Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44418 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-04-21
• Rating: Universal, suitable for all
• Number of discs: 3
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 3
• Running time: 540 minutes

Special Features
English
Region 2

Synopsis
Featuring 39 episodes from three classic children's television programmes including Trumpton, Camberwick Green and Trumpton.

Customer Reviews

Lovely packaging on this set.
I don't know why they put out a lovely packaged item like this, and then make it out of print in no time, only to be replaced by another complete collection with quite boring looking packaging.
This red packaged one is great. The DVD case is housed in an outer slip case, which is lovely with the picture on the cover representing all the three series, and when taken out, the DVD case folds out like a triptych, with the three DVDs perfectly matching and blending in with the background of their housing. (All of which depicts a scene from whichever series it represents). The packaging is a work of art in its own right and can be appreciated for that alone, quite apart from the stories themselves, which are great by the way, as I'm sure anyone knows already who is a fan of these stories. Maybe the idea of making this set go out of print so soon, is so that it becomes a collector's item. I had to wait to get mine as it was already out of print when I tried to purchase it new, but at least I was able to get a copy in excellent condition, so I am very pleased indeed with it. I never really saw any of these stories before, so it was all discovering it new for me, though I've heard about Trumpton and Camberwick Green but was unfamiliar with Chigley. They are all connected, all existing in the county of Trumptonshire, and in Camberwick Green, each story revolves around one of the characters, like Peter the Postman to start with. He gets the first story. Trumpton always involves the fire brigade at some point in the story, though they never get called out to any fires, but always something useful they can do. Chigley always seems to revolve around the Lord of the manor and his servant and their own steam train called Bessie which usually gets used for something useful too, and each story, or most of them, feature the biscuit factory too. All the characters from all of the three series, feature in them all at some point, like Windy Miller is in Camberwick Green, but he turns up in Trumpton, and in Chigley at times too, so there is a nice continuity running through the whole lot.
There is some quite catchy music, the sound of the windmill turning, and the whole seriies is very quaint and olde worlde. I have no idea what time period the stories are meant to be based in, they were made way back in the late sixties or early seventies, but the styles of the characters seem from a long time ago, the ladies for example, appear to be wearing crinolines and glide along as if they are on wheels, like those Eastern European dancers. The lady with the three little dogs comes to mind here.
Very nice, and very innocent, sometimes I got a little bored with the stories, but overall I loved it.

Return of some very happy memories
I bought all 3 DVD's mainly through years of 'ribbing'from my parents and sister alike about stories of my childhood and my love affair with Trumpton. You see, as a 1971 child, and one that was sports mad, not even a game of street soccer could ever stop me from running in to the sounds of "Dean, Trumpton is on".

Of course I purchased the set for my 3 year old son but a trip down memory lane was a factor for me and what a trip it was! The stories are still as I can vividly remember them - a make-believe world of goodness and friendliness, a world where the commuity holds together.

My son positively loved the characters and the models of the farmers truck, army wagon, fire engine and of Lord Bellboroughs "cho cho" and I strongly believe his speach and use of words have improved since viewing thanks mainly to Brian Cants clear and concise (and friendly) manner.

All in all I could not rate this highly enough for my son - he watches it so much I know the words (again!). One word - brilliant!

A stop-motion Barsetshire
For beginners: Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley were all made in the late 1960s and chronicled the doings of residents in three nearby settlements. They were made using puppets in stop-motion. Each series expanded on the characters and landscape of the previous one; coming to it again as an adult I'm surprised just how much interlock there is, with a lot of characters from one series cropping up in another. (Pretentiousness alert: you could compare them to the way Trollope interlocks his groups of characters in Barsetshire.) The time in which they are set is roughly that at which they were made, or perhaps an old-fashioned version of it, but in the same way that a child will play with a mixture of toys and not care that model cars are built to different scales or that a cowboy is defending a model castle, there are anachronisms: the boys at Pippin Fort military academy ride in an army lorry but wear 18th century grenadiers' outfits, complete with pigtail.

How well do they stand up today? Well, my five year old watched them with huge enjoyment, which has to be the best test of all. They are certainly of their time; you won't find black or disabled characters and attitudes to authority are pretty deferential. You're unlikely, however, to find anything that positively grates and the target group, infants of pre-school and reception age, will enjoy it.

What you get with this set of DVDs is the complete set of three series. Full marks for completeness; that is, however, all that you get. There are absolutely no extras (I for one wouldn't have minded just a little information on the people behind the names credited; the names Bura and Hardwick, in charge of photography, crop up in a lot of children's programmes from this era, and I'd like some background and maybe career highlights). More importantly, as previous reviewers have noted you get the films as they are now apparently dumped straight onto DVD with no attempt to clean them up or remove the wobble caused by old distorted film. It's something that one can live with, but it's not great. Also, the menu functionality is negligible: you can select the episode at which you start but from then on the disk will play continously (and start again once it reaches the end) so you only get to choose where in the cycle you start, not whether you want to play a specific episode only. Still less do you get to programme episodes to play in a certain order: an annoyance when one comes to the Chigley disk, since the first two episodes here are in reverse order.

Four stars - for the content. It doesn't have the haunting strangeness of Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin's work of the same period, but it's a solid, fun piece of work that can still delight children nearly forty years after it was made. For the actual production - film quality and the amount of "customer service" you get in terms of menu, extras etc. - three stars. Spartan, but it gets you there, is the best one can say about that. Fortunately it is worth getting there.