‘It was Christmas day in the top left-hand corner of Wales…’ More than any other Smallfilms production, Ivor the Engine feels as though it’s a part of the fabric of Britain. Inspired by the writings of Dylan Thomas, and a friend of co-creator Oliver Postgate who had been an engine fireman, Ivor has the feel … Continue reading
In 1969 the BBC made the surprising decision that what a nation of children, entranced by the real life drama of the moon landings needed was a space series made by two men in a cow shed in Kent. Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin had, up till that point, carved a career out of handmade … Continue reading
Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin, fresh from reimagining the Norse sagas in cardboard moved on to the dark corners of the European folk tale for their next major venture, The Pogles. Viewers were invited into the woodland behind Firmin’s barnyard studio in the Kent countryside, where a family of centuries old tree dwelling small people … Continue reading
‘In the lands of the North, where the black rocks stand guard against the cold sea, in the dark night that is very long the men of the Northlands sit by their great log fires and they tell a tale…’ So began every episode of the Saga of Noggin the Nog, an animated TV series … Continue reading
I’m having a big dragon-fest at work recently, which has given me a good excuse to trawl some of my favourite picture book beasties, plus some brand new ones. In the 1960s Tove Jansson, best known for creating her very own Moomin shaped folk legends, turned her hand to illustrating some British children’s classics including … Continue reading
G is for Gloucester. Beatrix Potter’s tale of a poor tailor who is saved from penury by a bunch of nimble fingered pests gave me a real Christmas flashback. I hadn’t heard the story since it was read to me at Primary School, but re-reading it today I was struck by just how mythic the … Continue reading
