Bagpuss Creator Oliver Postgate Dies

Bagpuss creator Oliver Postgate has died at the age of 83.

Mr Postgate's partner, Naomi Linnell, confirmed he died at a nursing home in Broadstairs, Kent on Monday. His other creations include The Clangers, Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine and Pingwings, which were all screened on the BBC and ITV from the 1950s.

Born in Hendon, Middlesex, Mr Postgate set up production company Smallfilms with the artist and puppeteer Peter Firmin.

The pair worked in a disused cowshed in Kent to create a host of the well-known and popular children's characters.

Earlier this year, Bagpuss was voted Britain's best-loved children's television character.

Only 13 episodes of Bagpuss were made in 1974, but the pink "saggy, old, cloth, cat" was regularly screened until 1987.

In October this year, the rights of many of Postgate's creations - including Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine and the Clangers - were acquired by media company Coolabi in a £400,000 deal.

In an interview with BBC in 2005, Postgate explained the process of how Bagpuss and some of his other characters came into being.

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 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. They hadn't any ideas in their heads, and they were happy enough to leave that to us."

(JM)