Peter Firmin: Puppet-maker behind Bagpuss and the Clangers

Working with his longtime collaborator Oliver Postgate, he helped to create programmes loved by children across generations

Firmin (right) with Oliver Postgate filming ‘The Clangers’ in 1968 (Smallfilms/Victoria and Albert Museum)

Peter Firmin, who has died aged 89, was the puppeteer and artist who, together with his friend and colleague Oliver Postgate, created a panoply of much-loved programmes in the golden era of British children’s television.

Their creations, including The Clangers, Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine and Noggin the Nog, captivated children in the Sixties and Seventies and have continued to delight the young people of today.

​Firmin was born in 1928 in the port town of Harwich, Essex. He trained at Colchester School of Art then moved on to the Central School of Art and Design, as a lecturer. It was there that Firmin was introduced to Postgate, who sought a designer for his Alexander the Mouse (1958). From the outset the pair specialised in stop-motion animation, a painstaking method of production where each shot is set up and a single frame filmed, before moving to the next shot.

Their first major project together as their production company, Smallfilms, was Ivor the Engine, the story of a Welsh steam locomotive and its driver, Jones the Steam, whose accent Postgate later confessed was inspired by a BBC production of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood. The series of 32 hand-drawn animated episodes was first shown in black and white in 1959 and revived in colour for a further 40 episodes in 1976.

Firmin’s artistry, together with Postgate’s warm and gentle narration voice, and his business acumen, made a winning combination, as Firmin once said: “I can do a lot of things, but there’s a limitation. I always relied upon Oliver. He was very good technically. He could sell things to people. I wouldn’t have done all that on my own. I think partnerships really are the thing.”

Noggin the Nog was first shown on BBC television in 1959. It told the tale of a Viking prince who crosses the seas in search of a bride, only to have his throne usurped by an evil uncle. The character came to Firmin after seeing the Lewis chessmen during a visit to the British Museum. He recalled: “I come from Harwich, in Essex, and I had an uncle in Denmark. And I’d been there with a youth party just after the war. I just fancied the Viking sagas, because a lot of them are connected with the east coast of England.“

Firmin with that ‘saggy, old cloth cat, baggy and a bit loose at the seams’ in 2014 (Rex)

The Clangers were born in 1969, the year of mankind’s first steps on the moon. Made in a barn on Firmin’s smallholding in Kent, the pink woollen extraterrestrials, who lived on a moon made of cheese, were knitted by his wife Joan – the pair married in 1952 and had six daughters.

The Clangers’ trademark whistling voice, and the burbling of the Soup Dragon, were voiced by Postgate, who also narrated each of the episodes.

Bagpuss was, in its creators words, “a saggy, old cloth cat, baggy, and a bit loose at the seams”, the beloved toy of Emily – played by Firmin’s eight-year-old daughter – who runs a shop where nothing is for sale. Although only 13 episodes were made, it was voted the favourite BBC children’s programme animal ever.

Firmin was amazed at their continued success: “Every year we thought, ‘next year we’ll probably be out of work because we haven’t got anything to do’, and then the BBC would say, ‘Well darling, what’s next year’s going to be? And it must be better than last year’s’ and we told them what we were going to do and they would say ‘All right darling, go away and do it’.”

In 2007 the pair were jointly presented with the Action for Children’s Arts JM Barrie Award in recognition of their “lifetime’s achievement in delighting children“. Postgate died the following year. Firmin went on to receive a special award at the British Academy Children’s Awards in 2014, recognising his outstanding contribution ot children’s entertainment.

​Firmin and Postgate’s creations have continued to delight audiences into the 21st century. Noggin the Nog became a stage play at the Edinburgh Festival in 2014. Director John Wright noted at the time: “It’s so English, not Norse at all. And so polite, in that old-fashioned way.”

And the Clangers returned to television on the CBeebies children’s channel in 2015, narrated by Michael Palin.

Firmin died at his home in Kent after a short illness. Former children’s television presenter Floella Benjamin, said in tribute: “I have such fond memories of working with Peter. All he wanted to do was to create magic to stimulate kids’ minds through his creative vision.”

Peter Firmin, artist, born 11 December 1928, died 1 July 2018