At the back of a room of junk and forgotten things, I find a cardboard box. Inside, a tangle of lifeless wooden heads and knotted limbs; the remains of a troupe of marionettes that were part of the puppet shows that my friend and I presented at children's parties and village fetes a great many years ago. We had a rudimentary theatre: proscenium arch, wings and backcloth, which we would quickly set up. There were over a dozen puppets to unwind and hang ready for the show. This varied cast of characters had trod the boards of the fit-up, long consigned to the tip.
Pelham puppets were a poular children's toy of the time, and we added to them puppets we had made ourselves. And so there would be a variety of turns, presented to music on the Dansette record player: Lullabelle with her maracas and grass skirt on the fringe of racial parody as she danced to a West Indian beat; clowns, acrobats and jugglers in a circus sketch; and Mr MacBoozle, a red-faced Scot, always ready to raise a bottle of whisky to his lips and stagger across the stage; Wag the dog enthusiastically running here and there; and, most popular of all, two skeletons cavorting to the tune of Danse Macabre, limbs flying apart, heads rising into the sky, bringing gasps and screams from the young audiences.
These puppets had lain lifeless for years, their strings knotted and entwined, until a friend with more patience and dexterity than I could muster untangled them so that they might be able to move again.
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forgotten puppet troupe
I still remember
which strings to pull
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