Putney Street Celebrates History A very ordinary street in Putney is celebrating its history.  Festing Road was made famous when children’s story teller David McKee lived there in the l970s and created the Mr Benn cartoon character. This was shown many times on BBC television and became an international  favourite . In the series Mr Benn leaves “This very ordinary street” brilliantly drawn by  David McKee to go to a  fancy dress shop and from there into other worlds where he has adventures. The adventures always involve Mr Benn  leaving his new world a better place. The present inhabitants of Festing Road which is named Festive Road in the series  have  laid a commerative stone. It reads “Festive Road,Home of David McKee and His Creation Mr Benn”.The costs (nearly £500)of replacing and  engraving a pavement stone were paid  for by subscriptions raised by the street. The stone has alreday been laid. When the stone is officially unveiled on November 28 it is planned to celebrate by having a fancy dress party involving many of the costumes worn by Mr Benn-diver,,cook,caveman,hunter, clown,wizard,knight, gladiator and so on. Author David McKee is coming over specially from Paris. Organiser ,Festing Road  home owner ,Hugh Thompson said, “To others it may be a very ordinary street, but we have raised money to plant our own trees when the Council wouldn’t, now we have done this. If ordinary is being decent and friendly then we are very ordinary. What MR Benn shows is that extraordibary things can happen in ordinary streets.”

Entire Thread

Topic	Date Posted	Posted By
Mr Benn Lives	19/11/09 12:40:00	Hugh Thompson
Re:Mr Benn Lives	19/11/09 12:50:00	Martine Guy
Re:Mr Benn Lives	19/11/09 15:05:00	Hugh Thompson
Re:Mr Benn Lives	19/11/09 19:01:00	Sue Riggs

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