Bagpuss rag doll called Madeleine. The wooden woodpecker bookend became the drily academic Professor Yaffle (based on the philosopher Bertrand Russell, whom Postgate had once met), while the mice carved on the side of the "mouse organ" (a small mechanical pipe organ that played rolls of music) woke up and scurried around, singing in high-pitched voices. Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner provided the voices of Madeleine and Gabriel respectively, and put together and performed all the folk songs. All the other voices (including the narrator and one out-of-tune mouse) were provided by Postgate, who also wrote the stories. The toys discussed
A Son Called Gabriel bigotry of the Province. McNicholl started writing the novel in 1990, after moving to the United States. It took him 6 months of full-time writing to compose the novel, and another 18 to find a Literary agent and get the novel to publication with CDS books, after the editor at GreyCore Press liked the book, but couldn't publish it. As he grows up, Gabriel starts to suspect that he is not like other boys, and engages in a series of sexually oriented games with Noel, a young male friend. He is later caught in the act by his childhood friend