A TIMELESS children's character who started life in Kendal has celebrated his 40th anniversary.

Postman Pat creator John Cunliffe lived in the town and famously used the old Beast Bank Post Office as inspiration for its counterpart in the fictional village of Greendale.

Pat first took to screens with black and white cat Jess in September 1981 and has been entertaining children across the globe ever since.

"John Cunliffe just picked the right idea," said Marilyn Molloy, who lives at the former Beast Bank post office.

"An idea that agrees with everyone. The village postman going out on his rounds and the imagined adventures.

"It just fit for so many people."

Mr Cunliffe died in 2018 at the age of 85 in Ilkley, West Yorkshire. When he was in Kendal, he lived at number 32 Greenside, along the same stretch as the post office, and taught at Castle Park School in the town.

A plaque was unveiled at the former post office in 2004, which Mr Cunliffe wrote the words for. A Pat collection box outside raises money for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

It is regularly emptied to deter would-be thieves such as the one who beheaded it in 2019 in a futile attempt to obtain cash.

Mrs Molloy, whose husband, Mike, was sub-postmaster at the office in Greenside when it closed in 2003, said people still came to see Pat's post office four decades on.

"The interest has never waned," she said.

"We have people out there smiling, looking at the plaque, looking at Postman Pat.

"It brings more joy to more people than, probably, all the other civic society plaques in the town.

"They sing, they have their photographs taken. People are absolutely drawn to it."

After moving away, Mr Cunliffe, who was also the brains behind Rosie and Jim, another hit children's TV series, visited Kendal on several occasions, including in 2012 to read poetry and stories at Castle Park School.

Mrs Molloy described him as a 'lovely, gentle man'.