EPISODES

Series One

Grains of Wheat

Milk from the Dairy

Honey Bees

Sheep's Wool

Eggs for Breakfast

Trains

Pig in the Middle

The Secret House

Noisy Engines

Badgers and Bears

Tree Farming

Keep Clear of the Water

Series Two

Bears in the Wood

Roundabouts

140 minutes approx
  Multi Region

£ 19.99 inc P&P 

To find out how to order, click HERE

From the Sleeve Notes

Hello. These are the last fourteen episodes of Pogles’ Wood to be released on DVD and have remained unseen since they were originally broadcast from 1968.

In 1999 the Dragons Friendly Society was set up by myself and  Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin,in order to take care of some of their Smallfilms programmes which had been languishing somewhat.

Pogles’ Wood was one of those programmes. So, Oliver and I went through the archives at the BBC (and Peter’s own shed full of film cans) and produced three DVDs. The first series, The Pogles which the BBC showed only once because they found it too scary for daytime television was followed by two DVDs of episodes chosen by Oliver as his favourites.

However we didn’t go on to clean up everything. Most of the first series eluded us, both as the sound had deteriorated (being an optical variable density sound track which had sat in a disused cowshed on Peter’s farm through forty winters and summers) but also because Oliver didn’t feel his writing had found its stride.

 So rather than throw money at a full scale restoration project, Oliver’s said ‘desist’ and was rather fierce about it. So we did, and the final fourteen films remained in their tins.

There was still a pressing need to preserve the films, so over the years we continued to rummage through the BBC library and found, between BBC copies and Smallfilms’ own, the best film stock to record from. Sometimes taking the sound from one to match with the better picture from another.

 Pogles’ Wood mostly from the first series, which was commissioned to be educational and about the countryside, and so we have some marvellous scenes of farmers and their children working in the Kent fields and woods near where Oliver and Peter lived.  

In the second series Oliver began to develop a format which predated Bagpuss in which Pippin and Tog would find something or have a need of advice from the magical Plant, the Plant would tell a story and matters would be transformed. Often there would be a song or a dance.

 In September of 2015 we ran a Kickstarter campaign to raise some money (and interest) and were successful!

Read about it here

A well-deserved thank you to everyone who has helped to make these films available again. Thank you.  

Loaf

October 2015

To find out how to order, click 

Please note that these programmes were filmed in Black and White, and over 30 years ago

click here to return to the Pogles page

Oliver and Loaf went through all the original scripts, and as you can see, he was quite emphatic about what he wanted putting onto the DVD which became 'Pogles Choice'

However, we have now saved all the films which he was trying to put in a skip!

..and in this case, he was wrong. I think he had forgotten what little gems they are, and a valuable social history.

Time has been kind to the Pogles.