I couldn't let the death of the writer of 'Trumpton', Alison Prince, at 88, pass without comment. Not because I knew her or anything...I'm not sure that it had ever occurred to me before this morning that 'Trumpton' had a writer. It was more the minor revelation that her Obituary gave me.
She soon realised that her storytelling would be shaped by what the technology could do. Going to see Trumpton’s creator Gordon Murray filming a test sequence, she saw the limitations. “It dawned on me how quaint the remit was. You can’t depict flames using stop-motion, nor can you do smoke and water. So I realised I would have to write 13 stories about a fire brigade that never went anywhere near a fire.”
I always wondered why there was never a fire, but of course that was always the joke. Even when my kids were growing we used to sit in front of Trumpton - and whenever I recall the iconic scene of the fireman lining up I always hear my old Dad's voice calling out: *'Hugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and you know who!'
RIP, Alison Prince.
* By the way, Pugh and Pugh were identical twins, she said!
She soon realised that her storytelling would be shaped by what the technology could do. Going to see Trumpton’s creator Gordon Murray filming a test sequence, she saw the limitations. “It dawned on me how quaint the remit was. You can’t depict flames using stop-motion, nor can you do smoke and water. So I realised I would have to write 13 stories about a fire brigade that never went anywhere near a fire.”
I always wondered why there was never a fire, but of course that was always the joke. Even when my kids were growing we used to sit in front of Trumpton - and whenever I recall the iconic scene of the fireman lining up I always hear my old Dad's voice calling out: *'Hugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and you know who!'
RIP, Alison Prince.
* By the way, Pugh and Pugh were identical twins, she said!
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