Look and Read - Len and the River Mob


	LEN AND THE RIVER MOB STORY DETAILS

LEN AND THE RIVER MOB

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> Introduction & Plot
> Episode List
> Cast and Crew
> Notes
> Picture Gallery

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ON TV:	Unseen since 1972
ON VIDEO:	Not available on video or DVD

Introduction & Plot
WARNING! SPOILERS! Reading this bit will give away the whole storyline and ruin your enjoyment if you haven't already seen/read it.

Young Len Tanner has come to live in London with his friend Pat and her mum Mrs Green. He finds work in the river docks with Mr Moon, who is interested only in whether his boys can work hard. Len is pleased with the job, which involves shifting some sacks off of tugs and into Mr Moon's big shed, though unimpressed with his workmates Micky and the fat, slothful Dave.
Len wants to buy Pat a nice doll with his pay (Three pounds - that is a lot of money!) but when he goes to the toy shop, he finds it all smashed up. The policeman, Pat's Uncle Bill, tells him that all the toys have been stolen. At work that day, Len and the boys stash away several big heavy boxes, and when one of them breaks open Len spots all sorts of toys and dolls inside. Bill tells him that there is a gang operating on the docks called the River Mob that's suspected of stealing lots of things, including a valuable new engine, but there's no proof against them. Len is suspicious of Mr Moon and his gang but doesn't say anything.
Mr Moon's boys go to pick up a large crate, and Len sneaks a look at the code marking to check if it's the crate with the stolen engine - he's relieved to find that it isn't. Later Len and Pat hear singing coming from a large ship on the river and befriend the sailor responsible, called Roy. They spot the unpleasant captain of Roy's ship, Captain Grenko, in a secret meeting with Mr Moon. Len decides to have another look at the big crate, but he is spotted snooping around the wharf by Bill. Although Len legs it and gets away, Bill finds his penknife blade and shows this evidence to Mrs Green and Pat. Even though everyone is supicious of him, Len still won't tell them what's going on.
Roy turns up at Mr Moon's wharf to help them load up the big crate, and Len suspects he might be in the gang too. When Roy turns the crate over, Len suddenly recognises that the mark is in fact the one from the stolen engine, but he'd been looking at it upside down before. By now he is certain that the gang are the River Mob, but it's too late - when he tries to leave the wharf Moon, Micky and Dave jump on him and tie him up at the top of the big shed, despite Roy's protests. Len manages to throw a message out of the window and Bill collects it, but he can't see Len in the high window. Len tries to get down from his high perch, but falls down and hits his head.
Mr Moon and his gang are making a getaway, but Roy manages to send a message about what's happening over the boat's radio, sending the police rushing to Moon's shed to rescue Len. They all dash over to Captain Grenko's ship, where the stolen engine is to be taken, but find that it has already departed. Roy's message had been cut off before he'd finished, but Len works out that it tells them the boat is off Gravesend. Everybody rushes off to Gravesend, and just as the police close in Roy grabs the wheel of Moon's motor-boat, taking control until the River Police arrive to arrest the River Mob. The children wave to their friends and Roy's happy singing rings out across the water.
The teaching segments were presented by Len himself, except in the episode where he was captured, which was introduced by Mrs Green instead.

EXTRA: Download the Len and the River Mob story book

Episode List

1.	A Job in the Docks
2.	The Dutch Doll
3.	The Missing Crate
4.	The Big Job
5.	Captain Grenko
6.	Is Len a Thief?
7.	This Way Up
8.	Tied and Gagged
9.	Find The S.S. Samba
10.	After Them!

Cast and Crew

Story by Script by Reading consultant Producer	Roy Brown Leonard Kingston Joyce M. Morris Andrée Molyneux

Introduced by Narrated by Starring	George Layton (except Part 8) Angela Crow (Part 8) Harvey Hall George Layton as Len Tanner Philip Brack as Bill Denise Powell as Pat Christopher Chittell as Micky Kenneth Colley as Mr Moon Angela Crow as Mrs Green Paul Sarony as Dave Kenneth Gardnier as Roy Leonard Kingston as Captain Grenko Arthur Gross as the Police Inspector
For details of who was in which episode, see the table below.

Notes

Bill's police dog in the story is called Flash, but at one point in the story book he is (presumably accidentally) called Rover. Lax proof-reading certainly, but it gives us a little insight into the development of the story and the changes to the character's names. Flash is a much better name than Rover anyway!
You can download the book from this site to see for yourself. The mistake is on page 26.

Robert Burgess has some details of the in-between bits:
On the very fringes of my memory I can see George Layton sitting by a "teleprinter" and earnestly narrating the plot of "the river mob."
And also hazy memories of some song lyrics:
"Oh, in that London river......
Hear me sing that London song"
As well as:
"We're not sure about Mr Moon"

If you remember this story from primary school, then you would have seen it in one of these terms. See the Air Dates section for precise dates and times.
Spring 1968
Spring 1970
Spring 1972

This story was shown in MONOCHROME.

This table shows who appeared in each of the individual episodes:

   C A S T   D E T A I L S

                                     EPISODES
                             ----------------------
introduced by GEORGE LAYTON   1 2 3 4 5 6 7   9 10
introduced by ANGELA CROW                   8
narrated by HARVEY HALL       1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10


starring                             EPISODES
                             ----------------------
GEORGE LAYTON                 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
PHILIP BRACK                  1 2 3     6 7 8 9 10
DENISE POWELL                 1   3 4 5 6     9 10
CHRISTOPHER CHITTELL          1 2 3 4     7 8 9 10
KENNETH COLLEY                1   3 4 5   7 8 9 10
ANGELA CROW                     2       6   8
PAUL SARONY                     2 3         8 9 10
KENNETH GARDNIER                      5   7 8 9 10
LEONARD KINGSTON                      5
ARTHUR GROSS                                  9 10

Picture Gallery


'Who would want to steal a lot of toys?' asked Len. 'They were good toys,' said Bill. Poor Pat. She would not have a Dutch doll from this shop.	Micky had taken the bit of paper from Mr Moon's desk. He folded it into a paper plane and let it fly. Dave said: 'Watch me shoot down your paper plane!' He started flinging buns at the plane.


Mr Moon came out of the shed. A man was with him. It was too dark to see who he was. 'Look, Moon,' said the man. 'See that no-one finds out. There must be no slips.'	Len ran fast, but Flash got him. Then Flash knew it was Len. He liked Len. He wagged his tail. He licked Len's hand. Then he ran back to Bill.

©BBC Illustration by James Hunt, text by Roy Brown

> See every Look & Read book cover in the Trivia section

> Get complete books, including this one, from the Downloads section

Len watched them walking away. He shouted and waved his tied hands. No, they could not hear, they could not see.

The pupil's pamphlet


Kids watching one of the later episodes of Len (probably 5, 9 or 10). It's extremely likely that the bit they're watching no longer exists at the BBC and can never be watched again!	Detail of the TV screen from that other picture. A captioned photo of Leonard Kingston as Captain Grenko.

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