Neil D’Arcy-Jones meets the former Dovercourt-born illustrator behind some of children’s TV’s most enduring classics.

IT was only after my lunch that I noticed.

The lovely simple bay window of the dining room I had been in was, in fact, the shop window of one of the most beloved children’s television programmes of all time.

Bearing in mind the farm cottage where artist, printmaker and television legend Peter Firmin lives with his wife Joan, is scattered with Bagpuss memorabilia, it should not have been too much of a surprise.

But for a man of a certain age, it was the perfect nostalgic end to an already wonderful morning.

You see, I grew up with Ivor the Engine, Noggin the Nog, The Clangers and, of course, that old fat furry catpuss, so when I discovered Essex University were awarding one of the men who created them an honorary degree, I knew I had to pay him a visit.

Peter now lives in Kent, but was born in Cliff Road, Dovercourt, in 1928 and, at the age of 15, went to study at the Colchester School of Art.

“My father had to write to the school to say it was all right for me to draw naked ladies,” he grinned.

Peter has very fond memories of life growing up on the north Essex coast and the way he recalled his childhood does, on occasions, feel like it could come from one of his famous programmes.

“My father worked on the railway at Parkeston Quay and my mother worked in a flower shop nearby,” he said.

“We moved to the Green after I was born to a semi-detached property built in the 1920s. Then my brother was born, followed by my sister, so there were three of us in the end.”

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