The Snowman 1982

The Snowman is a 1982 British animated television film and symphonic poem based on Raymond Briggs’s 1978 picture book The Snowman. The story is told through pictures, action and music, scored by Howard Blake. It has no words, with the exception of the central song, “Walking in the Air“. The orchestral score was performed by the Sinfonia of London and the song was performed by Peter Auty, a St Paul’s Cathedral choirboy. David Bowie was a fan of Briggs’s story When the Wind Blows and later provided a song for its animated adaptation. In the sequence, Bowie was filmed in the attic of ’his’ childhood home and discovering, in a drawer, a scarf closely resembling the one given to James towards the end of the film; he then proceeds to narrate over the opening with his own small variation of Briggs’ monologue.