ONCE upon a time, not so long ago, there was a little girl and her name was Emily.

And she had a shop.

It was a rather unusual shop because it didn't sell anything.

You see, everything in that shop was a thing that somebody had once lost, and Emily had found. And brought home to Bagpuss. Emily's cat Bagpuss.

The most important. The most beautiful. The most magical, saggy old cloth cat in the whole wide world.

If you were four- or five-years old back in the mid-seventies, those words are likely to bring about a huge nostalgia rush, for they make up - give or take a few - the transcript for the title sequence to Bagpuss, previously voted the most popular children's programme of all time.

And now, just to confirm its massive appeal, its star, saggy old Bagpuss himself has been voted the favourite children's TV animal of all time in an online poll. More than 1,100 people took part in the survey, which saw the baggy pink and cream moggy see off the likes of Tom and Jerry, Winnie the Pooh and The Magic Roundabout crew.

DangerMouse, Shaun the Sheep and Paddington Bear came next, followed by Top Cat, Scooby-Doo and - boom, boom! - Basil Brush.

The poll, organised to publicise the launch of CBeebies Animals magazine, proves that what you watch as a child stays with you, for judging by the characters on the list, it was obviously the parents and not the children (who make up the channel's core viewers) who were doing the voting.

Aside from the re-runs of old Tom & Jerry cartoons and contemporary versions of The Magic Roundabout, and Basil Brush, my four-year-old wouldn't recognise any of them.

Her heroes are Sportacus off Lazy Town - no bad thing, considering his main pursuits are extreme exercising and eating dirty great piles of fruit and veg (which he refers to as Sports Candy) - and The Backyardigans, a bunch of cute creatures who leave their backyard behind to explore the world we live in - and sing annoying songs about it.

Bagpuss was born in 1974, the brainchild of the now legendary Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin, who also created Noggin The Nog, The Clangers, Ivor the Engine and Pogle's Wood. Ah, I can hear that nostalgia alarm ringing again.

Surprisingly, only 13 episodes were ever made, though the series was shown a total of 20 times throughout the 1970s and 80s, yet, like Fawlty Towers, also a child of the 70s and of which just 12 episodes were made, it has stood the test of time, with endless websites dedicated to it, a raft of merchandise still selling like hotcakes and people able to quote entire episodes.

Proof of the show's cult status are the myriad conspiracy theories that have sprung up around it. The best one is that Bagpuss is really a metaphor for capitalism, with the mice representing the oppressed workers, Bagpuss the corrupt fat-cat, Professor Yaffle a dodgy politician and Madeleine a bored aristo. Entertaining as this and the other theories are, Postgate has been swift to deny them.

I could go on but Bagpuss has just given a big yawn, and settled down to sleep.

And of course when Bagpuss goes to sleep, all his friends go to sleep too.

The mice are ornaments on the mouse-organ. Gabriel and Madeleine are just dolls.

And Professor Yaffle is a carved wooden bookend in the shape of a woodpecker.

Even Bagpuss himself is just an old, saggy cloth cat. Baggy, and a bit loose at the seams.

But Emily loves him. And so, it still seems, do we.

Bagpuss - fact or fiction?

  • Pretty in Pink: why was he pink (with cream coloured stripes)? Apparently Peter Firmin ordered some marmalade-cat-coloured fabric to bring his creation to life, however when it arrived, it was more pink than ginger. The manufacturers offered to replace it, but Peter decided that it was fate and, anyway, there weren't enough pink cats on the telly.
  • 13 Episodes: The thirteen episodes were: Ship in A Bottle, The Owls of Athens, The Frog Princess, The Hamish, Flying, The Ballet Shoe, The Wise Man, The Giant, The Mouse Mill, The Elephant, Old Man's Beard, The Fiddle and Uncle Feedle.
  • Nowadays: The cast of Bagpuss live with Peter Firmin. Although these days their home is an old tin trunk.
  • Chocolate biscuits: Yes there really was an episode involving a chocolate biscuit making-machine. The mice used it to trick Professor Yaffle into thinking that they had a gadget, which could make unlimited chocolate biccies. What they actually did was keep recycling the same one.