Gather ye round and read my Nog-Blog...

“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...”
As I read those words, reproduced in Seeing Things: A Memoir, Oliver Postgate’s sparkling autobiography, the past came rushing back. It was the 1960’s once again, and my siblings and I were seated around a winter fire following a day at school, watching the wonderful Noggin the Nog on television. I quote Postgate: “nobody who has watched those films...will ever hear those words without remembering the slow icy chords with which Vernon Elliot (bassoon) and his daughter Bridget (clarinet) heralded and accompanied that opening speech.” Well, even if they have, I haven’t.
The genius of that Noggin the Nog opener was that it pulled the viewer/listener right into the narrative. You could actually feel the heat from those great log fires that the Northmen sat around – or maybe it was coming from the coals hissing in our domestic grate? And those bassoon and clarinet chords were indeed like icy motes troubling our backs and necks as we watched and listened – or maybe it was actual cold air creeping through our home window fittings – a not unusual occurrence in those days before ubiquitous double glazing? But it matters not.
Noggin was storytelling at its best and as I continued reading Postgate’s narrative, I cried and laughed aloud as he recounted - and I recalled - characters and episodes from the long-running Saga. Nogbad the Bad, for instance, and the Ice Dragon, and a steampunky longship with mechanical wings, built by Olaf the Lofty – I had forgotten him! In his earlier years, Postgate himself had been the inventor of a host of failed devices, and I have no doubt that he derived a measure of glee from channelling his experiences into the cartoon features, created with the equally talented Peter Firmin. Whatever, this Nog-blog is nearly done, and I have had a lot of fun recounting other creations of the Postgate/Firmin duo, Ivor, Clangers, Pingwings, all, characters that will live in the memory of grown-up kids, like you and me...