By Tommy Pearson
For British people of a certain age, the voice of Oliver Postgate is a thing of wonder. My childhood was dominated by it. For the uninitiated, Postgate was Britain's foremost children's animator/storyteller on TV during the 1960s and 70s, creating classic series like Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine, Noggin the Nog and the Clangers. Each one was beautifully scripted, gentle and utterly enchanting. Postgate, along with Peter Firmin, created the company Smallfilms in a cowshed near Canterbury where all their programmes were shot on laughably tiny budgets but huge amounts of imagination. Compared to today's kids shows (what's left of them, now that the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 have all announced they are abandoning children's TV on the terrestrial channels), a Postgate/Firmin masterpiece like Bagpuss seems outrageously quaint and innocent, but that's what charms us - Postgate, with that soft, musical speaking voice, draws us in, as if we're being read a bedtime story. He doesn't patronise, he doesn't presume - according to a recent appearance on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs , Postgate never thought of children for a second when making the shows. No focus groups, no ignorant commissioning editors. Those were the days...
I always loved the music in the Postgate programmes which matched the gentle and (in the best possible way) low-budget feel of the animation. Bassoonist Vernon Elliott had been a founder member of the Philharmonia and a regular with the Royal Opera House orchestra before he was approached to write music for Postgate's productions. Since they never had any money, Elliott had to create effective little themes with very few instruments - but just as Postgate and Firmin found inspiration in their tiny budget (perhaps because of it), so too did Elliott; this is no-frills music for eccentric little groupings.
I have fond memories of Vernon Elliott from when I was very young. Every summer, young musicians from all over Kent would get together for a week-long course at the posh girls school in Benenden where they would play in orchestras, wind bands, choirs and get the chance to be tutored by professional musicians. The bassoon students would often be tutored by Vernon Elliott. He never really mentioned his association with Postgate and all those programmes we had all grown up with - except for the penultimate night of the course, when we presented a 'Music at Night' concert; a chance for the students to play chamber music or perform something different from what they'd been studying all week. Every year, Vernon Elliott would get his bassoon section to play the theme from Ivor the Engine and I'm sure that half the kids there didn't really know why. They loved it, of course, but some were unaware that the gentle, unassuming bassoon tutor had, in fact, been responsible for some of the best known themes in children's television. As a TV and film music geek even then, I would just grin in admiration and appreciation.
Trunk Records have been slowly releasing Vernon Elliott's music on CD in lovely packages that capture the beauty of Postgate's creations. Culled from the original quarter inch tapes, you can hear how basic the recording 'sessions' were - on the Clangers CD you can even hear birds outside, and pages being turned. But it only adds to the enjoyment. I featured the Clangers music on my BBC show a few years ago - a stunning release of sheer, unadulterated nostalgia. And now Elliott's music for Ivor the Engine has been released, together with music from another Postgate show that's perhaps less appreciated, Pogles Wood (which was screened 1966-8 as part of the BBC's Watch With Mother series). Once again, the liner notes took me back to teatime at home, watching the little dramas of Ivor the Engine's life (I'll never forget when he got caught in the snow). Elliott's music, dominated by the bassoon of course, playing that jaunty little tune, does what all great music achieves - it sends me to a different world; of gentle innocence and happy times. And there is that voice again. On Track One, there is Oliver Postgate cueing the music "Ivor the Engine, Second Series, Main Theme" - and it's enough to bring tears to my eyes.
Producers have better technology these days, all the computer design and rendering they could ever want, huge budgets, full orchestras, celebrity voices, 1000 animators in Japanese factories and an audience more clued-up than ever before. But will anyone ever produce a more glorious, perfect body of work than Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin, that will last for generations and generations regardless of the advancement of technology? Well no, actually.
Bagpuss, Noggin and Ivor RULE!
I always loved the music in the Postgate programmes which matched the gentle and (in the best possible way) low-budget feel of the animation. Bassoonist Vernon Elliott had been a founder member of the Philharmonia and a regular with the Royal Opera House orchestra before he was approached to write music for Postgate's productions. Since they never had any money, Elliott had to create effective little themes with very few instruments - but just as Postgate and Firmin found inspiration in their tiny budget (perhaps because of it), so too did Elliott; this is no-frills music for eccentric little groupings.
I have fond memories of Vernon Elliott from when I was very young. Every summer, young musicians from all over Kent would get together for a week-long course at the posh girls school in Benenden where they would play in orchestras, wind bands, choirs and get the chance to be tutored by professional musicians. The bassoon students would often be tutored by Vernon Elliott. He never really mentioned his association with Postgate and all those programmes we had all grown up with - except for the penultimate night of the course, when we presented a 'Music at Night' concert; a chance for the students to play chamber music or perform something different from what they'd been studying all week. Every year, Vernon Elliott would get his bassoon section to play the theme from Ivor the Engine and I'm sure that half the kids there didn't really know why. They loved it, of course, but some were unaware that the gentle, unassuming bassoon tutor had, in fact, been responsible for some of the best known themes in children's television. As a TV and film music geek even then, I would just grin in admiration and appreciation.
Trunk Records have been slowly releasing Vernon Elliott's music on CD in lovely packages that capture the beauty of Postgate's creations. Culled from the original quarter inch tapes, you can hear how basic the recording 'sessions' were - on the Clangers CD you can even hear birds outside, and pages being turned. But it only adds to the enjoyment. I featured the Clangers music on my BBC show a few years ago - a stunning release of sheer, unadulterated nostalgia. And now Elliott's music for Ivor the Engine has been released, together with music from another Postgate show that's perhaps less appreciated, Pogles Wood (which was screened 1966-8 as part of the BBC's Watch With Mother series). Once again, the liner notes took me back to teatime at home, watching the little dramas of Ivor the Engine's life (I'll never forget when he got caught in the snow). Elliott's music, dominated by the bassoon of course, playing that jaunty little tune, does what all great music achieves - it sends me to a different world; of gentle innocence and happy times. And there is that voice again. On Track One, there is Oliver Postgate cueing the music "Ivor the Engine, Second Series, Main Theme" - and it's enough to bring tears to my eyes.
Producers have better technology these days, all the computer design and rendering they could ever want, huge budgets, full orchestras, celebrity voices, 1000 animators in Japanese factories and an audience more clued-up than ever before. But will anyone ever produce a more glorious, perfect body of work than Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin, that will last for generations and generations regardless of the advancement of technology? Well no, actually.
Bagpuss, Noggin and Ivor RULE!