Postman Pat creator John Cunliffe dies

John Cunliffe, the creator of beloved British children’s TV shows Postman Pat and Rosie And Jim, has died at the age of 85.
Cunliffe passed away in his hometown of Ilkley in West Yorkshire, England on 20 September (18).
The writer’s agency confirmed his death on Thursday (27Sep18) after an obituary appeared in his local paper, the Ilkley Gazette that morning.
“CUNLIFFE John Left his Ilkley home in a deluge of rain on Thursday, September 20, never to return,” the notice reads. “Even the skies wept for John the gifted creator of Postman Pat, Rosie and Jim and author of many earlier published collections of poetry and picture story books for children.
“John’s last poetry collection, significantly entitled Dare You Go has now come to fruition for John has dared to go and he has gone.”
Cunliffe wrote the original treatment and scripts for Postman Pat, a stop-motion animation series which first aired in 1981 on the BBC. The children’s show follows a friendly postman as he delivers the mail around the village of Greendale, inspired by a valley near his old hometown of Kendal, and its legacy has continued for more than three decades.
He then went to create Rosie and Jim, which follows two ragdolls who live on a canal boat and come alive when no one is looking. The show ran from 1990 to 2000, but Cunliffe only scripted and presented the first 50 episodes, acting as the owner of the boat.
He turned some of the Rosie and Jim stories into books, and wrote a number of other poems and children’s novels, including Ghosts, a story for the iPad, which was released in 2010.
Cunliffe was married to Sylvia Thompson. He survived by a son.