Dr Yaffle

This one jumped out of the shadows. Bagpuss fan-fiction… It took fifty years for this to strike me! For those not familiar with the 1970s BBC children’s programme, Bagpuss, episodes are on youtube.

Dr Yaffle

Once upon a time
A long time ago now
A little girl Emily had a shop of lost things

Bagpuss a saggy old cloth cat
Would magically wake
And with him, all of his friends

The mice on the mouse organ
Madeleine the doll
Professor Yaffle
Gabriel the frog

Professor Augustus Barclay Yaffle
A carved wooden bookend
In the shape of a woodpecker

He and his opinions
Would wake and strut about
His facts might not be accurate
But he had no trace of doubt

Now I don’t want to scare you
And give you nightmares
But the observant will notice
Bookends come in pairs

Once they were such balanced brothers
Each end of the shelf
Standing proud and between them
Was such literary wealth

Augustus and Sebastian
Were twins that grew apart
As Sebastian’s heart
Grew increasingly dark

Sebastian got nasty
Destroying all the light
Stirring up hostility
Looking for a fight

Something must be done about it
Everybody said
Remove him from the magic shop
It’s not like he’ll dead

We will fix we will mend it
We will make it bright and light

Vigilante mentality
Gripped bagpuss and his friends
They plotted to send him to his end

We will fix it we will mend it
Make it shiny make it bright

Banished to the cellar
In a heavy hessian sack
Sebastian is never coming back

We can’t tell this to anyone
Whispered Madeleine
None of us must ever speak of this again

Sebastian is waiting
Waiting patiently
For a child like Emily
To unknowingly set him free