Tributes were paid to Oliver Postgate, who died aged 83 after a long illness.

He created some of the best-loved children's television with a list of credits that includes Ivor the Engine, the Clangers, Noggin the Nog and Pogles' Wood, the series often narrated by himself.

But his best-loved and most endearing character was a pink and white striped cat, Bagpuss, hailed at the start of the 1974 television programems as: "The most important, the most beautiful, the most magical saggy old cloth cat in the whole wide world".

His work, often with puppeteer Peter Firmin, was screened by the BBC from the 1950s to the 1980s.

They worked together on a former farm under the Smallfilms title, their first work being a set of stories called Alexander the Mouse, made in a converted cowshed and using magnets to move the characters.

Oliver worked with Peter Firmin for 14 years in all, most memorably on Bagpuss, with Peter's daughter Emily the little girl who Bagpuss belonged to in the films.

The stories centred around broken object being brought to her shop to be mended and sold on. Characters include Madeleine the rag-doll, Gabriel the Toad, Professor Yaffle and the mice from the marvallous mechanical mouse organ.

Peter Firmin said: "I created the visual character of Bagpuss after I had the idea of a cat with visible thoughts, but it was Oliver who breathed life into the creation by supplying his thoughts and voice."

There were just 13 episodes, which the BBC repeated 27 times in 16 years, before being pulled for being too old fasioned.

Despite that, Bagpuss has been voted a top children's telvision programme in numerous polls in the years since.

Ivor the Engine was one of the first animated films out of the stable, with a series of five being made by Associated Rediffusion in 1959, with 26 more to follow. A series of 40 was remade in colour in the mid 1970s.

Five Sagas of Noggin the Nog were made in black and white for the BBC between 1959 and 1965, the viking seeing a revival through fan club The Dragons' Friendly Society.

The Clangers series were made in 1969 and 1971, showing moon mice who lived beneath the surface with their burrow protected by dustbin lids. Twenty-six episodes were made.

The Pogles saw six animated films created in 1964 but they lay mostly unseen, considered too frightening for their intended audience. Pogles' Wood followed soon after with 25 Watch with Mother episodes, minus the witch this time.

Mr Postgate, born 1925 in Hendon, Middlesex, lived his later years in Kent.

He was the cousin of actress Angela Lansbury and the grandson of politician George Lansbury.

He was a conscientious objector during the Second World War, avoiding prison by agreeing to become a stretcher bearer for the Red Cross.

Oliver married Prudence Myers in 1957,becoming stepfather to three children before the couple had twins and then a son. Prudence died in 1982.

His outspoken political views also saw him become an anti-nuclear campaigner and more recently a blogger for New Statesman magazine. Bagpuss itself has been subject to theories of being a political allegory.

He was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Kent at Canterbury in 1987

His autobiography, Seeing Things, was published in 2000.