Whenever I see these wonderful programmes it takes me back to childhood and watching them. They really are beautifully done and like the other children's series "Mary Mungo and Midge" wholly educational without over-stretching the attention span of its young audience. And yet they are educational without being patronising. Well informed and informative while entertaining to both the children and the adults who are lucky enough to watch with them. There were 13 episodes and each one has an informative story. The story revolves around a little shop where a little girl brings in a thing (an item that is indeterminate at the beginning of each tale but forms the basis for the episode), utters some magic words that wake up her cloth cat and the other animals in the shop, each of whom is a great character. Bagpuss the old cloth cat (with a beautiful mellifluous voice), the rag doll, the toad, the magical mice and not forgetting Professor Yaffle- a wooden woodpecker who does patronise the other animals and is occasionally caught out. Each of them is a character we know from life and all talk to the subject matter intelligently and even weave in some small tales of morality. Only the BBC could produce something of this quality. Priceless and not surpassed since.
