Ref. 28337-8Postman Pat is an icon from many a person's childhoon.

And, thanks to a talented group of Swindon youngsters, he is being resurrected to hammer home a very important message about dyslexia with a film called Postman Tap.

The seven young people, all students or former students at Commonweal School's dyslexia centre, are working with Cre8 Studios to make their computer animated film.

It centres on a postman who attracts the ire of his boss because of his failure to deliver letters and parcels on time and to the correct addresses.

What the postman doesn't tell his boss is that he has dyslexia a condition formerly referred to as word blindness, whose sufferers, although as intelligent as any other person, have difficulty making sense of printed words and of writing words of their own.

Sufferers have ranged from physicist Albert Einstein to actor Oliver Reid.

Cre8, based at the former town hall in Regent Circus, offers young people the chance to learn film-making skills, animation, and other art forms.

It was able to offer the young creators of Postman Tap their opportunity to make an entire film after applying for and securing a £3,000 grant, especially for the purpose, from First Light, the UK Film Council's Lottery-funded film-making project for young people.

Student Craig Mackay, 15, said: "It should be an interesting experience, and I will hopefully learn more about anima- tion. It will be good if the audience knows about the difficulties caused by dyslexia."

All were also looking forward to getting to grips with the Flash MX programme which will be used in creating the film.

Ffilm-maker Andrew Leniec, 16, who has left the school, said: "I'm studying art at Swindon College and I'm looking forward to using the programme because I want to know how to animate."

The grant follows a similar one awarded earlier this year, which enabled Cre8 to team up with young people from the Walcot Dome community Centre and make a film called East Side Story. That was a reworking of West Side story, involving a romance between members of rival BMX gangs.

Cre8 education officer Keith Phillips said: "The dyslexia centre has many creatively-inclined individuals, and they very much wanted to make this film.

"We have teamed them up for this film with Evil Twin Artworks, a Swindon company which specializes in computer animation for the web."

In the film, which is still in development, Postman Tap is so behind with his work one day that his boss has to drive out and find him, but his car breaks down and Pat does an excellent repair job.

The boss then asks the postman why he cannot deliver letters properly when he is clearly a talented man.

The postman tells the truth, and the boss immediately transfers him to the motor pool where he can use his unique abilities to the full.

Over the Christmas period the young people will develop characters, and work on filming will begin early in the new year. It should be ready for screening in May.

The Swindon project is one of 23 nationwide to be awarded part of a total of £180,000 in First Light grant aid.