✱ Happy 50th birthday, Bagpuss!
It was half a century ago that the saggy, pink-and-white-striped cat, a group of eclectic toys, a girl called Emily and a shop that never sold anything were introduced.
The show was created by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin. Bagpuss was intended to be a ginger marmalade cat, but a mistake in the material-dyeing process resulted in the cat we came to know and love.
The shop was filled with broken and lost treasures, repaired by mice from the Marvellous Mechanical Mouse Organ. It was all discussed by ragdoll Madeleine, Gabriel the toad and wooden bookend Professor Yaffle.
Each episode began with the same sequence of nostalgic sepia photographs, tinny music and the magical moment when Bagpuss slowly wakes and the screen turns to colour.
Postgate (1925-2008) narrated and
