Biography

Burnt all but one of the puppets from the "Trumptonshire" trilogy in his back garden after the 3 series finished airing on television.

His Camberwick Green (1966) became the first children's programme to be transmitted in colour by the BBC.

After leaving school, he worked as a journalist and joined the Territorial Army. In 1939 he was enlisted in the London Scottish Regiment. He was commissioned into the Royal Corps of Signals, and took part in the Normandy landings as a platoon commander, landing on Gold Beach.

He studied classics, but later gave up Latin and Greek, and spent most of his time in the art and drama departments. He had enjoyed going to the Victoria Palace Theatre with his father as a child to see variety shows, and particularly liked the marionettes.

After the war, he worked as an actor in repertory theatre, appearing in Shakespeare plays and "Peter Pan", where he met his future wife, ballet dancer Enid Martin. In the 1950s, he established a puppet company which toured theaters in the UK.

There's no crime, you know, in Trumptonshire. It's a happy world, and a lot of people say 'well, you shouldn't encourage children to think that the world's like that.' Some people throw their children into the deep end of the swimming bath at an early age and say 'swim'.; you know, 'that's the way to learn, life's hard. Hard things are coming to you.' I don't believe in that. I believe that you must protect your children while they are children for as long as possible from this dreadful world we're living in.