In the 1970s, a man came from Great Britain to Belgrade for one week—and stayed for more than forty years.
“The question I keep asking myself is: which ice is not frozen?” is the line that generations grew up with over the past 40 years, ever since Timothy John Byford adapted the famous children’s magazine Neven by Jovan Jovanović Zmaj for television.
As a thirty-year-old, he came to then-Yugoslavia, sent by the BBC for a one-week stay to film a children’s program in co-production with Television Belgrade. However, to the great benefit of children across the region, Byford stayed in Serbia for the rest of his life and created some unforgettable programs intended for children, which are still enjoyed by all generations today.
In the years that followed, people at Television Belgrade and Television Sarajevo had the opportunity to learn a great deal from a true Briton—precise, responsible, and witty—while he, in turn, was able to express his creativity, working simultaneously as both director and screenwriter. It is interesting that Byford gained all his directing knowledge through experience; he did not graduate in film directing but in stage management for theater. He used to say he worked the way he felt things should be done and that he often broke basic film rules, but that this is also how artistic works are created.
After the success of the series Neven, he directed the 1976 Television Belgrade series Babino unuče, starring the famous television grandmother Radmila Savićević in the lead role.
His recognizable directorial style, similar to that of Neven, was repeated by Byford in the series Poletarac (1980). This was not its only similarity to Neven. The series was also based on a children’s magazine, just like Neven; its editor was the modern “Uncle Jova”—Duško Radović. Humorous sketches, songs, and jokes were also used in Poletarac, which was sonically shaped by the “Sound Laboratory” of the Vranešević brothers, while its special visual identity, along with a drawing school, was created by Dušan Petričić.
After this major success, he filmed several programs for Television Sarajevo, among which the best known is Nedeljni zabavnik, along with Notna svaštara, Tragom ptice Dodo, and the quiz show Pitam se pitam.
Timothy John Byford passed away on May 5, 2014, at the age of 72.
