This website was first created in 2008. I produced a new range of Pelham Puppets for the Toy Trade supplying toy shops across the UK.
Production continued for ten years but by 2019 I returned to my work as a professional puppeteer.
Although I no longer make puppets to customer order I still continue with my Pelham Puppets restringing and restoration service for individual customers.
Details about the repair and restringing service can be found HERE.
I spent my teenage years staging puppet shows with the help of school friends, including David Brookes and Martyn Heaney and we began to get invited to children’s parties, schools and other events in and around our hometown of Stone, Staffordshire.
I also had small, purpose-built puppet theatre in my dad’s garden shed, where we put on shows during the school holidays and at weekends. From 1966 until a1972, the local newspapers often featured my puppetry activities and I became known in the local press as “Stone’s Young Puppet Master.”
I was twelve years old when I met Mr Pelham at the factory in Marlborough in 1966. He took me on a grand tour of the factory and invited me to work for a few hours in the factory and stay overnight at his home. I returned the following day with a very large bag of puppets as “payment” for my work! Thus began my lifelong association with Pelham Puppets.
A couple of years after leaving school in 1972, I became employed part-time, then later, full-time, in the puppet factory and spent the first year or two working for short periods in various departments from moulding, painting, stringing, assembly and woodworking, as the need arose. This enabled me to gain valuable, hands-on experience of the puppet productions process from beginning to end.
Soon afterwards, I began working alongside Mr Pelham making the Animated Display Units that were used to promote puppet sales in shop windows. He taught me a great deal and I really enjoyed my time working there with him. This also gave me many opportunities to ask him many questions about the history of the Puppet Factory.
I also designed and built the new factory theatre where we staged short performances for visiting school parties and for the factory Christmas party. However, due to Bob Pelham’s untimely death, in June 1980, the theatre project never reached its full potential and was dismantled a few years later. More info about the theatre HERE.
It was in November 1973, while I was staying with Mr and Mrs Pelham that we talked about writing a book about Pelham Puppets. Mr and Mrs Pelham encouraged and supported me with the project from that day forward, although it would be 25 years before the first book was published. More information about the publications I’ve written and published about Pelham Puppets can be found HERE.
In addition to having several publications devoted entirely to Pelham Puppets published, in 2017, with the support of Marlborough Town Council, I organised a weekend Puppetry Festival to mark the 70th anniversary of Pelham Puppets.
Details of the Festival can be found HERE.
Following the success of the Marlborough Puppetry Festival in 2017, Marlborough Town Council agreed to arrange for a Blue Plaque to be placed on the building, Victoria House, Kingsbury Street, where Mr Pelham first started making Pelham Puppets in 1947.
On Thursday, 28 February 2019, (on what would have been Bob’s 100th birthday,) the Town Mayor, Cllr. Lisa Farrell along with Astrid and Sue Pelham, Bob Pelham’s nieces, unveiled a Blue Plaque in Kingsbury Street marking the location where Pelham Puppets were first produced.
These days much of my time is taken up with voluntary work through a non-for-profit project I set up in 2023 called Mr BuzzKing’s Puppet Tree. This involves working in schools and local groups, helping children to produce and present their own shows at local events using Pelham Puppets or puppets they have made themselves.
Details about all these activities can be found on the website: thepuppettree.org
I hope you enjoy your visit to the Pelham Puppets website and you find it of some interest. If you want further information about the puppets, then please join the Pelham Puppets Face Book Group where members are keen to help with advice and information.
Members regularly share photos and ask questions about Pelham Puppets, about the puppets themselves, such as help with identification, repairs and valuations.