IT didn’t rain much in Greendale. The sun was usually shining when Pat Clifton was doing his rounds, finding time to solve a problem or two as he tootled around in his postal van.

But there were grey clouds when John Cunliffe went out on Thursday, September 20. “He left his Ilkley home in a deluge of rain, never to return”, said the death notice in the Ilkley Gazette. “Even the skies wept for John, gifted creator of Postman Pat.”

There’s something very poignant about the death of a children’s favourite - the presenter of a much-loved show, the author of books we loved or, in John’s case, creator of characters that form early TV memories.

Generations of pre-school children watched Postman Pat, the charming stop-motion animated series set in an idyllic village where everyone was nice to each other. The show first aired in 1981 and was such a hit, the Royal Mail itself embraced Pat. Further episodes went out in the 1990s, when Pat had a family, and the show continues to entertain young viewers.

In a world of garish, in-your-face children’s telly, fronted by shouty presenters, Postman Pat encapsulates a simpler age when a friendly postie tootles around a Cumbrian valley, accompanied by his black and white cat, delivering letters and solving problems. It was, for millennials, what Trumpton and Camblewick Green was for my generation.

Cunliffe, who lived in Ilkley in later years and was patron of the town’s Literature Festival, started writing about Pat and his cat Jess while a teacher in Kendal in the 1970s. The fictitious Greendale is based on Longsleddale. Speaking to the Westmorland Gazette in 2009, Cunliffe said the appeal of Pat lay in the excitement children felt when the post arrived: “The postman to a child is someone who brings birthday cards and birthday presents - they are not aware that he also brings tax returns and bills,” he said. “To a child, a postman is an exciting person.”

The appeal of the postman may be a little dated in a digital age, and in rural areas particularly the local Post Office has largely become a thing of the past, but the Cunliffe’s gentle show continues to delight youngsters. It has been aired in nearly 60 countries. The first theatre show I took my niece to was Postman Pat at the Alhambra. Aged three-and-a-half, she was enthralled throughout. She still remembers it, 17 years later.

Cunliffe was a familiar face on children’s TV himself, appearing as the “fizzgog” narrowboat driver in Rosie And Jim, his rag doll characters introduced to children in 1990. He wrote around 190 children's books.

Like the late Peter Firmin, creator of TV treasures Bagpuss and the Clangers, Cunliffe shaped the childhood memories of a generation. Our early experiences of television stay with us forever - people my age have enjoyed many a pub chat bonding over collective memories of shows like Blue Peter and Play School.

The deaths of John Noakes, Brian Cant and just last week, Geoffrey Hayes from Rainbow, made us sad because we remember them bringing fun and a sense of security to our childhood. When they leave us, we're reminded of our own passing years.

So it is with John Cunliffe. But his legacy lives on, though Pat and the Greendale locals, forever looking out for each other, getting in and out of scrapes and being kind.