Bagpuss, Noggin the Nog and the Clangers to feature in exhibition | Television & radio | The Guardian Oliver Postgate Bagpuss, Noggin the Nog and the Clangers to feature in exhibition Beloved characters created by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin will appear at V&A Museum of Childhood in London Bagpuss, that saggy old cloth cat, baggy, and a bit loose at the seams. Photograph: Smallfilms Friday 6 November 2015 13.57 EST Last modified on Friday 6 November 2015 18.17 EST Close This article is 1 year old A band of shabby but immortal heroes, born more than half a century ago in a pigsty in Kent with all possible expense spared, will be reunited in an exhibition at the V&A Museum of Childhood next spring. Some of the most famous characters in the history of children’s television, including Noggin the Nog, the Pogles, Ivor the Engine, The Clangers and Bagpuss, were created by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin, working together in the backyard of Firmin’s farmhouse home.

The exhibition will bring together puppets, original scenery and scripts (every word the Clangers spoke was written out in English and then translated into swanee whistle peeps by Postgate). It will also include rare early black-and-white films, including episodes of Ivor the Engine, the pair’s first collaboration, last screened 45 years ago. Contemporary animators revere the output of Postgate and Firmin’s Smallfilms company. Nick Park included a tiny tribute in his Wallace and Gromit film A Matter of Loaf and Death, in which Gromit’s beloved Bagpuss toy is thrown in the bin and subsequently recovered. When the Clangers were recently revived, written by Postgate’s son Daniel and narrated by Michael Palin , the audience watching the new series on BBC CBeebies was 60% adults. Pinterest The Clangers. Photograph: Smallfilms Daniel said of his father’s work: “They just got the job done and never thought this stuff would be of the slightest interest to anyone again. At one point Oliver had a skip at the door ready to take everything away.

If it wasn’t for the fact that they never left Peter’s farm and he could store stuff, there wouldn’t be a thing left to put in an exhibition.” “It’s Postgate’s voice,” V&A curator Alice Sage said. “It’s so very peculiarly British. It reverberates through my childhood. It’s avuncular and a little bit ironic, very wry and funny, but there’s a little bit of melancholy in it too. “There’s something about the characters: they’re so simple but there’s something so real and good about them. They have an eternal quality … and revisiting them now, you see how many of them are actually about dealing with loneliness and loss.” Pinterest 1971 Noggin the Nog programme from Birmingham Rep theatre Photograph: BIrmingham Rep Their studio, a real pigsty which they converted before expanding into the nearby barn, will be recreated in the exhibition. Postgate died in 2008, but Firmin, who claims to have been recruited as “someone who would do a lot of drawing for very little money”, still lives on the Kent farm.

Firman explained that he used to have many more Clangers sets, including the planet, but they had gone on the bonfire to clear space. Daniel’s brother Simon claims partial credit for the Clangers, having chatted to his father about his fantasy of a small planet and a giant called Jeffrey who wore armour to ward off meteorites and drank soup from craters. After hearing this, his father said: “I can do something with that.” Oliver Postgate: Ivor, Bagpuss and me Read more Bagpuss, the “saggy old cloth cat, baggy, and a bit loose at the seams”, had an ancestor in the real world too: the toy belonged to Firmin’s daughter Emily, who appeared in each episode and still gets fanmail from around the world. Daniel described his father as “not particularly child-friendly”, although apparently he did excellent bedtime readings of Tolkien’s Hobbit, with all the voices. In the films, he said, the stories were told without ever talking down to children. Daniel said: “There’s an honesty about them, a sense of their being real. You feel that when the camera stops rolling, the Pogles and the Clangers just potter on about their own business.

There’s nothing knowing about them, no winks to the screen audience.” Sage has found, going over the old scripts, that they were ahead of their time in many ways, including having a strong environmental awareness. Oliver Postgate's Bagpuss, the Clangers and the Pogles – in pictures Read more “At one point Major Clanger invents a plastic-making machine and they’re being overwhelmed by plastic objects filling their living space, which they can only get rid of by stuffing them into the Froglets’ magic bucket. This was in the 1960s, just as the plastic industry was really beginning, and it was really very prescient. And Bagpuss finds lost objects and repairs and recycles them: such a lovely message.” Given the positive reception for the revived Clangers, which has already been nominated for a Bafta award, another series is highly likely. Ironically, given that the originals were made as a result of the BBC “giving them a few hundred pounds and telling them to come back when it was finished”, according to Daniel, the main stumbling block these days is the cost of animation.

Another revival could be in the pipeline: Noggin the Nog, a Viking saga first broadcast in 1959, inspired by the Lewis chessmen which Firmin had admired in the British Museum. Many archaeologists say the series first got them interested in the profession. “It’s very early days,” Daniel said, “but Peter Capaldi has said he would love to play Nogbad the Bad.” Clangers, Bagpuss & Co - V&A Museum of Childhood Victoria and Albert Museum Clangers, Bagpuss & Co Plan your visit Come and meet Bagpuss, see the Soup Dragon and behold Noggin the Nog. Oliver Postgate’s voice and Peter Firmin’s puppets shaped the childhood memories of millions since they started collaborating in the 1950s. As well as telling the story of Bagpuss and The Clangers, the exhibition will go behind the scenes of some of their other creations; Pogles Wood, Noggin the Nog and Ivor the Engine. Come into the world of Smallfilms to discover original puppets, sets and filming equipment. See how characters developed, and learn how Oliver and Peter developed their stop-frame animation techniques.

Oliver Postgate: Creator of 'Bagpuss', 'The Clangers' and 'Ivor the Engine' who turned children's television into an art form | The Independent Oliver Postgate: Creator of 'Bagpuss', 'The Clangers' and 'Ivor the Engine' who turned children's television into an art form Wednesday 10 December 2008 00:00 BST Click to follow The Independent Online As the co-creator of the animated programmes Bagpuss, The Clangers, Noggin the Nog, Pogles' Wood and Ivor the Engine, Oliver Postgate was one of a handful of pioneers who turned children's television into an art form and whose legacy is a warm nostalgia felt by grown-ups today. His calm tones were familiar as narrator of the stories, which he wrote himself and were brought to visual reality by the artist and puppeteer Peter Firmin, made by their own independent production company, Smallfilms, and shot in a disused cowshed at Firmin's home in Blean, near Canterbury. Although only 13 episodes of Bagpuss (1974) were made, they were repeated regularly until 1987.

The series topped a 1999 BBC poll as Britain's favourite children's television programme and, earlier this year, the pink-and-white-striped, "saggy, old, cloth cat, baggy and a bit loose at the seams" was voted the best television animal ever. Each programme began with Postgate's familiar, magic words, which awakened the cat from his slumber: "Bagpuss, oh, Bagpuss, Oh, fat, furry cat puss, Wake up and look at this thing that we bring, Wake up, be bright, be golden and light" The cloth cat belonged to a girl called Emily, who had a "shop", Bagpuss and Co, where nothing was for sale. Emily would bring home objects to put in its old-fashioned window, where Bagpuss slept on a cushion until being roused by his owner's voice, stirring him and the other small animals and curiosities into action. In his 2000 memoirs, Seeing Things: an autobiography, Postgate wrote: "From a distance of the 25 years which have passed since we made the Bagpuss films, I have begun to be able to see how they earned that affection.

They are simple, and they are well-founded in a safe place. They are full of fun and, like a good meal, they are rich and satisfying. They also stretch the mind and flex the imagination. And the songs and the pictures are marvellous." Richard Oliver Postgate was born in Hendon, Middlesex, in 1925, cousin of the actress Angela Lansbury and grandson of the pacifist Labour politician George Lansbury. His father, Raymond, was a journalist and novelist who later founded The Good Food Guide, while his mother, Daisy, was a suffragette. After attending Woodstock School and Woodhouse County Secondary School, both in London, Postgate was evacuated to Devon and finished his education at Dartington Hall School. On leaving, he had ambitions to act but was sentenced to a jail term when, as a conscientious objector – like his father – he refused to serve his country during the Second World War. However, he was released after agreeing to become a Red Cross stretcher bearer, eventually in the ruins of Germany. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1948 but never acted professionally and went through various jobs, including photographer and record-sleeve designer.

His interest in animation led him to send an idea to the BBC in 1950 about a card pig that played the violin, but it was rejected. However, seven years later, he was presented with a platform for his talents when he joined the ITV London company Associated-Rediffusion as a stage manager working on children's programmes and creating props for productions including the science series New Horizon. Thinking he could improve on the programmes already being made, Postgate created Alexander the Mouse (1958), about a mouse born to be king, and narrated the 10-minute tales himself. Looking for someone to design the characters and backgrounds, he was introduced to Peter Firmin, then an art-school lecturer, and their 30-year professional partnership began. The animation was brought to life through a crude, new system whereby characters were moved by magnets positioned under the table that acted as their set. After making a further series together, The Journey of Master Ho (1958), a story about a Chinese boy and a water buffalo, aimed at deaf children, Postgate and Firmin started their own company, Smallfilms.

First off the production line, for ITV, was Ivor the Engine (1959-64), about a Welsh steam engine that wanted to sing in a male voice choir. The 32 black-and-white episodes, written, narrated and animated by Postgate and drawn by Firmin, were inspired by the anecdotes of an engine-driver friend of Postgate and his own love for the work of Dylan Thomas. They proved popular with viewers and, a decade after they finished, the BBC revived the stories in 40 colour episodes (1976-77). The pair's first BBC animation was The Saga of Noggin the Nog (1959-65), based on Norse legends and created by Firmin, who drew on his memories of discovering a set of 12th-century Norse chessmen in the British Museum during his days as an art student. ITV had turned down the idea so the pair switched channels. They followed the Noggin stories with The Seal of Neptune (1960), a tale of sea horses in an undersea kingdom, although they were back at the commercial channel with their penguin characters in Pingwings (1961).

Throughout this period, Postgate also worked (1959-63) as an animator on Captain Pugwash, already an established children's favourite on the BBC, based on John Ryan's piratical comic strips and books. However, Postgate and Firmin ran into trouble with their next BBC creation, The Pogles, which they made for the "Watch with Mother" slot in 1965, when the story of two country folk threatened by a witch was deemed too frightening for children. It was screened only once, but the witch was removed and the tale of a family living in the root of a tree was revived for "Watch with Mother" as Pogles' Wood (1966-68). The Postgate-Firmin brand of stop-motion animation had become a firm favourite with children. Its usual formula consisted of Postgate coming up with the programme ideas, writing the scripts, directing them and providing the narration while Firmin was responsible for the set and puppet design.

Postgate recalled: "We would go to the BBC once a year, show them the films we'd made, and they would say, 'Yes, lovely, now what are you going to do next?' We would tell them and they would say, 'That sounds fine. We'll mark it in for 18 months from now,' and we would be given praise and encouragement, and some money in advance, and we'd just go away and do it". The pair's next hit was The Clangers (1969-74), their first colour production, featuring small, pink, knitted, mouse-like creatures who lived on a blue moon, with neighbours who included the Soup Dragon and the Froglets. Then came Bagpuss, before The Saga of Noggin the Nog was revived in colour (1982). Postgate and Firmin also made Tottie: The Story of a Dolls' House (1984), based on Rumer Godden's children's novel, before their final series, Pinny's House (1986), about a race of tiny people. Away from filming, Postgate devoted an increasing amount of time to nuclear disarmament and environmental issues.

His wife, Prudence, died in 1982 and he and his partner, Naomi Linnell, a historian, together painted a 50ft-long, Bayeux-tapestry-style Illumination of the Life and Death of Thomas Becket for a book of the same name (1986). Four years later, he painted a similar work on Christopher Columbus. Last year, Postgate and Firmin were jointly presented with the Action for Children's Arts J.M. Barrie Award "for a lifetime's achievement in delighting children". Postgate was also awarded an honorary degree by the University of Kent in 1987. In October this year, the media company Coolabi bought the licensing and merchandising rights to Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine and The Clangers for £400,000, and declared its intention to revive Bagpuss. Anthony Hayward Richard Oliver Postgate, writer, producer and director: born Hendon, Middlesex 12 April 1925; married 1957 Prudence Myers (died 1982; three sons); died Broadstairs, Kent 8 December 2008.

More about: Oliver Postgate's shows: Bagpuss, The Clangers and beyond | Television & radio | The Guardian Oliver Postgate Oliver Postgate's shows: Bagpuss, The Clangers and beyond The Clangers, Noggin the Nog and Ivor the Engine were just a few of the children's TV shows created by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate, who died yesterday The Clangers: their hollow planet was also inhabited by the Soup Dragon. Photograph: Channel 4 Oliver Postgate Oliver Postgate's shows: Bagpuss, The Clangers and beyond The Clangers, Noggin the Nog and Ivor the Engine were just a few of the children's TV shows created by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate, who died yesterday Tuesday 9 December 2008 06.12 EST First published on Tuesday 9 December 2008 06.12 EST This article is 8 years old Noggin the Nog Based around a simple prince called Noggin, Noggin the Nog was created by Peter Firmin in 1959. He showed the finished story to Postgate , who fell for the characters and set about scripting the story.

Noggin the Nog was commissioned by the BBC as six 10-minute animated films produced by Postgate and drawn by Firmin, with music by Vernon Elliott and narration by Postgate and Ronnie Stevens. Noggin's heyday lasted from his creation through to the mid-1970s. The show was revived by some colour versions in 1980 and since then there have been reprints of books, issues of audio cassettes, videos and repeats on Channel 4 in the mid-1990s. Ivor the Engine Ivor was first made as a set of six black and white films for ITV company Associated Rediffusion Ltd in 1959, which was followed by 26 more in the following four years. In 1975, they were remade in colour for the BBC as a set of 40 five-minute films. Ivor the Engine was the first production of Smallfilms, the company set up by Postgate and Firmin. Featuring the adventures of a small green locomotive in Wales, it was animated using cardboard cutouts painted with watercolours.

Pingwings This series starred a family of penguin-like creatures who lived at the back of a barn on Berrydown Farm in the early 1960s. Eighteen single-frame puppet films were made about them. The characters were knitted by Firmin's sister, Gloria, and the series was filmed on 16mm black and white film. Pogles' Wood The Pogles were quiet country folk who lived in the root of a tree and were made up of four main characters: Mr Pogle, Mrs Pogle, Pippin and his playmate, a rabbit-type creature called Tog. The animated series was screened by the BBC between 1966 and 1968 as part of the Watch with Mother series. The Clangers When colour came to television in the late 1960s, the BBC asked for a set of films which were modern and colourful. Faced with such a request, Postgate and Firmin devised the Clangers, with the first episode being broadcast by the BBC in November 1969 - the year man landed on the moon.

A further 25 episodes were screened between then and 1972, with the final Clangers programme screened as an election special in October 1974. The classic series featured small bright pink, long-nosed, mouse-shaped creatures who lived in peace on, and inside, a small, hollow planet and communicated in high-pitched whistles. Bagpuss Bagpuss. Photograph: BBC Only 13 episodes were made in 1974 for the BBC of this much-loved programme featuring an "old, saggy cloth cat" as its title character. The programmes were made using a stop-frame animation and always started through a series of sepia photographs. Viewers are told of a little girl called Emily, played by Postgate's creative partner Peter Firmin's daughter, who owned a shop which did not sell anything. · To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332. · If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Bagpuss and Ivor creator dies Bagpuss and Ivor creator dies Advertisement Bagpuss was one of Oliver Postgate's best-loved creations Bagpuss creator Oliver Postgate has died aged 83, his family has confirmed. Postgate, who lived in Kent, created some of the best-loved children's TV series including Ivor the Engine, the Clangers and Noggin the Nog. His work, screened on the BBC and ITV from the 1950s to the present day, was often in collaboration with the artist and puppeteer Peter Firmin. In a poll earlier this year, Bagpuss, a saggy pink cloth cat, was voted the best TV animal of all-time. Postgate's partner, Naomi Linnell, confirmed he died at a nursing home near his home in Broadstairs in Kent on Monday. Oliver said it himself, he was always a little boy Sandra Kerr, colleague of Oliver Postgate Friend and colleague, Sandra Kerr, has been paying tribute to "a creative and eccentric talent".

Ms Kerr, the voice of the mice in Bagpuss, said they had so much fun working together, their giggles can be heard on the Bagpuss soundtrack. Asked where his inspiration came from, she said: "Oliver said it himself, he was always a little boy. "He and Peter just responded to that part of themselves they had never lost." Conservative leader David Cameron told BBC Radio 5 Live that Ivor the Engine was his favourite of Postgate and Firmin's characters. "I never really got the Clangers," he added. "My wife's a big Clangers fan - I never quite got that in the same way." Oliver Postgate created many much-loved children's TV programmes Postgate's work was popular with generations of children who loved the strangeness of the characters and the warmth of his story-telling. The short animated films, which he would script and narrate, were created by Smallfilms production company, set up with Firmin. The partners worked in a makeshift studio in a disused cowshed in Kent on a tiny budget often using home-made equipment. Ivor the Engine, a series for ITV about a little Welsh steam engine who wanted to sing in a choir, was their first creation.

The 1960s BBC series of Noggin the Nog about a baby-faced king of the race of Nogs followed. The pair swiftly established themselves as reliable purveyors of children's entertainment, in the days when there were just two channels and children's television occupied a privileged teatime slot. 'Praise and encouragement' Describing the commissioning process, Postgate said: "We would go to the BBC once a year, show them the films we'd made, and they would say, 'Yes, lovely, now what are you going to do next?'" BBC whistles up return of The Clangers: Cult children's show to return to screens in £5m remake | Daily Mail Online Share I was about five years old when it was made - just the right age. The new Clangers is not something we’ve rushed into. It has been carefully considered. For me, this is a labour of love. We are very fortunate to get the very best people collectively to work on it, and we are all very enthusiastic.’ CBeebies controller Kay Benbow said: ‘Nostalgia is a funny thing, and we always think very carefully about remakes or re-imaginings of classic children’s programmes.

The Clangers is a programme that has an enduring magic. The new proposition has been built firmly upon the joyful foundations of the original, and will be produced by a team of exceptional talent which includes the extraordinary Peter Firmin. We are terrifically excited to bring this out-of-this-world series to our CBeebies audience.’ OLIVER POSTGATE: THE MAN BEHIND THE TV WHICH SHAPED GENERATIONS The television creations of Oliver Postgate defined a generation children's viewing. From 'saggy old cloth cat' Bagpuss, to classics such as Ivor The Engine, Pingwings, Noggin The Nog and of course The Clangers, Postgate's voice as narator was recognisable to children across Britain from 1957 onwards. For The Clangers Mr Postgate, who died in 2008, wrote out every word of the script for the show, before re-interpreting it using a Swannee whistle.

Oliver Postgate with The Clangers - he died at a nursing home in Broadstairs, Kent, in December 2008 Bagpuss, the television puppet, created by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin The original dialogue was virtually un-recognisable, but Mr Postgate still incurred the wrath of BBC executives, when they correctly guessed that one of the lines in the show was 'Oh sod it, the bloody thing won't open'. Mr Postgate was born in Hendon, North West London. His father was Raymond Postgate and his mother was Daisy Lansbury. Mr Postgate was the cousin of actress Angela Lansbury - star of Bedknobs And Broomsticks and Murder She Wrote - and grandson of Labour politician George Lansbury. During the Second World War Mr Postgate became a conscientious objector, and served a sentence in jail. But he avoided serving his full sentence by agreeing to be a Red Cross stretcher-bearer, and later served in Germany. Another of Postgate's creations with puppeteer Peter Firmin was the iconic Bagpuss - an enduring children's favourite despite the fact there were only 13 episodes made.

CREATING THE CLANGERS: HOW THE CLASSIC SHOW WAS PUT TOGETHER The Clangers in their 1970s heyday The Clangers were described by Oliver Postgate as a family set in space. Aunty Clanger, Granny Clanger and the gang were small creatures living in peace and harmony on a small, hollow planet, far, far away. To make the programme Mr Postgate and Mr Firmin used stop-motion animation techniques, and while Firmin designed the creatures his wife knitted their Roman armour-style costumes. During production, The Clangers grew in size from the first to the last episode, to allow Firmin to use an Action Man figure in an episode entitled The Rock Collector. The sound effects for the programme were created by Mr Postgate, who wrote out a script before using a whistle to create the unique voices of the characters. Postgate provided the narration for each episode, describing the strange goings on and providing 'translation' of The Clanger's conversation.

Bagpuss meets The Clangers for first time in TV history - ITV News 19 November 2014 at 5:38pm Bagpuss meets The Clangers for first time in TV history The man behind beloved children’s TV shows such as The Clangers and Bagpuss has revealed how he came up with some of his iconic characters. And, for the first time in TV history, the characters from the two shows have actually come face to face exclusively for ITV News viewers. The Clangers are one of Mr Firmin's most beloved creations Credit: PA Illustrator and puppet-maker Peter Firmin is currently preparing for The Clangers to get a 21st Century makeover as part of a £5 million comeback series to launch next year, working as executive producer on the project. And he will also be receiving the prestigious BAFTA Special Award this weekend for his work in children’s entertainment.

Play video In an interview with ITV News ahead of the ceremony, Mr Firmin – the brains behind other children’s TV characters such as Ivor the Engine, Noggin the Nog and Basil Brush – said he first dreamed up The Clangers with his long-term collaborator Oliver Postgate in response to the sudden surge in interest in space travel during the 60s. We started looking through all our past productions and we came upon a Noggin the Nog book, and it was about the arrival of a little capsule in the horse trough they’d just erected in the castle square, and out came this little creature who’s a ‘moon mouse’. And the moral of the story was when you get visitors from outer space you have to treat them kindly, and not put them in cages and things like that. And Oliver said ‘this is the new character, obviously’. – Peter Firmin Giving a hint of his active imagination, he went on to describe how he and Mr Postgate ‘investigated’ the moon mouse’s background to see what his descendants were up to, and even visited their “little blue planet in outer space” to meet his family.

Play video The unique way The Clangers communicate, he said, was all down to Mr Postgate - who initially did not even want a narrator describing what was going on. And unusual character the Soup Dragon actually came from Mr Postgate’s young son, who one bedtime told him a fantastical story about a giant who jumped so high he landed on the moon. Then, when he shook it, it made slurping noises because it was full of soup. Peter Firmin with two of his creations - a Clanger, and the Soup Dragon Credit: PA Meanwhile Bagpuss, he said, was never supposed to be pink. He was originally supposed to be a marmalade cat – but a problem with the dye meant he came out pink. I looked at it and I thought: ‘Brilliant!’ It was the most exciting thing. I mean, I would never have even dreamed of daring to make a pink striped cat, but these things happen in life don’t they. And it works. He’s the most memorable cat because of his colour – and pink and cream stripes became very fashionable.

– Peter Firmin In fact, he added, the popularity of Bagpuss was such that he had enough money to extend his home to include a library – a library where Bagpuss now lives, sat upon a beam. His creations have never come together on television before, but have done so today to herald the special occasion. Mr Firmin said Bagpuss and 'Aunty Clanger' are now firm friends. Play video The British Academy Children’s Awards will be held at The Roundhouse in Camden, London, on Sunday. The ceremony will be presented by actor Bernard Cribbins, with a special introduction by comedy actor and TV presenter Michael Palin. Last updated Wed 19 Nov 2014 Oliver Postgate - Telegraph Oliver Postgate Creator of Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine and other much-loved children's television programmes. 6:45PM GMT 09 Dec 2008 Oliver Postgate, who died on December 8 aged 83, was the creator of well-loved children's television programmes of the 1960s and 1970s such as Ivor the Engine, The Clangers, Noggin the Nog and Bagpuss.

Oliver Postgate made his last film in 1987 The worlds constructed by Postgate and his long-time collaborator Peter Firmin were the products of a kindlier age, informed by Postgate's own utopian longings and encapsulated in his mild, avuncular narration. His programmes were simple and uncluttered, yet stimulating and not unsophisticated. They eschewed the frenetic matiness of later generations of children's television, winning the trust of their audience instead by old-fashioned reliance on plot and characterisation and by an appeal to a child's instinctive belief in magic. In short, they did not treat television as a special art but as a three-dimensional extension of the story book. In a time before computer-generated imagery, Postgate's single-frame animations were the result of slow and painstaking labour, produced on a shoestring budget and in the best traditions of make-do. Most of his and Firmin's work was shot in the cowshed in Kent that served as their studio, with their models and backdrops held together with sticking tape and Plasticine.

The pink wool Clangers were knitted by Firmin's wife, and when, for one episode, a sixpenny rocket was launched into space (bringing down the Iron Chicken), it set fire to the set. Related Articles Telegraph View: A childhood inspiration 09 Dec 2008 Postgate's first series of note was Ivor the Engine (1959), the tale of a small Welsh steam train who wants to sing in the choir. Firmin – who later made the original Basil Brush puppet – supplied the backgrounds and black and white illustrations, while Postgate wrote the story, shot the film and did the voice-over and engine noises ("psst-koppf, psst-koppf"). A decade later they remade it for colour television. The bassoonist Vernon Elliott was commissioned to compose the score, as he was for Noggin the Nog (1962-63), the saga of the search of a Viking-like prince for his bride, a quest hampered by his wicked uncle Nogbad the Bad. The programme was inspired by visits to the British Museum, where Postgate and Firmin had seen the Lewis chessmen.

After Pingwings (1961), about a penguin-ish family, and Pogles (1964), who were small people that dwelt in the roots of trees, came Postgate's masterpiece, The Clangers (1969). Born of the space race and of the BBC's move into colour, it told of a race of slightly melancholic moon mice (first seen in an episode of Noggin) who shared their habitat with a Soup Dragon. The programme's most original touch was that the characters' conversations were conveyed not by speech but by a series of peeps and whines (actually Swannee whistles played to mimic the inflections of the human voice). Postgate's last great success was Bagpuss (1973) – in the words of its introduction, "just a saggy old cloth cat, but Emily loved him". This was the story of a toyshop whose inhabitants – among them the mice on the mouse-organ – mended broken toys with songs. Bagpuss himself, down to his yawn, was evidently a retired Indian Army cat, a piece of whimsy that watching parents could appreciate.

Part of the reason for the great affection in which the programmes were held was that they never patronised their audience; and on growing up that audience found them just as well-made as they remembered, and in turn shared them with their own children. To Postgate's delight, Bagpuss was voted the favourite children's television programme of all time. Oliver Postgate was born in Hendon, north London, on April 12 1925. His father, Raymond, was a political journalist and later the founder of The Good Food Guide, while his mother was the daughter of George Lansbury, the leader of the Labour Party in the 1930s and a cabinet minister. Oliver's cousins included Angela Lansbury, the actress. Both his parents were socialists, and the young Oliver spent many of his weekends at Bradfields, the Essex home of Francis Meynell. Other guests included HG Wells and Bertrand Russell, on whom Postgate later modelled the know-all wooden woodpecker Professor Yaffle for Bagpuss. After attending a series of schools, Oliver was finally sent for safety during the war to Dartington Hall, the progressive school in Devon, where he discovered his interest in art.

Intending to become a stage designer, he then went to Kingston College of Art. But in 1944, as a conscientious objector, he was court-martialled after refusing to be called up. After being briefly imprisoned, he saw out the war on a farm, then spent a decade in a variety of successively more ill-advised jobs. Having trained as an actor at Lamda (where he won the Gold Medal for a piece from The Rivals, performed in US Army boots), Postgate worked for a time in repertory before trying his hand as an inventor of, among other wonders, a machine for electroplating plastic buttons and an electric rotary lawnmower. His first creation had been a washing machine for his mother's laundry, constructed from a surplus Army motor and a milk churn. In 1951 he helped to make animated exhibits extolling the virtues of plastics for the Festival of Britain. By the late 1950s Postgate was working as a stage manager and prop designer for ITV, making objects such as collapsible soufflés and an effigy of General de Gaulle for David Frost's Bonfire Night programme.

He considered the station's shows for children rather thin, and, turning his mechanical bent to film-making, devised Alexander the Mouse (1958), the tale of a mouse born to be king, albeit one propelled about a cut-out world by magnets. This was followed by The Journey of Mr Ho and then Musical Box, in which Postgate's and Firmin's work illustrated nursery rhymes which were sung on the accordion by a youthful Rolf Harris. Although his programmes continued to be repeated often on children's television, after he had finished Bagpuss in the mid-1970s Postgate began to tire of the lengthy process of single-frame animation. He made two more films for television – The Doll's House (1983-85), based on a story by Rumer Godden, and Pinny and Victor (1987) – but thereafter devoted himself to other projects, among them books on Thomas à Becket and Columbus, and to the causes of nuclear disarmament and action on global warming. Postgate had a cottage in Wales, but otherwise lived quietly on the Kent coast.

A warm, unambitious man who was a little at the mercy of his fears and emotions, he had a strong sense of moral purpose and a loathing of the absurdities of modern children's programmes. Teletubbies, he considered, were "awful, post-nuclear jelly babies". He published an autobiography, Seeing Things, in 2000. In October this year the rights to many of his creations, including Bagpuss, The Clangers and Ivor the Engine, were bought by the media company Coolabi for £400,000. Oliver Postgate married, in 1957, Prue Myers. She brought him three stepchildren and they had three sons together. She died in 1982, and he is survived by his partner, Naomi Linnell. Children's favourite Oliver Postgate, creator of The Clangers and Bagpuss, dies at the age of 83 | Daily Mail Online Children's favourite Oliver Postgate, creator of The Clangers and Bagpuss, dies at the age of 83 Oliver Postgate, the creator of children's TV favourites The Clangers and Bagpuss, has died at the age of 83.

The film-maker was also behind classics such as Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine and Pingwings. As the narrator to all of his films, Mr Postgate's voice is familiar to generations of British children. His programmes were screened on the BBC and ITV from 1957 right up to the present day. Oliver Postgate with one of his most famous creations, the Clangers and the friendly soup dragon Mr Postgate's creations were made by Smallfilms, the company he set up with the artist and puppeteer Peter Firmin. His partner, Naomi Linnell, confirmed that he passed away at a nursing home near his home in Broadstairs in Kent on yesterday. Friend and colleague, Sandra Kerr, paid tribute to his work. Ms Kerr, the voice of the mice in Bagpuss, told Radio 4's Today programme they had so much fun working together, their giggles can be heard on the Bagpuss soundtrack. Asked where his inspiration came from, she said: 'Oliver said it himself, he was always a little boy.

'He and Peter just responded to that part of themselves they had never lost.' The first episode of The Clangers was broadcast on the BBC in November 1969. Postgate with his most loved creation, the saggy, old cloth cat Bagpuss A further 25 episodes were made and a final election special was screened in October 1974. Postgate did their voices with a Swanee whistle, after he had written out every word of the script. The original dialogue was virtually indecipherable, which didn't stop Postgate getting into trouble when a BBC executive correctly divined that for one clanger he'd written the line: 'Oh sod it, the bloody thing won't open.' The stop-motion animated series featured a number of small, pink creatures who spoke in whistles and lived in harmony on a small planet. Only 13 episodes of Bagpuss were made in 1974, but the pink 'saggy, old, cloth cat' was regularly screened until 1987 and remains fondly remembered. Bagpuss presided over a shop dedicated to mending things.

Each episode featured a different object, along with a ragdoll, a pompous mechanical bird called Professor Yaffle (whose catchphrase was 'fiddlesticks and flapdoodle!') and a bunch of industrious mice who did most of the repair work. Postgate did the clangers voices with a Swanee whistle, after he had written out every word of the script Earlier this year, Bagpuss was voted Britain's best-loved children's television character. Mr Postgate was born in Hendon, Middlesex. His father was Raymond Postgate and his mother Daisy Lansbury, making him the cousin of actress Angela Lansbury and grandson of Labour politician, George Lansbury. He wanted to attend drama school, but when World War II broke out he became a conscientious objector, for which he was sentenced to a term in jail. He avoided serving his full sentence by agreeing to become a Red Cross stretcher bearer, latterly serving in Germany. On returning to Britain, he attended drama school, but ended up drifting through a number of different jobs. In 1957, Postgate was appointed a stage manager with Associated-Rediffusion, which then held the television franchise for London.

Attached to the children's programming section, he thought he could do better with the relatively low budgets of the then black and white television productions. Postgate wrote Alexander the Mouse, a story about a mouse born to be king. Using an Irish-produced magnetic system on which animated characters were attached to a painted background, he persuaded Firmin to create the background scenes. Postgate later recalled they undertook around 26 of these programs live to air. After the relative success of Alexander the Mouse, Postgate agreed a deal to make the next series on film, for a budget of £175 per program. Making a stop-motion animation table on his bedroom, he wrote the Chinese story The Journey of Master Ho which was intended for deaf children, a distinct advantage in that this form of production required no soundtrack and hence reduced costs. Its success provided the foundation for Postgate and Firmin to start up their own company solely producing animated children's programmes. Setting up Smallfilms in a disused cowshed at Firmin's home in Blean near Canterbury, Kent.

Ivor The Engine was originally broadcast in black and white in 1959 before being revived in colour between 1975 and 1977 Based on concepts which mostly originated with Postgate, while Firmin did the artwork and built the models; Postgate wrote the scripts, did the stop motion filming and many of the voices. Smallfilms was able to produce two minutes of film a day, ten times as much as a conventional animation studio, with Postgate moving the cardboard pieces himself, and working his 16mm camera frame-by-frame with a home-made clicker. They started in 1959 with Ivor the Engine, a series for ITV about a Welsh steam engine who wanted to sing in a choir. Based on Postgate's wartime encounter with Welshman Denzyl Ellis, who used to be the fireman on the Royal Scot, it was remade in colour for the BBC in the 1970s. This was followed by Noggin the Nog for the BBC, which established Smallfilms as a safe and reliable pair of hands to produce children's entertainment, when there were only two UK television channels. Bagpuss was arguably Mr Postgate's most famous creation.

Thirteen episodes of the show were made in 1974, but were regularly screened until 1987 Postgate later described the 'gentlemanly and rather innocent' way of securing commissions: He said: 'We would go to the BBC once a year, show them the films we'd made, and they would say, "Yes, lovely, now what are you going to do next?" 'We would tell them, and they would say: "That sounds fine, we'll mark it in for eighteen months from now", and we would be given praise and encouragement and some money in advance, and we'd just go away and do it.' In 1957, Mr Postgate married Prudence Myers, becoming stepfather to her three children, and the couple later had twins and another son. Mrs Myers died in 1982. An active figure in the anti-nuclear campaign during the 1970s and 1980s, Mr Postgate was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Kent in 1987. His autobiography, Seeing Things, was published in 2000 in which he charted his life from childhood to frustrated writer, political activist and inventor.

Mr Postgate made his last film in 1987. In October this year, the rights to many of his creations, including Bagpuss, The Clangers and Ivor the Engine, were acquired by media company Coolabi in a £400,000 deal. Noggin The Nog originally ran from 1959 to 1965 before making a six-episode comeback in 1979 Watch The Intruder, an episode from the first series of The Clangers: Watch the classic Bagpuss opening credits here:

Question: Who wrote the children’s stories ‘The Clangers’, ‘Noggin the Nog’ and ‘Bagpuss’?
Answer: Oliver Postgate