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Jules's avatar

Thank you for this Sarah. I adored Postgate and Firmin's work as soon as I was old enough to watch, and nothing has ever changed my mind about its brilliance. Almost impossible to choose a favourite, but I am going to go with "The Clangers". Genius on a level with "Fawlty Towers" in my opinion.

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fortuna desperata's avatar

I have happy memories of the Postgate & Firmin productions from my childhood and even happier memories of watching DVDs of Bagpuss, the Clangers and Ivor with my daughter about fifteen years ago - I sought out Oliver's memoir and it is a good read. Professor Yaffle in Bagpuss was modelled on G D H Cole and on Bertrand Russell, who was a Postgate family friend.

They are v e r y slow by the standards of later children's TV - those cod-documentary voiceovers at the start of the Clangers! But my daughter was enraptured and not at all bored. They have a meditative quality, the Clangers especially, which has returned in some 'sleepytime' programmes like The Night Garden.

I think Bagpuss is their masterpiece, it's so rich - it has storytelling, stop-motion puppetry, humour (the mouse-mill making chocolate biscuits out of 'butterbeans & breadcrumbs!), wonderful folky songs, and glorious backlit illustrations by Peter Firmin - whose speciality was stained glass - and Babette Cole.

They are of their time, though, and some things have not worn well - there is some unpleasant racial stereotyping, like the bog-trotting Brian O'Linn in the leprechaun episode of Bagpuss. It was another age, when a white male upper-middle-class narrator could speak for many cultures, like an omniscient social-democratic God. Though they came in for some criticism even then, Ivor especially (the Indian elephant trainer episodes), as Postgate recalls. I watched them with my daughter (who is mixed-race) in the Gordon Brown era, when we still seemed to be moving towards a more inclusive society, and I thought, I'll let these things pass, these stereotypes will not be reinforced today in her world. After all that's happened since, I'm not so sure...

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Sarah Harkness's avatar

I meant to mention the Professor Yaffle link! I'll restack with that, thank you!

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Linda Slow Growing in Scotland's avatar

"Jumping cold it is, Ivor", has entered my family's lexicon. "Oh sod it, the bloody thing's stuck again" - Oliver Postgate's translation of a Clanger's whistle likewise. I adored Noggin the Nog as a child and still do today. It led to me taking a Norwegian course at University and through that meeting my husband, who was studying Swedish.

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Sarah Harkness's avatar

Oh my goodness! I bet Oliver would have enjoyed that story!

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Liz Gwedhan's avatar

Noggin the Nog! The first line of every episode narrated by Oliver Postgate himself "This is the Saga of Noggin the Nog……" immediately brings back memories of smoked haddock and poached eggs on toast or whatever my Mum was making for tea that night… Thank you for this. I didn’t know Postgate was a CO, I’m so happy to know more about him.

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Linda Slow Growing in Scotland's avatar

"In the lands of the north, where the black rocks stand guard against the cold sea..." and cauliflower cheese and bacon! Such poetry in that opening. Is there any poetic children's tv today?

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Liz Gwedhan's avatar

Yes!!

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Liz Gwedhan's avatar

Not yes to the poetry - I guess not there. Yes to the quote and the cauliflower cheese with bacon!

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Sarah Harkness's avatar

Also very involved in the Peace campaigns of the 1980s

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Lady Metroland's avatar

Am amazed by all of this - and then you throw in ‘the cousin of Angela Lansbury’ as well!

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Rod Hirsch's avatar

I grew up with Ivor the Engine and Noggin the Nog. Even now, nearly 70 years later, I still find them magical. Thank you Sarah, for reawakening a little bit of my childhood.

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Sarah Harkness's avatar

I absolutely loved them. Of course my real research is supposed to me GDH and Margaret Cole and the Labour Party! But I couldn't resist making the connections.

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Alison Baxter's avatar

Noggin the Nog! I loved him as a child but knew very little about Oliver Postgate so thank you to Sarah Harkness for this. Also for the surprising link between Emma Bridgwater and Nell Gifford's circus. (I must remember to look for this year's tour dates.)

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Laura Paton's avatar

Can I just say that you are never too old for Bagpuss!

Angela Lansbury was also George's grandchild. She and Oliver were cousins.

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Harriet's avatar

So interesting about Dartington Hall School - I wonder if that was an influence on the dreadful school Jill and Eustace attend in The Silver Chair? It sounds very similar in some ways!

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Sarah Harkness's avatar

Is that Narnia? I don't know it well enough. But Lewis would have known about Dartington, it was quite notorious

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Harriet's avatar

Yes, it’s the fifth book - the school has no rules, or uniform, and the bullies don’t get punished because the Head thinks they’re interesting psychological cases. I always wondered whether he had a real place in mind!

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fortuna desperata's avatar

Yes, Eustace is the child of the appalling 'modern parents', non-smoking socialist vegetarians à la GB Shaw, the one who gets turned into a dragon in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is what happens when you turn your back on the Natural Law (see Lewis' tract The Abolition of Man, which an evangelical vicar-to-be, a former school friend, once pressed on me).

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Lynne Birkett's avatar

I have his memoir too and really enjoyed it. I watched and loved all his creations, even Bagpuss although I was 14 in 1974!

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Wendy Varley's avatar

I loved Oliver Postgate’s TV series and introduced my children to them, too. Thanks for the insights, Sarah.

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Kate Braithwaite's avatar

I was a Bagpuss girl❤️

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Wendy Wright's avatar

Oh Sarah, I’ve been so busy lately with family stuff but I’ve been saving up all of your wonderful posts for a slightly quieter time when I could give them the full attention they deserve. I have not been disappointed! I’m loving all of the lives of your dahlias - when are you collecting them into a book? And this post about talent running in families is superb as I often wonder how much is nature/nurture. Loved the link to Ivor and the choir too. Thank you for so much interest & joy. 🌟

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Mark Hodgson's avatar

Currently rewatching The Clangers. The unexpected twisty stories are delightful, Postgate’s narration so very charming and his opening muses on the nature of space far deeper than most shows for adults!

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Emma Steel's avatar

I remember those from my childhood, and Emily who used to bring things to the shop.

A more innocent time, for sure.

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June Girvin's avatar

I loved Noggin the Nog - so much adventure packed into 5 minutes!

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Helen Barrell's avatar

I didn't know about Postgate's leftwing family background but it reminds me of the chocolate biscuit episode of Bagpuss. When I was studying A level History, we covered Communist Russia. While I was reading about the factory that was told to make ten tractors and just made one, which the workers drove past the inspectors ten times, I couldn't help but be reminded of the mice and their chocolate biscuit!

Firmin was from Dovercourt in Essex, next door to Harwich. The lifeboat station there has a Firmin display - a model of a lifeboat crewed by Clangers!

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Sarah Harkness's avatar

I never watched Bagpuss, but I love the chocolate biscuit story!

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