Peter Firmin

Peter Firmin (1928 to 2018) was an English artist, puppet maker and illustrator who, together with Oliver Postgate, founded the British children's television production company Smallfilms. Born in Harwich, Essex, he trained at the Colchester School of Art and then at the Central School of Art and Design in London, and he met Postgate while teaching there, when Postgate needed someone to illustrate a television story. From 1958 into the late 1980s Smallfilms made its animation in a barn on Firmin's land at Blean near Canterbury in Kent, where Firmin made the sets, puppets and backdrops and often helped create the sound and visual effects. The programmes they created include The Saga of Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine, Clangers, Bagpuss and Pogles' Wood. With Ivan Owen he also co-created the television puppet Basil Brush in 1962. Later he wrote and illustrated children's books and made prints, and he received a BAFTA lifetime achievement award in 2014.