Inigo Pipkin

'Pipkins' was one of the best children's shows of the 1970s, with its manic (and in some cases, Brummie) puppets Hartley the Hare, Topov the Monkey, and the ever-experimenting Pig. There was also Tortoise, and the French ostrich Octavia. There was also a bloke called Wayne who kept the whole thing together.

'Time!!!' was an insert in each show with a lot of clocks, but I can't really remember why now. But the best of all was Hartley's put downs of Pig ('oh shut up, Pig!') and his ineffectual flirting with Octavia. Great fun in an era which also had Morph the plasticine man, and Zippy, Bungle and the curiously camp George in 'Rainbow'.

I have fond recollections of "Pipkins", even though I was already in my teens when it began, and in my twenties when it vanished from our screens, alas!, for ever. The early episodes featured character actor George Woodbridge as the eponymous Inigo Pipkin, but the real glory days of "Pipkins" occurred under the stewardship of Wayne Laryea, a young black British actor. The undisputed star of the show, however, was Hartley Hare, a character of extraordinary depth and complexity for a children's show. Vain, neurotic and unbelievably camp, the self-deluded Hartley (who rather resembled Frank Williams's Vicar in "Dad's Army") hopelessly held a torch for the coquettish French (!) ostrich, Octavia, who on one occasion pointedly rebuffed his advances with the immortal (and sublimely delivered) put-down: "Oh, 'Artley, you are so SMALL!"