The golden age of children’s television, and a happy place for many young viewers, are evoked in an instant by a moving new audio drama called Patchwuff, thanks in part to Sandra Kerr. So Radio Times spoke to the folk star whose music woke up Bagpuss, and is making magic happen again...
Patchwuff tells the tale of Peter, a boy whose best friend is a cloth dog made by his grandmother. Patchwuff is a "mopey mess of a mutt" with "a patchwork body stuffed with fluff and warm feelings". One day an important visitor to Grandma's house decides that Patchwuff’s stories should be brought to TV.
“What happens to the bond between a child and their best, not-quite-imaginary friend as time goes by? How do our memories of these formative childhood friends shape the people we become, and what comfort can they bring in difficult, grown-up times?”
"So many of our ancient songs and ballads have been couched in the language of flowers and plants. Forget-me-knot was my starting point and so was the ballad tradition of folk song. I based it loosely on a version of Scarborough Fair that we have in Northumberland called Whittingham Fair, and it has a beautiful tune. So I started there but went off in different directions.”
View oEmbed on the source websitePatchwuff's golden-age theme is reinforced by some spirited narration from former Blue Peter presenter Valerie Singleton – a casting coup that Andrew T Smith calls "a dream come true".
"What a pleasure it was to hear that unmistakeable voice again," adds Kerr. "Perfect."
And the soundscape for Patchwuff is a cosily familiar one thanks to instruments that were also used for Bagpuss, such as the concertina, autoharp and Appalachian dulcimer. “They were appropriate,” explains Kerr, “those small, intimate, friendly-feeling instruments that sound like you’ve always heard them, and don’t dominate the text or the lyrics.
Kerr and fellow folk musician John Faulkner first got the gig for 1974 series Bagpuss after Oliver Postgate ("amazing and genius-like," says Kerr) heard and liked the music that the duo had created for Sam on Boffs’ Island, an educational show produced by Michael Rosen that Postgate and Peter Firmin had provided animation and puppets for.
Postgate and Firmin's Smallfilms comprise some of the best-loved children's series of all time, including The Saga of Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine, Pogles' Wood, Clangers and, of course, Bagpuss.
It was Kerr and Faulkner's music that brought Bagpuss and his friends to life, accompanied the pink-and-white cat's fantastical stories, motivated the mice to repair the lost objects that Emily brought into her shop, and lullabied all the toys back to sleep at the end of each episode.
"Peter was another delightful and hugely creative man," says Kerr. "I also ought to make a shout-out for Joan, Peter’s wife, who made a lot of the costumes and dressings for the sets. She was an extraordinarily creative craftswoman and not mentioned in any of the films."
“Yes, that was her role, and I was very happy with that. I came across a wonderful website where there was a Marxist analysis of the characters, absolutely wonderful, very funny, very clever, and it said that Madeleine was the earth mother who wore a striped dress, the socio-political significance of which has never been explored [laughs]!"
Faulkner, meanwhile, voiced the banjo-playing Gabriel the toad.
"We had enormous fun doing Bagpuss. If you listen carefully especially when we're singing the mouse rounds, you can hear us giggling because it was such fun to do.” Readers of a certain age, and also their children, will fondly remember the weekly, high-pitched chorus of "We will fix it!"
"Sometimes he’d say something like, 'I want a tune for mending split cabbages' or something and we’d find an Irish jig that felt like it was just the right thing. Sometimes he’d present us with a storyboard for us to improvise to. And other times there were part-lyrics which we would add to, or tweak, to make some variety in the kind of songs that we used."
There was one exception that suddenly springs to Kerr's mind. "I have to come clean here, I have to fess up! The Porcupine Song was Oliver’s, pure and simple, start to finish. That was his lyric, that was his tune, the only one he created and it’s delightful and it was from that that we created Bagpuss's opening sequence of notes that you hear."
"I remember later on in the 70s when I discovered feminism and I was at my most strident, Oliver came to dinner and I think I challenged him about something he said – and, bless him, he was quite startled. But then he was totally conciliatory and thought back over what he’d said and I won’t use the word apologise, it’s not appropriate, but he did rethink the whole thing and I think that was the only time Oliver and I ever crossed tiny, tiny little Bagpuss swords!"
Occasionally on the road, she plays music from Bagpuss, to strong reactions: “There are always people who come up in tears saying how much they loved it when they were children, how hearing it again took them back to those times and how they saw Bagpuss as a place of security.”
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"We all had a favourite toy that was important to us and that we talked to, and I love the fact that it’s Patchwuff that teaches Peter and tells Peter stories. It’s the kind of turnaround thing that Oliver would have done, and did do in Bagpuss.
And as for the show about a saggy old cloth cat, "We knew it was special and fun and we knew it was a great coming together of traditions and creativity and ideas, but I don’t think at the time that we knew that over 50 years later, people would still be relating to it and talking about it and be moved by it.
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