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Bagpuss
''Bagpuss'' is a British animated children's television series which was made by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate through their company Smallfilms. The series of thirteen episodes was first broadcast from 12 February to 7 May 1974. The title character was "a saggy, old cloth cat, baggy, and a bit loose at the seams". Although only thirteen episodes were produced and broadcast, the programme remains fondly remembered, and was frequently repeated in the UK until 1986. In early 1999, ''Bagpuss'' topped a BBC poll for the UK's favourite children's television programme. Characters Bagpuss himself is a stuffed cloth cat, referred to in the intro as "The Most Important, The Most Beautiful, The Most Magical, Saggy Old Cloth Cat in the Whole, Wide World". The six mice carved on the side of the "mouse organ" (a small mechanical pipe organ that played rolls of music) wake up and scurry around, singing in high-pitched voices. The names of the six mice are: Charlie Mouse, Jenny Mouse, Jan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oliver Postgate
Richard Oliver Postgate (12 April 1925 – 8 December 2008) was an English Animation, animator, puppeteer, and writer. He was the creator and writer of some of Britain's most popular children's television programmes. ''Bagpuss'', ''Pingwings'', ''Noggin the Nog'', ''Ivor the Engine'', ''Clangers'' and ''Pogles' Wood'', were all made by Smallfilms, the company he set up with collaborator, artist and puppet maker Peter Firmin. The programmes were originally broadcast by the BBC from the 1950s to the 1980s. In a 1999 BBC poll ''Bagpuss'' was voted the most popular children's television programme of all time. Early life Postgate was born in Hendon, Middlesex, England, into the Postgate family, as the younger son of journalist and writer Raymond Postgate and his wife Daisy Postgate, Daisy (née Lansbury), making him the cousin of actress Angela Lansbury and maternal grandson of The Labour Party (UK), Labour politician, and sometime leader, George Lansbury. His other grandfather was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Firmin
Peter Arthur Firmin (11 December 1928 – 1 July 2018) was an English artist and puppet maker. He was the founder of Smallfilms, along with Oliver Postgate. Between them they created a number of popular children's TV programmes, '' The Saga of Noggin the Nog'', ''Ivor the Engine'', '' Clangers'', ''Bagpuss'' and '' Pogles' Wood''. Early life Born in Harwich, Essex, in 1928, Peter Firmin trained at the Colchester School of Art in Colchester. After National Service in the Royal Navy, he attended Central School of Art and Design in London from 1949–1952. He worked in a stained glass studio, as an illustrator and as a lecturer. It was while he was teaching at Central School of Art that Oliver Postgate came looking for, as Firmin put it: "... someone to illustrate a television story – someone who was hard up and would do a lot of drawing for very little money". Postgate and Firmin went on to form Smallfilms. Career Firmin was best known as half of the Smallfilms productio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smallfilms
Smallfilms is a British television production company that made animated TV programmes for children from 1959 until the 1980s. In 2014 the company began operating again, producing a new series of its most famous show, ''The Clangers'', but it became dormant again in 2017, after production of the show was slightly changed. It was originally a partnership between Oliver Postgate (who wrote the scripts, animated the characters, and voiced many of the characters) and Peter Firmin (who made the models of the characters and drew the artwork). Several popular series of short films were made using stop-motion animation, including '' Clangers'', '' Noggin the Nog'' and '' Ivor the Engine''. Another Smallfilms production, '' Bagpuss'', came top of a BBC poll to find the favourite British children's programme of the 20th century. Background In 1957, Postgate was appointed a stage manager with Associated-Rediffusion, the company that then held the commercial weekday television franchise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandra Kerr
Sandra Kerr (born 14 February 1942, Plaistow, Newham, Essex) is an English folk singer. Kerr sings and plays Concertina#German concertinas, English concertina, guitar, Appalachian dulcimer and autoharp. She was a member of The Critics Group from 1963–1972. With John Faulkner, she wrote the music for the television series ''Bagpuss'' and voiced the character of Madeleine (the rag doll). Kerr has been involved in many programmes for BBC Radio including ''The Music Box'' and ''Listen with Mother''. She has sung with her daughter Nancy Kerr (whose father is Ron Elliott, a Northumbrian piper) and in the groups Sisters Unlimited and Voice Union. Her work has developed to include teaching and leading workshops and she is the director of two folk choirs, Wercasfolk and VoiceMale. She was on the staff of Newcastle University's music department for 17 years until 2017. Discography *'A Merry Progress to London' with the Critics Group (Argo ZFB 60 1966) *'Sweet Thames Flow Softly' with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blean
Blean is a village and civil parish in the Canterbury district of Kent, England. The civil parish is large and is mostly woodland, much of which is ancient woodland. The developed village within the parish is scattered along the road between Canterbury and Whitstable, in the middle of the Forest of Blean. The parish of St Cosmus and St Damian in the Blean was renamed "Blean" on 1 April 2019. History According to Edward Hasted's 1800 county study, the village was once part of the king's ancient forest of Blean in the hundred of Westgate. The name Blean is the dative form of the Old English word ‘blea’ which means rough ground. Therefore the full name of the parish meant "the church of Saints Cosmas and Damian (sic) in the rough ground." In 1835, the Blean Union Workhouse, designed by William Edmunds, was built on four acres south of Herne Common. The design was based on Sir Francis Bond Head's ''Plan of a Rural Workhouse for 500 Persons'', a publication of the Poor Law ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horrabridge
Horrabridge is a village and civil parish in the West Devon district, in Devon, England with a population of 2,115 people in 2006, down from 2,204 in 1991. It is located approximately north of the city of Plymouth and south of Tavistock and is within the Dartmoor National Park. In 2021 the parish had a population of 2198. ''Horrabridge'' is a major part of Walkham electoral ward. The population at the 2011 census was 3,115. It sits on the River Walkham, a fishing river famous for its salmon. The village's name may have been taken from the 15th century pack-horse bridge which remains the only vehicular route from one side of the village to the other, and featured in the children's television programme Bagpuss. The bridge is a Grade I listed building. Horrabridge has two pubs the London Inn and The Leaping Salmon but has lost many of its shops over the last 20 years including a draper, television shop and a general store. The village does however retain its post office, fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sumer Is Icumen In
"Sumer is icumen in" is the incipit of a medieval English round or of the mid-13th century; it is also known variously as the Summer Canon and the Cuckoo Song. The line translates approximately to "Summer has come" or "Summer has arrived". The song is written in the Wessex dialect of Middle English. Although the composer's identity is unknown today, it may have been W. de Wycombe or a monk at Reading Abbey, . The manuscript in which it is preserved was copied between 1261 and 1264. This is the oldest known musical composition featuring six-part polyphony. It is sometimes called the Reading Rota because the earliest known copy of the composition, a manuscript written in mensural notation, was found at Reading Abbey; it was probably not drafted there, however. The British Library now retains this manuscript. A copy of the manuscript in stone relief is displayed on the wall of the ruined chapter house of Reading Abbey. Rota A (Latin for 'wheel') is a type of round, whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yaffle
The European green woodpecker (''Picus viridis''), also known as the yaffle and sometimes called a nickle, is a large green woodpecker with a bright red crown and a black moustache. Males have a red centre to the moustache stripe which is absent in females. It is resident across much of Europe and the western Palearctic but in Spain and Portugal it is replaced by the similar Iberian green woodpecker (''Picus sharpei''). The European green woodpecker spends much of its time feeding on ants on the ground and does not often 'drum' on trees like other woodpecker species. Though its vivid green and red plumage is particularly striking, it is a shy bird, and is more often heard than seen, drawing attention with its loud calls. A nest hole is excavated in a tree; four to six eggs are laid which hatch after 19–20 days. Taxonomy The European green woodpecker was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his ''Systema Naturae'' under ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stop Motion
Stop-motion (also known as stop frame animation) is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames is played back. Any kind of object can thus be animated, but puppets with movable joints (puppet animation) or clay figures (claymation) are most commonly used. Puppets, models or clay figures built around an armature are used in model animation. Stop motion with live actors is often referred to as pixilation. Stop motion of flat materials such as paper, fabrics or photographs is usually called cutout animation. Terminology The term "stop-motion", relating to the animation technique, is often spelled without a hyphen as "stop motion"—either standalone or as a compound modifier. Both orthographic variants, with and without the hyphen, are correct, but the hyphenated one is th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rowing Boat
Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically attached to the boat, and the rower drives the oar like a lever, exerting force in the ''same'' direction as the boat's travel; while paddles are completely hand-held and have no attachment to the boat, and are driven like a cantilever, exerting force ''opposite'' to the intended direction of the boat. In some strict terminologies, using oars for propulsion may be termed either "pulling" or "rowing", with different definitions for each. Where these strict terminologies are used, the definitions are reversed depending on the context. On saltwater a "pulling boat" has each person working one oar on one side, alternating port and starboard along the length of the boat; whilst "rowing" means each person operates two oars, one on each side of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lima Bean
A lima bean (''Phaseolus lunatus''), also commonly known as butter bean, sieva bean, double bean or Madagascar bean, is a legume grown for its edible seeds or beans. Origin and uses ''Phaseolus lunatus'' is found in Meso- and South America. Two gene pools of cultivated lima beans point to independent domestication events. The Mesoamerican lima bean is distributed in neotropical lowlands, while the other is found in the western Andes. They were discovered in Peru and may have been the first plant that was brought up under civilization by the native farmers. The Andean domestication took place around 2000 BC and produced a large-seeded variety (lima type), while the second, taking place in Mesoamerica around 800 AD, produced a small-seeded variety (Sieva type). By around 1300, cultivation had spread north of the Rio Grande, and, in the 1500s, the plant began to be cultivated in the Old World. The small-seeded (Sieva) type is found distributed from Mexico to Argentina, generally ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mill (grinding)
A mill is a device, often a structure, machine or kitchen appliance, that breaks solid materials into smaller pieces by grinding, crushing, or cutting. Such comminution is an important unit operation in many processes. There are many different types of mills and many types of materials processed in them. Historically, mills were powered by hand or by animals (e.g., via a hand crank), working animal (e.g., horse mill), wind ( windmill) or water (watermill). In the modern era, they are usually powered by electricity. The grinding of solid materials occurs through mechanical forces that break up the structure by overcoming the interior bonding forces. After the grinding the state of the solid is changed: the grain size, the grain size disposition and the grain shape. Milling also refers to the process of breaking down, separating, sizing, or classifying aggregate material (e.g. mining ore). For instance rock crushing or grinding to produce uniform aggregate size for construc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
