Well, the day has come when I take down Major Clanger from the bookshelf and give him a good dusting down.
And the battery inside him for the past six years still gives him enough energy to speak.
I was under two years old when Pogles Wood came onto the TV, a small screen affair in black and white that my father had most likely built from components borrowed from his time in the Navy.
The whole ensemble, Mr and Mrs Pogle, Pippin, Tog and Plant (which they fed before he would tell a story - the highlight of the ten minute animation) was expertly created and realised for the new age UK television and the early Watch with Mother, but the 'dark side' and the alleged pagan worship and witchcraft was met with some derision by the new bosses of the BBC, and so the programme was cut after a few episodes and, as far as I know, never repeated.
It remains one of the best shorts from the Postgate company Smallfilms and should be sourced by any means, just to confirm that children's entertainment for those under five years old can involve a story, regardless of any ubiquitous flashing lights and electronic sounds that are deemed the minimum nowadays.
Only now, series such as Charlie and Lola are catching onto the ideas that transported children into that wonderland, with Dangermouse offering a stopgap in the 70's.
Oliver, RIP, I trust soup dragon will provide you with all the blue string you can eat.
