I Have Grave News

Another founding stone of my love for television passed away last weekend.  Tony Hart, gentleman, artist and one of the most pristine, softly-spoken examples to children’s TV presenters the world over, has left us at the age of 83.

I first fell under the spell of this wonderful man in the 1970s, on the slightly bizarre children’s arts programme, Vision On; it was some years before I realised that the reason the programme was presented in near-silence, and contained comedy mime routines by future Doctor Who, Sylvester McCoy, was that it was intended for the deaf.  The beauty of it, as with most experimental and educational shows of the ’60s and ’70s, was that is was always fascinating to all children, irrespective of their hearing.  Its most iconic item was The Gallery, a slow pan around a wall of selections from the flood of artwork sent in by young viewers every week; it was memorably soundtracked by the beautiful and quirky dittie, Left Bank Two, which was later to become a retro-lounge classic.

After Vision On ended in 1977, Tony returned the following year with Take Hart.  In this, he necessarily did far more talking, especially with the introduction of Plasticine stop-animation character Morph and, my favourite,  the anxious, manic janitor, Mr Bennett (whom I found particularly funny, for some reason, leading me to find anyone called “Mr Bennett” hilarious ever since).

Like Rolf Harris, Tony Hart had the innate ability to demystify the practice of art and thus make it accessible to people like me, who had no natural talent, but simply a love of holding a pencil and drawing for its own sake.  In one of his last interviews, he told The Times: “Time and again I have been told: ‘I can’t draw.’  My answer has always been the same: ‘If you can write, you can draw’.”

In fact, I still treasure my copy of his book, “You Can Draw”, a step-by-step guide to the basics, which helped me live out my unfulfillable ambition to be a cartoonist: my efforts, “Lamb Amirstan” and “Flobby Blobby People”, are classics only in the confines of my boxes of rubbish in the attic – so, yes, my namesake can rest easy in his grave too.

Tony Hart brought art into the lives and living rooms of millions of children like me; to all of us who grew up sketching, painting, cutting and pasting under his gentle guidance, he will be fondly remembered always.

I’ve known and loved Oliver Postgate all of my life.  He’s been in my living room since I can remember and, thanks to Nick Jr Classics, his Clangers are still there too, beaming whistles and soup slurps from their little hollow planet.  If my mum ever looked for someone to blame for my overtly fertile early imagination, I always pointed her in Mr Postgate’s direction, albeit while urging her to show some respect and affection.

British do-gooders so often wring their hands about what nonsense fills children’s heads from hours spent in front of the TV, to the point of telling them to drastically reduce their viewing.  Recent targets have included Teletubbies and In The Night Garden, programmes which came under intense scrutiny, not because children would actually go mad watching them, but because adults don’t understand them.  For crying out loud, the TV is the best place to start a child’s imaginative journey.  No matter what we think about the wonder of books, nothing gets playground chat going like something wonderful, spellbinding and adventurous on TV. Cheerfully, such do-gooders were in still short supply during the 1950s and 1960s, or we’d never have had series like The Prisoner,  Doctor Who or The Magic Roundabout.  Or, indeed, anything by Oliver Postgate.

Take The Clangers, for instance; telling the uninitiated about about a planet of pink, whistling, cave-dwelling, knitted mice who recycle interplanetary junk and eat blue string pudding and green soup taken from wells by the Soup Dragon, does sound like the workings of a cheesy Wotsit ‘n’ vimto-inspired hallucinatory dream.  Except it wasn’t, it was wonderful; and, here in 2008, it still looks and sounds wonderful.

My first knowing introduction to Postgate was via Noggin The Nog, the cod-Norse mythological saga with the vaguely forbidding voiceover and sinister bassoon music, courtesy of Vernon Elliot, whose music also soundtracked The Clangers. Noggin The Nog still provides food for my imagination; even the idea of watching it as a three-year-old, taking my first exploratory steps into the limitless possibilities of the imagination, is inspiring.  I want my own children to experience the same sense of wonder I did in front of Noggin; maybe Santa can track down a DVD for me – not for my own pleasure, you understand.

Newer generations have been charmed by Postgate’s later work, chiefly Bagpuss and the ’70s revival of his first animation from the ’50s, Ivor The Engine; but, for me, Noggin and The Clangers were what my very young childhood was all about.  Thanks for the memories, Oliver Postgate.  Rest in peace, and assured that some lifelong fans want to pass on your life’s work to the next generation of fertile imaginations.