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"Postgate, Oliver"
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Letter
Mike Shaw writes: Your obituary of Oliver Postgate (December 10) omitted a film he made for children in 1983, which was bought by the BBC. It was based on the children's novel The Dolls' House by Rumer Godden. As her literary agent, I and my family became involved with this production, at her request.
Newspaper Article
We made mountains in the cowshed and space in the barn
When I started out in 1957, the TV company I was hoping to work for clearly didn't give a toss about children's television. Well, no, it did -- just. It tossed about £100 a programme to spare directors and told them to cobble something together. So when Peter Firmin and I made our first film series, about a Welsh...
Newspaper Article
Letter: `I love my Chicken
I KNOW it is thought to be bad form for an author to argue with the opinions of a reviewer, but in his review of my autobiography, Seeing Things, (Review, 18 June) Matthew Sweet states categorically that...
Newspaper Article
Past master of truth stranger than fiction Telling tales is the new way to teach history, Oliver Postgate has done it for generations
In more recent times [Oliver Postgate] has turned his hand to a couple of directly historical subjects with two children's books, Becket and Columbus - The Triumphant Failure. The books, co-written with friend and historian Naomi Linnell, are dominated by Postgate's simple, continuous illustrations, loosely in the style of the Bayeux tapestries. Postgate first started making films in 1957. He formed Smallfilms with [Peter Firmin] and, with very small budgets, started to produce what became a string of hits. The largely forgotten Alexander the Mouse was rapidly followed by Ivor the Engine, The Saga of Noggin the Nog and the Pingwings. Ivor was redone in colour in the mid-Seventies. Now 69, Postgate spends much of his time designing a light motor for wheelchairs - necessitated, he says, by his own approaching infirmity. He still answers questions from Nog aficionados and Clangers enthusiasts. How, for example, can the Clangers communicate when there is no atmosphere on the moon? Mr Postgate has an answer, but it's a touch complex.
Newspaper Article
'We made mountains in the cowshed and space in the barn': Oliver Postgate, father of The Clangers, Bagpuss and Ivor the Engine, has died at 83. In this 2003 article he bemoaned the commercial forces he believed were killing great children's TV: 'We made mountains in the cowshed'
Then, in 1987, the BBC let us know that in future all programming was to be judged by what they called its \"audience ratings\". Furthermore, we were told, some US researchers had established that in order to retain its audience (and its share of the burgeoning merchandising market), every children's programme had to have a \"hook\", ie, a startling incident to hold the attention, every few seconds. As our films did not fit this category they were deemed not fit to be shown any more. End of story: not only for [Peter Firmin] and me - we had had a very good innings - but also for many of the shoestring companies that had been providing scrumptious programmes for what is now seen as \"the golden age of children's television\". As a policy this is, in my view, almost criminally preposterous. Firstly, because it isn't true. There is no such thing as \"the children of today\". Children are not \"of today\". They come afresh into this world in a steady stream and, apart from a few in-built instincts, they are blank pages happily waiting to be written on. Secondly, because it simply isn't true that children have to have what they are \"used to\". They want programmes that are new to them, programmes that are original and mind-stretching. They just aren't being offered them.
Newspaper Article
