BBC Panorama's spaghetti harvest

APR 01 1957

BBC's flagship current-affairs programme Panorama aired a three-minute film showing a Swiss family in Ticino picking strands of spaghetti from trees, narrated in earnest by Richard Dimbleby. Cameraman Charles de Jaeger originated the idea and editor Michael Peacock funded it on a budget of about GBP 100; the 'harvest' was filmed at a pasta factory in St Albans and at a hotel in Switzerland. Around eight million people watched at a time when spaghetti was an exotic tinned novelty in Britain. Hundreds rang the BBC asking how to grow their own, and were told to place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best. Popularly remembered as fooling the whole nation; the number of genuine inquiries was substantial but far smaller than the legend implies.