A YORK-BORN animator is behind a much-anticipated new children's programme, set to get its first television airing on Monday.

Neville Astley, 47, is one-third of London-based animation studio Astley Baker Davies, which has created Peppa Pig for Channel Five's early morning preschool slot, Milkshake. The cartoon follows the antics of five-year-old Peppa, her family and animal friends.

Real children provide the voices of Peppa and her peers, with actors Richard Rogers and Morwenna Banks as Peppa's parents.

Frances White and David Graham, the voice of Parker in Thunderbirds, are her grandparents, and comedian John Sparkes takes on the role of narrator.

Neville, whose parents still live at Dunnington, was a pupil at Fulford School, going on to study a foundation arts course at York College and graphic design at Middlesex Polytechnic in the early 1980s.

"I first got into design through the York punk scene in the 1970s, creating artwork for bands," he said. "I went off to college to study graphics, but was seduced by animation."

After graduating, he created numerous adverts for products such as Smarties, Kraft cheese and Ikea, and began collaborating with Mark Baker in 1994, creating the award-winning BBC series The Big Knights.

In 1996, he produced a short film, Trainspotter, with fellow Dunnington and former Fulford School lad, Jeff Newitt, which was nominated for a BAFTA.

Peppa Pig has been made with hi-tech animation software commissioned by the company for The Big Knights and now used on series such as 2DTV. "All the children who have seen it seem to have become obsessed with it," said Neville. "We are going to be responsible for a generation of snorting children."

The first episode of Peppa Pig will be screened at 7.30am on Monday. It has also been sold to UK satellite channel Nick Junior and channels in ten other countries, including ABC in Australia.

Updated: 10:38 Saturday, May 29, 2004