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Obit: Oliver Postgate (UK, 8 Dec 2008)

09 Dec 08 - 03:34 AM (#2510439)
Subject: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: John J

This is sad news indeed: Oliver Postgate, who created Noggin of the Nogs amongst many other excellent programmes, dies yesterday aged 83.

Life will never be quite the same again.

JJ


09 Dec 08 - 03:35 AM (#2510442)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: fat B****rd

I was too old to watch most of his creations but my children loved them. RIP Mr. Postgate.


09 Dec 08 - 03:39 AM (#2510449)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: The Borchester Echo

Oliver Postgate was creator of Bagpuss and Sandra Kerr was just on BBC R4 Today talking about the contribution she and John Faulkner made to the productions. In @ 8.25 on the iPlayer).

[To keep this in the music section . . . ]


09 Dec 08 - 03:40 AM (#2510452)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: GUEST

Even Bagpuss himself once he was asleep was just an old, saggy cloth cat
Baggy, and a bit loose at the seams
But Emily loved him

RIP


09 Dec 08 - 03:46 AM (#2510454)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: Splott Man

Pingwings, Pogles' Wood, Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine, The Clangers and Bagpuss,

a tremendous legacy. Mostly narrated in his own warm, comforting voice. His work was loved by 3 generations of my family.


09 Dec 08 - 03:55 AM (#2510459)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: Liz the Squeak

NOoooooooooo!!!

He was a huge part of my childhood and I made sure he was included in Limpit's too... Pogles Wood, Ivor the Engine and the Clangers being the favourites.

Small Films left a huge legacy, and the dross that is produced these days pales into insignificance. They fostered the idea that aliens on other planets are not humanoid or speak English, they encouraged imagination and flights of fantasy, generations of children wondering if their toys came alive and played folk music, or if there really was a red and white stripped squirrel living in the hedgerow with a family of pixies? The tales were simple, clear, inoffensive and moralistic without being preachy or pushy, the animation simple and effective.

A sad sad loss to children of all ages.

Pshtecooft, pshtecooft, psssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhft.


LTS


09 Dec 08 - 03:55 AM (#2510460)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: Gervase

He had the most wonderful, comforting voice - the best in broadcasting I think, while his work had a charm and innocence that you just can't imagine being tolerated at the BBC these days. I feel as if one of my favourite childhood toys has gone.
I'm minded of Fred Small's lovely 'Everything's Possible:
And the only measure of your words and your deeds
Will be the love you leave behind when you're done


09 Dec 08 - 03:57 AM (#2510461)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: Gervase

...and there can't be many children's programmes to introduce youngsters to the art of the fugue, as in the mice song 'We will wash it'!


09 Dec 08 - 03:57 AM (#2510462)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: Anne Lister

What a talent the man had ... what an imagination ...and how he sparked off the imagination of others.   
What a loss.

Anne


09 Dec 08 - 04:04 AM (#2510468)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: GUEST,Howard Jones

This is sad news ... but I had a smile on my face this morning after listening to his obituary on Radio 4, when they played a clip of a Clanger apparently saying "the bloody thing's broken again".


09 Dec 08 - 04:11 AM (#2510477)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: Splott Man

Apparently, the Clangers was fully scripted, then played on swanee whistles, that's why it made sense.

The full line you quoted was "sod it, the bloody thing's broken again!"

Brilliant!


09 Dec 08 - 04:18 AM (#2510485)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: Stu

An exceptional talent - I always loved his gentle narration and his programmes always had a hint of subversion, just like any good kids TV show.

Sadly missed. The excellent label Trunk Records carries some of his work.


09 Dec 08 - 04:31 AM (#2510492)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: GUEST, Sminky

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...

...and that was me utterly transfixed until the end credits.

The world seemed a safer place when he spoke. RIP.


09 Dec 08 - 04:44 AM (#2510504)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: goatfell

I loved his stuff, and I have the video/dvd of Bagpuss and a CD of the songs from it.

RIP Mr Postgate


09 Dec 08 - 04:57 AM (#2510510)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: Phot

Coming back from from Terri and Idris' place last weekend, Fiona and I were listening to the Bagpuss Cd in the car, it was great.

Such a shame he stopped making the films when he did. But what a legacy to leave behind.

Chris.

Ror, row, row your shoe over the bedroom floor..........


09 Dec 08 - 05:18 AM (#2510521)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: Geoff the Duck

His work was one of the things which proved to me that there REALLY IS MAGIC in this world.
Here is a web site which links to a lot of information about the man and his programmes - http://www.smallfilms.co.uk/.

Sadly missed.
Quack!
Geoff the (very small and entranced) Duck.


09 Dec 08 - 05:27 AM (#2510527)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: GUEST, Sminky

His personal website: http://www.oliverpostgate.co.uk


09 Dec 08 - 06:02 AM (#2510538)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: Mo the caller

Which came first, the films or the books?
And do I remember Noggin the Nog on Childrens Hour (radio 4 or would that have been 'the Home Service')?


09 Dec 08 - 06:22 AM (#2510549)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: Scooby Doo

Its a sad day today when such a good narrator has passed away. I think he did the Moomins too but not absolutely sure.


Scooby


09 Dec 08 - 06:22 AM (#2510550)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: John J

I only heard / saw Noggin on BBC TV, I didn't realise he'd aspired to the wireless - a sign of greatness indeed if he made it to the Home Service!


09 Dec 08 - 06:23 AM (#2510552)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: Nigel Parsons

Preserve the body for a month & a half, take it to Lerwick and put it in the longship to be burnt at 'Up Helya'
Noggin would have approved.

Rest In Peace
Nigel


09 Dec 08 - 09:15 AM (#2510645)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: Liz the Squeak

'The Moomins' books were written by Tove Janssen, but later animated in a style very similar to that of Ivor the Engine.

On a different note.. I once met a bloke who'd slept with Emily, and he got to meet the real Bagpuss...

LTS


09 Dec 08 - 09:19 AM (#2510656)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: goatfell

there is the bagpuss website


09 Dec 08 - 09:56 AM (#2510697)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: GUEST,Working Radish

I once met a bloke who'd slept with Emily

That is so too much information (I'm not even quoting the rest of the sentence).


09 Dec 08 - 10:24 AM (#2510709)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: Ruth Archer

I'm glad I'm not the only person who thought that.


09 Dec 08 - 10:57 AM (#2510726)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: GUEST,Nicholas Waller

Emily speaks to the BBC here. She's still only 43. Actually, I never really knew Bagpuss, or indeed the Clangers, Ivor and Pogle's Wood, but I was a big fan of Noggin the Nog and its austere but magical northern saga feel.

@Gervase a charm and innocence that you just can't imagine being tolerated at the BBC these days.

I don't know, Wallace and Gromit and the like at least seem to be in the same line of work. Nick Park presented Postgate and Firmin with an award for their lasting contribution to Children's Entertainment made by the charity Action for Children's Arts only last year (well, Postgate was too ill to attend).
( www.dragons-friendly-society.co.uk/events.htm )

In an interview Oliver Postgate talks of visiting Aardman when there was talk of them doing a plasticine version of Noggin the Nog and says "Nick Park said that Ivor the Engine was the thing that set him off into animation, that I was his inspiration, which was very kind of him to say that."
( http://www.clivebanks.co.uk/Oliverpostgateinterview.htm )


09 Dec 08 - 11:42 AM (#2510762)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: nickp

Ah memories. Must dig out my Bagpuss dvd. RIP


09 Dec 08 - 11:46 AM (#2510766)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: Desert Dancer

I can't remember how we came upon our first Ivor tape, probably a lucky second-hand find, but we worked hard to find a second one.

I was just "pshtcoft"ing the other day...

and "budgerigars, Mr. Jones, not elephants" comes up under various circumstances.

I think we would have loved his other programs as well, if we'd had access to them.

~ Becky in Tucson
and Dan, now 13


09 Dec 08 - 02:26 PM (#2510937)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: G-Force

Sandra Kerr has also been on BBC TV news, talking about her involvement with the programmes. She even got to play a bit of autoharp and concertina without anyone taking the piss.


09 Dec 08 - 02:47 PM (#2510955)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: Spleen Cringe

Mr Postgate was prime purveyor of lovely stuff.

Having loved his programmes as a boy, I've introduced my son to the Clangers and of course Bagpuss. He already knows the words to half the Bagpuss songs off by heart...

I saw a ship a-sailing,
A-sailing on the sea.
And, oh, but it was laden
With pretty things for thee.

There were comfits in the cabin,
And apples in the hold;
The sails were made of silk
And the masts were all of gold.

The four-and-twenty sailors
That stood between the decks,
Were four-and-twenty white mice
With chains about their necks.

The captain was a duck
With a packet on his back,
And when the ship began to move,
The captain said, "Quack! Quack!"


09 Dec 08 - 03:02 PM (#2510962)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: bubblyrat

I liked the peripheral characters----Nogbad The Bad ; The Soup Dragon.....We must not forget those either,you know !!


10 Dec 08 - 02:02 AM (#2511412)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate
From: GUEST

awwww

loved Pogle's Wood & Bagpuss, but you can't beat the Soup Dragon

RIP

alison


10 Dec 08 - 03:03 AM (#2511430)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate (UK, 8 Dec 2008)
From: BusyBee Paul

Clangers and Noggin for me - must be my age.

Sad news indeed.


10 Dec 08 - 05:34 AM (#2511498)
Subject: RE: Obit: Oliver Postgate (UK, 8 Dec 2008)
From: GUEST,Van

The clangers were always my favourite.A few Chrismases ago my wife gave me a clanger mobile phone holder and Tiny Clanger swanee whistles away just before the phone rings. Best ring tone ever.