Radio comes to toytown - Decca record set

Toytown appeared in 1928 and became a staple of childrens' entertainment in the UK for decades. It was a series of books and plays written by Sydney George Hulme Beaman (1887-1932). Hulme Beaman was an actor who took to making wooden toys, which formed the characters for the stories. The radio plays continued until the 1960s, and on television until the 1970s.
"How Wireless Came to Toytown" was (unsurprisingly) the very first of the radio plays, and was first broadcast on 29 Nov 1929. Following Beaman's death his friend Hendrik Baker kept Toytown popular. The BBC Genome database shows that 'Wireless' was broadcast again in 1945. Baker produced this Decca 3-disc set, modernised to call it 'Wireless', about June 1948.
The music is by Mantovani "and his Toytown Orchestra", composed by Ronnie Binge (1910-1979). Binge is one of the great names of British Light Music; these discs are just before he created the 'cascading strings' sound for Mantovani, so are very much in the style of his Elizabethan Serenade or Sailing By (as heard every day on Radio 4).
The cast on the discs differs from the original radio, although the narrator Wilfred Babbage repeated the role for the 1970s TV versions. The others are reasonably well-known British actors: Raymond Rollett is the Mayor; Fred Essex is Ernest the policeman (he played the role in the 1947 BBC film version); Norman Claridge is The inventor; Brian Oulton is Denis the Dachsund; Babbage is Larry the Lamb, and John Deverell is Mr Growser (he was the Inventor in the 1947 film).
The audio is my transfer from a set of original discs in my collection, and the images are all taken from the original sleeves.