In Memoriam - Oliver Postgate

"In the lands of the North, where the Black Rocks stand guard against the cold sea, in the dark night that is very long the men of the Northlands sit by their great log fires and they tell a tale..."

The opening words of all the Sagas of Noggin the Nog, created by Oliver Postgate as some of the best British children's TV ever made. Oliver Postgate died yesterday at the age of 83, and the black rocks of Eshaness in Shetland are my way of paying tribute to someone whose creations, I now realise, had a huge effect on the direction of my life. As a child I was entranced by the Northern world of his diminutive Viking, Noggin, to the extent that when doing my PhD many years later I sidetracked into an undergraduate course in Norwegian language and literature. Through this I met my now husband, and some very dear Norwegian friends.

The BBC website has an obituary about Oliver Postgate here, and worth reading is an article by Oliver about what children really need from TV. I was lucky enough to be of the generation that was offered his wonderful creations.

Comments

  1. Thanks for stopping by my blog. I thought someone would get the "conjunction" pun of STARbucks and sure enough you did.

    Beautiful picture. I hope to visit Scotland someday. I almost got there this past summer. I was a bit east in Scandinavia.

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  2. A touching tribute to a great man. How fortunate you were to be part of his priceless philosophy.

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  3. Hello,
    Beautiful picture. I really love Scotland's Landscape :)
    I know more about Oliver Postage after reading your text and BBC Wab site. We all had books or TV series that in our childhood make us dreaming. I well understand the impact of Oliver Postage's creations on your adult life, on the choices you made. It's quite the same 'scenario' for my wife after reading many books about Marie-Antoinette and French revolution in Japan. Regarding me, I read many books of Joseph Kessel when I was young. It's may be the reason why I love travelling ;)

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  4. This is a gorgeous picture. I vaguely remember Noggin the Nog (I was wee in the 70s), and of course the Clangers. They don't make programmes like these any more - if I ever have kids I think I'll try to get copies of the programmes I loved when I was a kid myself so they don't miss out.

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