h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I can never remember which was which though I canremember several characters from all over the place. My favourite was Windy Miller (and the great sound his windmill made). Then there were the firemen (Hugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert,Dibble Grub) who rarely put out fires but did rescue cats and had a rather good band. There were songs for each of the characters. One of the programmes opened and closed with a music box and the central character of todays story would rise out of it at the beginning and sink back into it at the end (after waving goodbye to everyone).

I checked the BBC site to get my facts straight and it's Pugh, Pugh etc apparently! I will write this up later and give you credit. Cheers!

you mean I've been saying it wrong all these years. Gosh, I feel so stupid now. D'oh!

I always thought it was Hugh, Pugh as well so I am as surprised as you. Maybe they are wrong. Let's hold a vote on it - All those who think the beeb is right with Pugh, Pugh say "pugh!", and all those who think we are right say "hugh"

In latter times Ive thought it was HUGH!!
But when I was little and used to watch the program, I never actually bothered to count the number of firemen.
I always used to think it was "Pieew pieew", as if he'd forgotten his whistle or something.
What always amazed me is that the Fire brigade got called out EVERY week and I never saw an actual fire. My brother says he saw one once and Mr Chippy's carpentry shop was on fire.
Mind you it's a good job there was never a very serious reason for calling the fire brigade seeing as how it always took the fireman about 20 minutes to walk the length of the corridor to answer the phone!!!

Camberwick Green was the one with Pippin Fort, Windy Miller (that windmill koooor keeeee ka-ku koo) and friends.
Chigley was the one with the train (Time flies by when you're the driver of a train, going into Trumpton with my cargo of cocaine. as my friend Sean Sundborg used to sing)

One of them had a posh lady with three poodles, inextricably linked by the tangled leads.
Trumpton had the mayor whose hat flying into trees was always an excuse to call out the fire brigade.
I'm fairly certain it was Camberwick Green that had the music box and one of the other two had the end credits on a machine that was wound by a handle by one of the characters from the show

Ahhhhh, yessss. Pippen fort and all those soldiers. They were sort of like the fire brigade in that although there was never a war there was usually some crisis that could be solved by a group of young fit soldiers.
And I DO think there was once a fire....

And the woman with the dogs... it comes back to me now.

Actually, I think there may have been some crossover between the shows because I seem to recall windy miller (you did a good job on the phonetics of the windmill by the way ) coming out of the music box and also winding on the credits on the screen.

What was the name of the policeman who used to ride around on his bike??

I can't remember.
There was definitely some cross over though, The train from Chigley stopped off at one or both of the other two locations.

Does anyone want to add anything to the write up on these three - tell me if I've got anything wrong!

Looks alright to me

I'm still convinced it was Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew...... not Hugh

It can't be. I mean what are the chances of two people being called 'Pugh'?? ....... Unless it was a SURname.... hmmmmm.....brothers???

It was a village. You know what happens in villages. There are villages in Yorkshire where everyone is called Sykes, even the dogs.. and probably most of the sheep.

It *was* Pugh, Pugh...
See http://www.eh.org/evans/trumpgo.htm
I was right. I demand someone to sit up and take notice that I was right.

It's a shame there's now (another) blatant error on the OGE:
http://fordprefect.h2g2.com/A246241