Creative genius of children's television Oliver Postgate, died aged 83 on 8 December, 2008, after a long illness.

He created some of the best-loved characters with a list of credits that includes Ivor the Engine, the Clangers, Noggin the Nog and Pogles' Wood.

But probably 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 as the little girl who appears in the opening titles of all the episodes.

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 marvellous 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 over 16 years, before the series was pulled from schedules for being too old fashioned.

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

Ivor the Engine was one of the first animated films out of the Smallfilms 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 and other Postgate favourites enjoyed a revival through the work of 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.

A six-episode series called The Pogles was made in 1964 but the serial (which explained how Pippin came to live with Mr and Mrs Pogle) was only screened once before being deemed too frightening for a pre-school audience. The characters returned - including Tog and Plant - in Pogles' Wood and 25 less scarey episodes were made for Watch with Mother.

Mr Postgate, born in 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.