oliver

At the heart of these stories, these fables, these tales strung from unearthly worlds, call them what you will, lie creatures strange, worlds stranger still, in which terrible witches cast their evil spells, where toys come alive, where the mouse-organ plays its endless roll, where a mechanical chicken rattles in space and in the depths of the shimmering green soup wells, the soup dragon gurgles; where Pippin, the earth-born son of the fairy king, lives with the Pogle’s, and the railway engine of the Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company Limited sings in the local choir. Such peculiar and odd characters from my childhood brought back to focus today by the death of Oliver Postgate who invented them and with his gentle master's pen scribed, then narrated each and every glorious one, and who will never be forgotten. R.I.P.