There is only one topic that reveals a vulnerable side to Anne Wood: retirement. Until the conversation veers on to discussing the end of her career, she appears invincible. A 5ft powerhouse of pragmatism she is refreshingly lacking in sentimentality despite being preoccupied for the past five decades with children: as a teacher, a mother, and as a children’s publisher before moving into the sector that made her name – children’s television.
In a satin cerise blouse with matching streaks in her white hair and a little Scottish terrier brooch pinned to her jacket, the founder of Ragdoll Productions – the TV company she started 27 years ago, and maker of hit programmes such as Teletubbies, In the Night Garden and more recently Abney & Teal – looks far younger than her 74 years. Feisty and focused, she barrels about the bright green, orange and yellow rooms of Ragdoll Production’s headquarters near Stratford-upon-Avon, in the Midlands.
Sitting on one of the squishy sofas in her office – known as “the library”, it is bursting with books, DVDs, videos and children’s toys – she pauses to reflect on retirement. “It sounds awful to say it’s akin to bereavement, but it’s so much a part of you, it is very difficult to put aside,” she admits.