He’s the most important, the most beautiful, the most magical… saggy old cloth cat in the whole wide world. And Emily still loves him.
Some children’s characters are like TV treasure. Only 13 episodes were ever made of the 1974 series Bagpuss, each one lasting just 15 minutes, yet the show occupies a cherished place – a comfortably plump cushion, if you will – in the hearts and memories of all who watched it.
And now those warm feelings that the mere mention of Bagpuss evokes are golden – the stripy cloth cat with a love of storytelling and sleep turns 50 next Monday.
His influence stretches far and wide. In 1999, Bagpuss came top of a poll to find the nation’s favourite BBC children’s programme (and in 2001, he was fourth out of 100 greatest kids’ shows in a Channel 4 countdown).
He has appeared on postage stamps, he was referenced in the sitcom Spaced and was the title of the first episode of comedy drama Man like Mobeen, and Lady Di was seen to be watching the show in royal drama The Crown.
To mark the anniversary, Radio Times magazine spoke to artist Emily Firmin, the show’s human star and daughter of the co-creator, about its lasting legacy.
“I was just the right age to bribe with sweets to appear in it,” laughs Emily, over how her seven-year-old self came to be involved.
She’s the youngest of six daughters of Peter Firmin who, with his friend Oliver Postgate under the company name Smallfilms, made revered programmes for children including Ivor the Engine, The Saga of Noggin the Nog, Pogles’ Wood, Clangers and, of course, Bagpuss.
She played the little girl called Emily – seen in sepia photos at the start of the show – who owned the shop Bagpuss & Co, which “didn’t sell anything”.
Instead, it displayed lost or broken objects that were then repaired by the marvellous moggy and his friends – rag doll Madeleine, Gabriel the banjo-strumming toad, wooden woodpecker bookend Professor Yaffle and six mice carved on the side of a “mouse organ”. As the toys awoke, the sepia yesteryear magically became a colourful present.
Bagpuss and Co was essentially The Repair Shop 43 years early; while the show itself prefigured Toy Story by two decades.
Everyone remembers the “once upon a time” that conjured up what look like Victorian days, the autoharp glissando that cast a spell on its toys, and our hero’s gigantic yawn. Also the jaunty folk songs that helped tell the stories and were sung by Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner.
All the introductory photographs were taken at the Firmins’ home in Kent – the shop front was in fact the bow window of the dining room.
“My parents’ house was pretty much a farm film studio,” says Emily, “so my dad worked in an old cow shed and Oliver’s studio was a pig sty, originally. Next door to him was my stable, where I kept my horse. People ask, ‘What was it like?’ Well, that was what it was like. I didn’t realise people lived in other ways!
“I do remember being taken out with my mum to go and choose some very ugly Victorian shoes, which are no more, but the dress that my mum made is in The Beaney museum in Canterbury.”
It’s one of many props and models in an exhibition of Smallfilms’ work that Emily helped put together. “Even Basil Brush’s understudy is there. Not many people realise that my dad made the original Basil Brush.”
Emily’s mother, Joan, was a vital contributor to the series, too. “Oh, yes. These days she’d be like an art director, or art consultant. I mean, my dad did most things, but my mum had a super-duper electric sewing machine at that time.
“In the Owls of Athens episode, there’s a big tapestry that she made with it. She advised my dad on how to do some stitches for making Bagpuss and various other things. And knitted the skins for the Clangers.”
So, were all the Firmin daughters asked to help out with the different productions? “All my sisters helped out in various ways, like colouring in or making things for certain shows, but I didn’t really do anything. Though, I remember delivering something to Blue Peter once, and helping Dad on another show with Floella Benjamin. We’re all arty, but I didn’t get to help in that way.”
And did appearing on television make things awkward for Emily at school? “Then, most people didn’t have a colour television. Even our school, because I went to school about a mile down the road and they let me go home to watch myself in colour. Even though I was in ‘black and white’ anyway [laughs].
“At secondary school more people knew about Bagpuss, but I don’t think it really affected me [in that way]. He’s been in my life since being seven, so I’ve grown up with him.”
One particular perk of her upbringing sounds like heaven for a child. “When Oliver would get the rushes back from Kay Laboratory in Red Lion Square in London, we’d get cups of tea and go and sit on his old car chair – he’d taken the back seat of a car out and put it in his studio – and we’d all sit around eating my mum’s cake and drinking cups of tea and watching unedited first shows!”
Does she have other memories from those days? “My father’s studio was very messy – he’d pay me to pick up all the bits of screwed-up paper. We all had little jobs like that.
“Also, going in the barn and the Clangers set being there, and I’d be looking after my horse. I could hear Oliver working on sound next door, which was odd. But that was the norm.”
But back to the birthday boy. In a 2015 interview, Peter told Radio Times, “Bagpuss was a character that I had in my head. I’d drawn him and named him, but I hadn’t got a role for him.
“It was Oliver’s idea that cats sit in shop windows and bask in the sun… then we asked, ‘Who should run this shop?’ and he looked around and there was Emily, aged seven at the time, and he said, ‘You’ve got her already, she’s there!’”
Does Emily have any favourite episodes? “I do love the Hamish McTavish and the prickly porcupine – I love that one, and Old Uncle Feedle. I mean there are so many, they’re all good.”
Peter and Oliver were great believers in recycling for their programmes. Gabriel the toad was made from Peter’s mother’s old coat, the Clangers’ doors were made of squashed foil plates, and the Iron Chicken was constructed from Meccano.
“I suppose it was just using what was around,” says Emily. “The barn had pots of boxes of bottle lids in case he could make a wheel from them. Even Oliver’s use of Meccano for his cameras is amazing. I think he actually made his own first camera, years ago.”
Though Oliver, Peter and Joan are no longer with us, their work lives on – the first generation to enjoy all the Smallfilms has passed their enthusiasm on to their children, and so on.
So, how was Emily influenced by her parents? “In every way. Both of them. My mum was a bookbinder and taught paper crafts. And now, we’re papier-mâché artists: I don’t live far from my parents’ old house with my partner Justin Mitchell and we have a company called Total Pap, where we make three-dimensional papier-mâché pictures and 3D mini sculptures.” You can find them on Facebook and Instagram.
“We’re all pretty arty in my family. My dad had a printing press – we’ve got two and my sister’s got one. Dad’s was an 1861 Albion Press, ours is from 1865 and enormous so we can do really huge prints, which we do regularly. We have exhibitions of our work and we permanently exhibit some of it in the local restaurants in Canterbury.
“Mum and Dad also encouraged us to try ideas out. And my dad had a love of nature – we’re big dog-walkers, into nature, things like that. I still walk in ‘Pogles’ Wood’. I love going up there. It’s actually Blean Woods at the back of Oliver’s old house. It’s a very nice forest.”
Emily is referring to a stop-motion Smallfilms series that first aired between 1966 and 1968, following a short, six-episode series simply called The Pogles that was first broadcast in 1965.
It was shot by Oliver outdoors, but changing weather conditions plagued production, so Peter created a woodland scene indoors. “Not many people remember it – there are a few people, my age group, that do remember it. But I suppose it’s going to fade out of history eventually.”
Emily and her partner also do work for Hospices of Hope, which provides palliative care services in south-eastern Europe – it was supported by Postgate, and it continues to be by various Bagpuss projects.
“Oliver funded the building of a hospice wing in Romania, but he didn’t want to go because he wasn’t well enough. So Justin and I volunteered to go out and be there for the opening, and we’ve supported Hospices of Hope ever since.
“They started in Romania and they’ve got a hospice in Serbia, Moldova… there’s a lot of teaching, training people in those countries, and I think they’ve been helping Ukraine, as well.”
It’s just one more example of the amazing legacy of Bagpuss. So, what is it that Emily thinks makes the show so special? “It’s a many-faceted programme where all the different characters introduce whatever it is that they’ve found – or I’ve found!
“It’s stories within stories, with a lot of imagination. Everyone loves the programmes. If they grew up with them… they’re real fans!”
Who knew a saggy cloth cat could work such magic? But clearly he still does. And it’s not just Emily who still loves him.
On Sunday 11th February, Bagpuss has his own Night on BBC4 from 7pm; the show also features on Words and Music on Radio 3 at 5.30pm.
The series is available on Blu-ray and DVD, and to stream on BritBox and ITVX. Details of a crowdfunding project to publish Bagpuss: the Complete Scripts by Oliver and Daniel Postgate are available on Unbound.
A range of commemorative products includes special 50ps, stamps and plushes – visit Coolabi.
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