ostalgia isn’t what it used to be. And neither is children’s telly. Even before the internet made viewing anything possible at any time, the explosion of cable channels such as Nickelodeon and CBeebies churned out enough comedies, cartoons and TV movies to turn any child’s eyes square. Not so in my formative years, the late-60s to mid-1970s. We had time to burn then, especially when that nice Mr Heath was prime minister and only made us go to school three days a week. Of course, we were free to roam the streets without fear, unlike today’s forcibly school-deprived youngsters; plus, indoors, the TV was rarely on. Kids’ programmes – practically any programmes apart from the lunchtime news and Watch with Mother – didn’t start on the BBC until 4pm. Except in school holidays when there were long mornings of extra shows – and that, in this time of coronavirus, is what I’m attempting to recreate. Look back at the BBC One schedules for school Easter holidays in 1973, and they’re practically the same as Easter 1976. Likewise summer holidays, and Saturday mornings. I’d venture the Beeb only owned about a dozen kids’ series, which it played in rotation. Every holiday. For years. Searching YouTube for the theme tunes brought it all flooding back. If you liked your children’s TV in English, you could enjoy Daktari, about a vet in east Africa starring Clarence the cross-eyed lion, Casey Jones, about a wild west train driver, Champion the Wonder Horse (wild west heroics of a boy and a wild nag), Whirlybirds (helicopter pilots for hire), Banana Splits, or the homegrown fun of The Double Deckers (starring a young Peter Firth and Aswad’s Brinsley Forde). The rest – perhaps reflecting a national mood to join Europe – were dubbed efforts by our continental neighbours: Belle and Sebastian, a sort of modern Heidi with a cute boy and a white mountain rescue dog (after which the Scottish band named themselves); The Aeronauts, about a pair of swinging French air force pilots; White Horses, the one with the pretty girl on the ranch where they grow Lipizzaner horses; and The Flashing Blade, a swashbuckler about a French chevalier and a garrison besieged by an army in tin hats, possibly Spaniards (the historical context wasn’t immediately clear to a boy in Kent). These imported dramas spoke with one voice: because all the male parts sounded like they were dubbed into English by the same actor. If he got royalties every time they were shown, he’ll be in a mansion in Hampstead by now. Superior to all these, in my view, was the Franco-German masterpiece The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. I’ve got it on VHS in the loft. Over 13 episodes, it faithfully retells Daniel Defoe’s epic story of shipwreck, loneliness and the rescue of a companion, Friday, from the clutches of cannibals. By today’s standards, the pace is rather slow: its Austrian star, Robert Hoffman, bimbles about catching goats, or rigging up a rope bridge to his wrecked ship to salvage candelabras and barrels of rum. I was in the Cub Scouts back then, and I can tell you it was slow enough to keep up with his knotting technique. I’ve watched this Crusoe so many times I feel confident in my bones that, should I become shipwrecked, I’d be able to fashion a comfortable home out of poles and fronds with my eyes closed, using the very same knots. My DVD collection completes the rest of the schedule regulars: start with a Tom and Jerry cartoon, or Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin; practise survival with Robinson Crusoe; let off steam with Laurel and Hardy (check out Busy Bodies, The Music Box or Towed in a Hole); and end the morning with a classic Elvis Presley film. There’s more for the afternoon. Crazy times call for the madcap antics of The Monkees. Their show was pitched somewhere between that scene in the Beatles’ film Help! where they walk through separate front doors but end up in the same house, and the Sock! and Pow! of Batman. Wherever Batman would have a fight, the Monkees would sing a song and run around giddily. I didn’t know 50 years ago that David Jones, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith were a band stitched together in the head of a US television producer. I just thought their nitwit slapstick and corny jokes were hilarious; watching them now is only mildly excruciating. It’s been hours of fun catching up again with those childhood shows. But I’m saving the best till last, one more treat I’m keeping up my sleeve – or rather in the full DVD box set of 32 episodes – for deeper into lockdown times. The televisual light that has never dimmed for me shone, for once, on ITV. My favourite ever kids’ programme is Thunderbirds, best marionette-based, gadget-rich kids action drama of all time. Who wouldn’t want to work for International Rescue? It’s got futuristic flying machines, a funky pink Rolls-Royce driven by an ex-con butler, and an inventor called Brains. The team’s arch enemy is a psychic villain who lives in a Burmese temple and makes people faint when his eyes light up. And the stories go from rescues in space to, er, rescues from pyramids, underground rivers below Manhattan, crocodile-infested swamps, out-of-control monorails, nuclear-powered airliners, a ski resort in the Alps … in that last one, an episode called The Cham-Cham, Lady Penelope sings a tune Dietrich-style, with a hidden code that foils a dastardly attack by communist jet fighters! You’ll never top that, Nickelodeon.