Anne Wood


Anne Wood, CBE is an English children's television producer, responsible for co-creating shows such as Teletubbies with Andrew Davenport. She is also the co-creator of Tots TV and Rosie and Jim. She was a recipient of the Eleanor Farjeon Award.

Early years

She was born in Spennymoor, County Durham, England, and grew up in Tudhoe Colliery, a small coal-mining village nearby.

Career

She qualified as a secondary school teacher through the Bingley Training College in Yorkshire and took up her first teaching post back home in Spennymoor. She married Barrie Wood in 1959 and moved to Surbiton in Surrey where she took up a teaching role at Hollyfield Road Secondary School.
This was the era of the first children's paperback book and Anne became an early pioneer of a children's paperback book club scheme for schools set up by Scholastic Publications. She retired from teaching on the birth of her daughter and was taken on by Scholastic as editor of their Children's Book Club.

Children’s books

When the Wood family moved to Byfleet in Surrey, she expanded her interest in how books and children's development could be brought together. In 1965 she founded and edited a quarterly magazine Books for Your Children, a publication aimed at parents, teachers and librarians and fully supported by children's publishers. Initially the UK Arts Council supported the magazine with a small financial grant. As a further promotion of children's books in 1969 Wood set up the Federation of Children's Book Groups, an organisation still in existence today. Also in 1969 in recognition of her contribution to the promotion of children's books Wood was awarded the Eleanor Farjeon Award.

Television producer

  1. Tyne Tees Television for ITV 1977 Puzzle Party hosted by Gyles Brandreth and featuring Gnigel the Gnu
  2. Yorkshire Television for ITV 1979 – 1983 5 series of The Book Tower, a programme aimed at stimulating children's interest in books. Hosts included Tom Baker and Stephen Moore. Winner of a Children's BAFTA in 1979 and 1982. Winner Prix Jeunesse 1980. 1982–1987 Three series of Ragdolly Anna based on the children's books by Jean Kenward. Innovative technology brought the ragdoll to life. The series starred Pat Coombs as the dressmaker owner of the ragdoll.
  3. Head of Children's Programmes for TV-AM. In April 1983 introduced Roland Rat a character created by David Claridge in The Spectacular Shedvision Show. The series is generally regarded as the saviour of the ailing breakfast television service. Roland took the audience from 100,000 to 1.8 million. Wood produced six further series, Rat on the Road, Roland's Winter Wonderland, filmed in Switzerland, Roland Goes East, filmed in Hong Kong, Rat on the Road II, Operation Fog I, Roland’s Countdown to Christmas. Concurrent with Roland Rat Wood produced a Sunday morning series Rub a Dub Tub – a magazine-style one-hour programme for very young children. It began transmission in February 1983.
  4. Ragdoll Productions Limited: Wood founded her own independent children's television production company in 1984.

    Productions (with first transmission years)

Personal

Brum