Pigeon Street: pigeons for children

Title:Pigeon Street
Year: 1981
Director: Alan Rogers and Peter Lang
Running time: 15 min.
Country: United Kingdom

Pigeon Street is a pre-schoolers oriented television series which describes the life in a British city in and around Pigeon Street. It includes many characters related to different roles in society and it also includes pigeons... many pigeons. In the figure below we can see the main characters.

Pigeon Street characters and pigeons.

The contents of the series are politically correct, including for instance, Clara, a long distance lorry driver. Another interesting character is Bob. He is the owner of a bike shop who breeds homing pigeons. In the picture below we can see how after transporting pigeons in his motorbike (note the pigeon symbol on the helmet) he opens the basket and frees the pigeons which head back to their home. This is Bob's pigeon song -I really like the expression they feather the sky-.

Bob's pigeons are ever so clever
You'll never seen pigeons quite as clever as Bob's
Whatever the weather they feather the sky
to fly home and dry 

 home and dry

to Bob

Bob (behind the basket) frees the homing pigeons.

Homing pigeons cross the city heading back to their home.

The music is very remarkable. Most of the theme tunes can be downloaded from the Pigeon Street Official Site. This site also includes a list of episodes and characters. Another resource for music and character descriptions is Little Gems.

I would also like to mention the main theme of the series which is played at the intro. I don't understand why, but I have this song playing in my head all day long....

 

If you lived in Pigeon Street,
Here are the people you could meet,
Here are the people who would say
Hello, goodbye, hello, goodbye
Every day

If you lived in Pigeon Street,
Here are the people you could meet,
Here are the people who would share
the sights, the sounds, the air
Where pigeons beat their wings, wings beat.
Pigeons beat their wings, wings beat
to meet in Pigeon Street

Most of episodes are online. For instance, Noisy Neighbours can be seen here.

Details of the pigeon starring 

• Source: Pigeon Street  Starring moment: in all the episodes
• Pigeon activity: They are non-shy-friendly-urban pigeons which like to stay close to and interact with humans.
• Symbolism: Pigeons are described as friendly animals that live together with humans. I think that this is a very positive message for children.
• Relevance: Medium. Although several pigeons appear in each episode, they only occasionally feature in the plot. Usually they are relegated to secondary characters. 
• Training level: Non applicable.