make an
item for them. one of these was recently sold on eBay for £15.00 (approx
 $30)

### Advent Calendar

In 1985, an Advent calendar using the same profile image as the vinyl
 record was released, one of these was recently sold on eBay for the
price of £49.99 (approx $98.00), not much is known about this item

### Annuals

During 1985 to 1988, Bertha featured in a total of four annuals:

- Bertha annual 1985

- Bertha annual 1986

- Buttons (Based on Children's BBC) annual 1987 (along with Postman
Pat, King Rollo, Towser, Henry's Cat and Jimbo and the Jet Set)

- Buttons annual 1988 (Along with Postman Pat, Charlie Chalk, Henry's Cat, Towser, King Rollo and Spot)

## Credits

* **Written by:** Eric Charles
* **Narration by:** Roy Kinnear
* **Voices By:** Roy Kinnear and Sheila Walker
* **Music and Lyrics by:** Bryan Daly
* **Director Of Animation:** Derek Mogford
* **Series Designed and Directed by:** Ivor Wood
* **Film Editor:** Martin Bohan
* **Song Vocals:** Guy Fletcher,
* **Recorded at:** Havoc House Studios
* **Sound by:** Clive Pendry
* **Produced by:** Woodland Animations Ltd
* **© Woodland Animations Ltd MCMLXXXV**

## Repeats

Bertha has shown at lunchtimes and afternoons on BBC1 and BBC2 from 1985 - 1994, CBBC on Choice has shown the series twice beginning in Easter Monday 2000 right after Playdays and at 5.20pm. The whole series then repeated from 1st November - Monday 4th December 2000 at 6.15pm. It has been shown once and was never really repeated again afterwards.