Puffin
The screenplay has been adapted from the enchanting best-selling children's book "The Adventures of Puffin" by Ursula Moray Williams, first published in 1939. The story is set in 1938, just before the outbreak of World War Two.
PUFFIN is a screwed up but educated bird. His fear of flying has grounded him and he is in therapy with Dr Woo, a wise old owl.
Puffin lives alone in his burrow, apart from SID the spider, a cynical sitting tenant and is the butt of jokes from the other puffins, who live in smug pairs on the island.
His life changes when he discovers an abandoned puffin egg and decides to keep and adopt the puffling chick when it hatches. This will be the soul mate he has never had.
Puffin's dream is shattered by the arrival of LITTLE WO, a tatty but appealing toy dog washed up on the beach below. Little Wo was lost by the THOMPSON FAMILY on a seaside holiday and is desperate to rejoin them.
Puffin takes Little Wo under his wing and, with the help of other birds and a family of seals, they build him a boat from driftwood. Realising that Little Wo is too silly and helpless to undertake the journey on his own, Puffin makes the supreme sacrifice. He abandons the abandoned egg to accompany Little Wo on the boat.
Their hair-raising voyage includes being swallowed up by WALLY a Glaswegian Whale and being shipwrecked after being sucked into a whirlpool. Little Wo is snatched up by a hungry PEREGRINE.
Further mishaps include the pair being held captive by a well-meaning COASTGUARD and his family. They escape only for Little Wo to find himself in the sticky tentacles of CARDEW a cuttlefish. Puffin rescues him once more.
They finally find the hotel where the Thompson family were staying when Little Wo was lost, but to his great distress, they have gone home.
DOUGLAS, a dashing RAF pilot, staying at the hotel, befriends them and takes them to America on the Queen Mary, so they can fly home with him on his solo attempt to break the Atlantic record They crash into the sea to be saved by Puffin who becomes headline news: "Pilot saved by talking puffin..."
They are kidnapped by a crooked ZOOKEEPER and his Mate intent on making their fortune out of them.
When Puffin, after further misadventures, delivers Little Wo to his family and returns to the Island and the precious Egg, Little Wo discovers he is no longer wanted and ends up in a Church Bazaar.
Puffin is shattered to find an empty shell, the Puffling has flown, and he is once more on his own.
Little Wo makes his escape and when they are finally reunited they realise that together their lives are now complete.
Original screenplay by CAROLYN PERTWEE.