Trumpton

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Trumpton
TrumptonTitleCard.jpg
Title card
Genre Stop-motion animation
Created by Gordon Murray
Written by Alison Prince
Narrated by Brian Cant
Theme music composer Freddie Phillips
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes13
Production
Producer Gordon Murray
Animators
  • Bob Bura
  • John Hardwick
Running time15 mins
Production companyGordon Murray Puppets
Original release
Network BBC1
Release3 January (1967-01-03) 
28 March 1967 (1967-03-28)
Related

Trumpton is a British stop-motion children's television series from the producers of Camberwick Green . First shown on the BBC from January to March 1967, it was the second series in the Trumptonshire trilogy, which comprised Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley . Like the other two series, Trumpton continued to be repeated well into the 1980s as a part of the BBC's children's schedules.

Contents

Trumpton was narrated by Brian Cant, and animation was by Bob Bura, John Hardwick and Pasquale Ferrari. Scripts were by Alison Prince; all other production details were identical to Camberwick Green.

Story and structure

The action takes place in the fictional English town of Trumpton, a short distance from the equally fictional village of Camberwick Green, the focus of the first series in the Trumptonshire Trilogy. Each episode begins with a shot of Trumpton Town Hall clock:

"Here is the clock, the Trumpton clock. Telling the time, steadily, sensibly; never too quickly, never too slowly. Telling the time for Trumpton". [1]

The townsfolk then appear going about their daily business: examples include the unnamed Mayor, Mr Troop the town clerk, Chippy Minton the carpenter and his apprentice son Nibs, Mrs Cobbit the florist, Miss Lovelace the milliner and her trio of Pekingese dogs (Mitzi, Daphne and Lulu), Mr Clamp the greengrocer, Mr Munnings the printer, and Mr Platt the clockmaker.

Although most of the characters and settings are new, the style of the programme follows the pattern established by Camberwick Green (from which a few characters make an appearance in Trumpton also), in which domestic problems are cheerfully resolved by the end of the show, leaving the last minute or so for the fire brigade to become the town band and play the episode out.

The fire brigade is perhaps Trumpton's most-recognised feature. Captain Flack's roll-call was recited in all but one episode:

"Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grubb."

Puppeteer Gordon Murray explained that "Pugh and Pugh are twins you must understand – not Hugh, Pugh". [2] In the episode "Cuthbert's Morning Off", [3] Cuthbert's name is omitted (due to his absence). They are continually being called out to attend some emergency or other (in many cases to resolve fairly trivial matters), but to Captain Flack's annoyance never an actual fire. The main reason for this was the difficulty of animating fire, water, and smoke, [4] although a naked flame was successfully animated in episode 8, for the abortive lighting of a bonfire. Nonetheless, after "Right men, action stations!", the fire brigade often absent-mindedly deployed the fire hose and were quickly halted by Captain Flack ("No, no! Not the hose!").

Writer Gordon Murray said that the communities of the series are "representative of real locations which are one-and-a-half miles from each other in an equidistant triangle", but declined to name them for fear of the area being "inundated with tourists". [5]

Episodes

Episode titles were given in Radio Times but were not shown on screen.

No.TitleOriginal air date
1"The Bill Poster"3 January 1967 (1967-01-03)
2"Miss Lovelace and the Mayor's Hat"10 January 1967 (1967-01-10)
3"Mrs Cobbit and the Ice Cream Man"17 January 1967 (1967-01-17)
4"Miss Lovelace and the Statue"24 January 1967 (1967-01-24)
5"Mr Platt and the Painter"31 January 1967 (1967-01-31)
6"The Mayor's Birthday"7 February 1967 (1967-02-07)
7"Telephones"14 February 1967 (1967-02-14)
8"The Rag and Bone Man"21 February 1967 (1967-02-21)
9"The Window Cleaner"28 February 1967 (1967-02-28)
10"Cuthbert's Morning Off"7 March 1967 (1967-03-07) [lower-alpha 1]
11"The Plumber"14 March 1967 (1967-03-14)
12"Pigeons"21 March 1967 (1967-03-21)
13"The Greenhouse"28 March 1967 (1967-03-28)

Characters

The Fire Brigade

Unusually, Trumpton Fire Brigade has two theme songs. The first, commencing with the famous roll call of firemen's names, accompanies every turnout of the Brigade; the second, ending every episode, forms the habitual tune played by the Brigade at the Thursday band concerts. The Fire Brigade appears in every episode. Captain Flack always has a speaking part, as do Fireman Grubb in episode 1 and Fireman Cuthbert in episode 10. In episode 4 the Mayor states "I can't think what Trumpton would do without its Fire Brigade".

The Corporation

The Townspeople

Visitors to Trumpton

Visitors from Camberwick Green

As Camberwick Green is only two miles from Trumpton it is not surprising that many of the familiar Camberwick Green characters make an appearance.

Remastered version

In 2011, BBC Studios and Post Production digitally restored all 39 episodes of the Trumptonshire trilogy (Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley) after William Mollett, son-in-law of the creator Gordon Murray, found some original footage in an attic. He then approached the BBC to see if it could track down the missing 40‐year‐old original footage, which was eventually traced to the BBC broadcast archive (now in Perivale, west London) but it soon became very clear that its age meant that restoration would be a difficult and delicate task. Murray and Mollett enlisted the expertise of BBC Studios and Post Production, which cleaned, scanned and digitally restored the film footage frame by frame. [6] [7]

Home releases

In 1984, 17 years after the broadcasts on BBC in 1967. Longman Video released eight of the episodes on video as part of its Children's Treasury collection. There were two releases, each containing four episodes

VHS video titleYear of releaseEpisodes
Trumpton (SLL 5022)1983
  • "Nick Fisher the Bill Poster"
  • "Miss Lovelace and the Mayor's Hat"
  • "Mrs Cobbit and the Ice Cream Man"
  • "Miss Lovelace and the Statue"
Trumpton 2 (SLL 5028)1984
  • "Mr Platt and the Painter"
  • "The Mayor's Birthday"
  • "Telephones"
  • "The Rag and Bone Man"

later in 1989 the BBC released a video with the last three episodes (including ep13 The Greenhouse as the first episode, ep11 The Plumber as the second episode and ep12 Pigeons as last episode).

VHS video titleYear of releaseEpisodes
Trumpton 1: The Greenhouse (BBCV 4230)10 April 1989
  • "The Greenhouse"
  • "The Plumber"
  • "Pigeons"

Then, in 1996–1997 Telstar Video Entertainment as part of its 'Star Kids' range released two videos.

VHS video titleYear of releaseEpisodes
A Trip to Trumpton (TVE 3012)1996
  • "Nick Fisher the Bill Poster"
  • "Miss Lovelace and the Mayor's Hat"
  • "Mrs Cobbit and the Ice Cream Man"
  • "Miss Lovelace and the Statue"
Tales from Trumpton Town
(TVE 3020)
1997
  • "The Mayor's Birthday"
  • "Mr Platt and the Painter"
  • "The Rag and Bone Man"
  • "Telephones"

In 2002 a three DVD set entitled The Complete Collection was issued by Telstar Video Entertainment Limited (TDVD9033). It featured one disc each of Trumpton, Camberwick Green and Chigley, each disc having all 13 episodes of the respective series.

Credits

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References

Notes

  1. In the episode "Cuthbert's Morning Off", Cuthbert is omitted from the roll call because he is on leave. A respectful gap is therefore left between the names Barney McGrew and Dibble. This is the only episode in which Barney McGrew acknowledges his name in the roll call. The events of the episode require the fire brigade to find Cuthbert for his aunt. [lower-alpha 2]

Citations

  1. "Trumpton characters, songs & trivia". Trumptonshire Web. Retrieved 23 June 2012.
  2. "The Radio 4 Gordon Murray Interview". Trumptonshire Web. Retrieved 18 November 2007.
  3. "Trumptonshire Episode Guide". Trumptonshire Web. Retrieved 23 June 2012.
  4. "How we made: Alison Prince and Brian Cant on Trumpton". The Guardian. 20 February 2012.
  5. Richard Evans (14 September 1999). "The Trumptonshire Web". T-web.co.uk. Retrieved 30 June 2016.
  6. "BBC Studios and Post Production digitally restores all 39 episodes of the first children's animated colour television series" (PDF). BBC Studios and Post Production. December 2011. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  7. "New, new Barney McGrew: Trumpton and Camberwick Green cleaned up". The Guardian newspaper. 13 January 2012.
  8. "The Trumpton Riots". Cobweb.busineesscollaborator.com. Retrieved 5 June 2015.
  9. Rifkind, Hugo (14 January 2008). "Roundabout way to a magical following". The Times .
  10. Molloy, Mark (4 December 2014). "Ukip warns supporters about fake town impersonating them on Twitter". The Daily Telegraph.
  11. Johnston, Chris (6 December 2014). "Ukip MEP ridiculed on Twitter after call for ban on spoof Trumpton account". The Guardian.
  12. Mance, Henry (5 December 2014). "Who knew Ukip would stew over comedy Twitter account?" . Financial Times. Archived from the original on 10 December 2022.
  13. Hann, Michael (3 May 2016). "Radiohead: Burn the Witch review – a return the world might have hoped for". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  14. York, Chris (12 December 2016). "Trump of Trumpton: If 'The Donald' Was Mayor". Huffington Post UK. Retrieved 8 September 2020.