Edward White

Edward George White (21 August 1910 – 1994) was a British composer of light music, whose compositions including "The Runaway Rocking-Horse", "Paris Interlude" (1952), "Puffin' Billy" (1952) and the signature tune for The Telegoons (1963), became familiar as radio and television theme tunes.

Career White was born in London, England, performing also on saxophone and clarinet.

White began to compose original pieces - an early success was Desert Star in 1939, recorded by the Jack Harris Orchestra for HMV Records - and set up his own publishing company, Musicus Ltd. He established himself as a composer of light orchestral music after the war, finding regular work with the BBC and with library music publishers, particularly the Chappell Recording Music Library. He composed around 200 pieces including Barbados, Ballet in Blue, Cabana, Caprice for Strings, Clockwork Clown, Effervescence, Fairy on the Fiddles, Ghost Train, Idle Jack, Paris Interlude, Puffin' Billy, The Roundabout, The Runaway Rocking-Horse, White Wedding and Yodelling Strings.

"Puffin' Billy" "Puffin' Billy" (1952) is perhaps his most familiar composition, especially in the original recording by Hubert Clifford and the Melodi Light Orchestra. The piece was inspired by an old steam locomotive called "Puffing Billy" (not the locomotive in the London Science Museum), seen by the composer while on holiday on the Isle of Wight.

In the United States it was used for an even longer period of time (1955–1974) as the theme music to Captain Kangaroo on the CBS TV network.

"Puffin' Billy" has often been used to signify 1950s Middle England, for example in The Comic Strip's parodies of The Famous Five,

Personal life White was a member of the Savage Club. They married in the 1960s. By the 1970s they were splitting their time between a flat in Chelsea and another in Majorca. Marden pre-deceased her husband in Spain in 1991, aged 57. White died there in February 1994, aged 83.