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  Lot 153. 20th March Sale 2011

  The archive of "Larry The Lamb"

  
  

  A rare Lot comprising of original material from the iconic children's radio & television series "Larry the Lamb" & the Toytown stories. Comes to auction in the Midlands.

  
  

  The famous characters of Toytown were created by SG Hulm Beaman who died in 1932. These characters arose from his previous stories of Philip & Phido a comic strip in the Golders Green Gazette in the 1920's. The BBC children's hour then launched the Toytown stories as short plays in 1929.

  
  

  Since Hulm Beamans death, his works & characters were kept alive by his widow and his good friend Hendrick Baker under the guise of Larry the Lamb ltd. This ran for over 40 years on radio before going to television in the early 1960's with the BBC and into the 1970's with Thames television. The stories and film went world wide. The Pilot film for television, as well as one other episode were made by the famous Halas & Batchelor studio's who's director John Halas was known to be the British equivalent to Walt Disney. Most of the radio plays were live and in those days the BBC didn't record much.

  
  

  Until now apparently the earliest known surviving material from this most famous of all children's series was a short promotional recording dating back to 1934. Auction-Plus are pleased to inform the world that among this vast Lot of material is a copy of an original radio script, stamped by the BBC and dated three years earlier than this previously known material.

  
  

  The Lot also has two copies of the pilot film for TV "The Showing up of Larry the Lamb" made by Halas & Batchelor as well as numerous other original studio films of following episodes. In addition to this the Lot also consists of a number of original water color paintings which were actually used as back drops in the making of the pilot film, as well as an album full of Polaroid stills of various film sets used during the making of several episodes. During most of the 60 years or more that this series pleased many generations of children the copyright was retained by Larry The Lamb ltd who's directors were Baker the producer & Hulm Beamans widow. The Lot therefore also includes reams of associated paperwork all of which gives great provenance to the film the scripts paintings and other items. The lot includes a good number of letters between Hendrick Baker & Halas & Batchelor The latter being on company headed paper and many letters are singed in John Halas's own hand. There is even original letters of correspondence with the Studio's landlords with a copy of the studio lease agreement and a layout plan as well as telephone & other sundry studio bills.

  
  

  More interestingly so, is that the Lot also includes two short story scripts by Hulm Beaman which were to our knowledge never published as well as a Philip & Phido story without script not published and a cartoon film of Philip & Phido any sound as this too never made it to the screens, but are just as important if not more so, as it was this story that was the beginnings of this never to be forgotten & loved Toytoyn with Larry, Dennis the Dachshund, The Mayor & earnest the policeman among many other well known characters. In total the Lot consists well in excess of 100 original Larry the lamb items right down to Hendrick Bakers 1942 ID card and contracts for radio with the BBC. Auctioneer Toby Jenkins states that whilst auctioneers would normally provide a sale price estimate, they would base such on past auction records of similar items. In this case it is virtually impossible to do so, as nothing like this to our knowledge has ever come to auction before. Especially with so much original material, spanning both the radio & television years.

  
  

  It is unknown if anyone or who still owns any copyright to this series, but there are original letters of correspondence made in 1992 between Hendrick Bakers widow & others which suggest they had some difficulty in establishing proof of copyright as this was originally owned by the Ltd company which was dissolved upon Hendrick Bakers death in 1991. However in any event it would be up to any successful auction purchaser to establish full copyright ownership before using any of the material for commercial purposes. As such the auctioneers will be offering this lot as a unique collectors items only.

  
  

  If anyone is interested in knowing the full contents of this rare Lot then they may obtain a full list from the auctioneers directly or make arrangements for a private viewing prior to the sale. The Auction-Plus Auctioneer Toby Jenkins can be contacted on 02476 394099. The full catalogue for this sale which includes, some early Chinese ivory carvings and Lalique glass among many other antiques & collectables will take place on March 20th 2011.

  
  

  This is totally unique as rescued in a clearance from a skip whilst the home of Bakers wife was being cleared. only this was saved all missing material was apparently destroyed. a rare opportunity to acquire something so unique relating to glory day's of British radio & film, Something like this has never come onto the open market before, as this type of film archive is normally preserved by the studio's in question.