Oliver Postgate

Sagas of Noggin the Nog

Peter Firmin

Flying Machine

This is the autobiography of Oliver Postgate, the man who wrote, narrated and filmed Bagpuss, The Clangers, Ivor the Engine, Noggin the Nog and Pogle's Wood. The book begins with Postgate's childhood, then goes on to cover his years as a conscientious objector, farmer, inventor, actor and stage manager before looking at the period, beginning in the late 1950s, when he created children's films. In more recent years he has become an advocate of solar power and an opponent of nuclear weapons. This is a humourous account of a colourful life.

An Autobiography

Seeing Things

Oliver Postgate's death in December 2008 was greeted with great sadness. For over 40 years his name was synonymous with the best in children's television?Bagpuss, The Clangers, Ivor the Engine, The Pogles, Noggin the Nog, and Pingwings. Oliver wrote and narrated the stories, while Peter Firmin illustrated the characters and made the puppets. Their classic films are still loved by viewers of all ages. In this delicious autobiography, Oliver Postgate describes how he came to create his stories and characters, developing innovative techniques of animation and puppetry alongside his friend and co-producer Peter Firmin. Amazingly, almost all of Oliver's films were made in a cowshed in Kent on a budget of next to nothing. But the path to film-making was far from conventional, or even planned. Oliver Postgate was the grandson of George Lansbury, leader of the Labour Party in the 1920s, and his father was Raymond Postgate, who became famous as the founder and author of The Good Food Guide. Oliver followed in neither's footsteps. Before his first TV production, Alexander the Mouse in 1958, he had already been a war evacuee; a conscientious objector; a farm laborer; a relief worker in post-war Germany; an artist; an actor; and an inventor. The story of Oliver Postgate's extraordinary and adventurous life, and the wonderful characters who populated it, both real and imagined, is witty, charming, beautifully remembered, and beautifully told.

A Memoir

Naomi Linnell

Et nyt syn på legenden om Thomas Becket, som blev myrdet i Canterbury 1170

An Illumination of the Life and Death of Thomas Becket

Becket

Oliver Postgate is widely regarded as the greatest children's storyteller of the modern era. His work, which included The Clangers, Ivor the Engine, The Pogles, Noggin the Nog and, most famously, Bagpuss, is beloved by generations. In this delicious memoir Oliver Postgate describes how he came to create his stories and characters, developing innovative techniques of animation and puppetry alongside his friend and co-producer Peter Firmin. Amazingly, almost all of Oliver's films were made in a cowshed in Kent on a budget of next to nothing. The story of Oliver Postgate's extraordinary and adventurous life, and the wonderful characters who populated it - both real and imagined - is witty, charming, beautifully remembered and exquisitely told.

Working from a cowshed on a farm in Kent, Oliver Postgate (1925–2008) and Peter Firmin (born 1928) produced some of the best-loved British children's animated television of the 1960s and 1970s. Their iconic productions include Bagpuss(originally aired in 1974), The Clangers(1969–74), Ivor The Engine(1975–77), Pogles' Wood(1966–68) and Noggin The Nog(1959–65). Postgate and Firmin worked together from 1959 through the 1980s, creating popular, beloved characters that appealed to children and their parents alike, like the whistling, mousy Clangers (knitted by Firmin's wife Joan in bright pink wool) in outer space, the saggy, baggy cloth cat Bagpuss and the mild-mannered Viking boy Prince Noggin. Firmin painted the backdrops and created the models, and Postgate wrote scripts, did the stop-motion filming and frequently recorded the kindly, avuncular narration. This book, which includes a preface by Postgate's son Daniel, presents the Smallfilms archive: the puppets and cutouts from these shows (including some of the characters who didn't quite make the cut), along with insights into how they were created. The emphatically handmade models and painstakingly drawn illustrations that came to life in the Smallfilms productions are captured here in attentive, detailed photographs. The archive is presented like "a collection of artifacts in an exhibition detailing some much-admired twentieth-century art movement, like Fluxus or Dada," as acclaimed English stand-up comedian Stewart Lee notes in his introduction. The Art of Smallfilms, full of pipe cleaners, cotton balls, wire and ping-pong balls, celebrates the imagination and ingenuity of two artists who shaped a generation's childhood.

The Work of Oliver Postgate & Peter Firmin

The Art of Smallfilms

Noggin the Nog takes an expedition to fight a fearsome ice dragon in the hot-water valley of the land of Nog. Instead of fighting, Nog helps the dragon recover the treasure of the Dragons' Friendly Society, stolen by Nogbad the Bad.

Oliver Postgate

About

Books

Join the club