"Postman Pat" redirects here. For the show, see Postman Pat.

Patrick "Pat" Clifton, known to his friends as Postman Pat, is the main character of the series. He is the village postman for Greendale and the head postman for the Special Delivery Service in Pencaster. Pat lives at Forge Cottage in Greendale with his wife Sara and son Julian, who is six years old. His pet cat Jess also comes with him on his post rounds.

Contents show]

Biography

As a young lad, Pat used to think that he might like to be a train driver, but of course this was just a childhood idea. Pat's working life started as being the local postman of Greendale in Cumbria. Everyday as he went around on his rounds, he was always the man with the answers and the helping hand for everything. Eventually, his helpful nature was known by everyone and the locals of Greendale adored him. By this point, Pat knew he had picked just the right occupation and there is no other job he would rather have. Being a postman gives him the opportunity to see all his friends and neighbours daily, not just within the village, but also in the beautiful countryside outside. He loves to get the chance to stop and have a chat with them and the sight of their smiling faces when they recieve a card or a present from a loved one truely makes Pat's day.

By the time his next birthday came round, the Pencaster Gazette awarded him the "Postman of the Year", for being such a helpful postman. As the said newspaper had listed his birthday for that week, Pat was most surprised that everyone seemed to know that which he had meant to keep a secret, until he saw the article.

Pat is always glad to take his cat Jess with him on his rounds; to Pat, life would not be the same without his feline companion and he sometimes feels that he is the brains of the outfit.

Pat soon recieved his own post bus as well as the van, which he first tested on a journey to Ingledale. After this, he only use it on special occasions and if the van broke down, or in the case of Ted Glen's robot postman use it as a reinforced pursuit vehicle. But eventually, it was decided that the post bus was not so important for the postal service, so Pat sold it to the school as their own personal transport.

When Pat started to get overloaded with more and more parcels, he was given his very own postal trolley similar to those he had once seen in London.

When the railway running through Greendale was reopened, Pat then became able to send off out of Greendale mail, by loading it onto the mail truck coupled behind the steam locomotive known as the Greendale Rocket.

Pat's reliability soon promoted him to the Special Delivery Service. If ever a call came through on his special moblie telephone that the service gave to him, he would in drive down to the SDS HQ in Pencaster and then transport his very special deliveries in one of his many different modes of transport that the service have to offer.

With both the roles of working for the Post Office in Greendale and the Special Delivery Sorting Off in Pencaster, Pat's days are never typical, because anything could happen; usually it can and he would never know how. Pat likes it best that way, as it means that his job is never ever dull.

Persona

Pat is a helpful postman, who always knows best and has an opinion that every one of his many friends respects. He does sometimes have a knack of getting into muddles if there is one small change to the way his day of delivering the mail goes, but every cloud has a silver lining as they say and Pat is soon back on track, making sure all of Greendale gets its mail and that all his friends are happy by the end of the day.

Pat loves his family, friends, job and hometown. To him, all of these things mixed with the loving community he lives in, make him feel like the luckiest man on earth!

Job

As his worldwide title suggests, Pat is a postman.

Attire

When at work, Pat wears the postman's uniform dating from the 1970's, which comprises of a dark blue hat, jacket and trousers.

In the snows of winter, Pat used to were his own winter coat over his uniform, but lately, when the snow comes, he wears a fluorescent jacket provided by the post office to help him stand out against the white background.

Vehicles



Pat also has a postal trolley for carrying parcels around Greendale.

Pat has also got a bicycle with a basket on the front to carry Jess.

Inspiration

Postman Pat first came about when the BBC were thinking up an idea for a new pre-school children's series set in the countryside. John Cunliffe who was a teacher at Castle Park School in Kendal was told about the project by the parent of one of his students who suggested that he should send some of the stories that he had been writing for children to the project leader as they were looking for writers.

Later on, John met up with Cynthia Felgate in London who asked him to be the writer for project. John then suggested that the leading character could be the local postman, which Cynthia liked straight away.

So John Cunliffe went back to Kendal to start working on writing about the adventures of the locally known postman and history was made.

John Cunliffe has stated that Pat is based on the postmen of Kendal; there was small post office at the end of John's street and he became a close friend of the post office shop keeper, who told him the daily work that country postmen do, which later helped to form Postman Pat's character.

Popular culture

For many years, Postman Pat featured in many of his own stage shows in different theatres around the country and been one of the many characters in Live stage shows of Cbeebies.

There is a Postman Pat Village at Longleat Safari Park in Warminster, which is mainly made up of models of different parts of Greendale made up to look like they do the television screen and models of different characters from the show, each with there own mechanical movements.

Postman Pat and his cat Jess were two of the many children's characters to feature at The Children's Party at the Palace, both a garden party and a live television show on BBC1 which was put on in the gardens of Buckingham Palace to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's 80th birthday. During the pre-recorded parts of the programme, Pat and Jess had to deliver the invitations to the party. According to Pat this day's events were the highlight of his career, esspecially when he had his photograph taken with the Queen.

Postman Pat and the Big Screen

After 30 years of fame on the television screen, the BBC revealed in 2011, that Postman Pat would appear in his very first feature length movie. It was set to be released in 2013, but was pushed back to 2014. The film was shown in CGI and depicted Pat (voiced by Stephen Mangan) entering a TV talent show and then struggling between a life of fame and his usual life of delivering the post.

Appearances

As the title character, Postman Pat has appeared in every episode of the series and its many other mediums.

Performers

Trivia

As Pat has bad eye sight, he has always worn glasses.

Pat received the surname Clifton after John Cunliffe's follow teacher from Castle Park School in Kendal who's name is Molly Clifton.

In the earlier layout of the Postman Pat Village at Longleat Safari Park, it was revealed that Pat's birthday is April 5th.

On the BBC game show "Pointless Celebrities", in a picture round containing alliterative fictional characters, seventy-four out of the one-hundred people recognised him as "Postman Pat".