Puppets in the Wood

[These puppets]were made in early 1950s by my Dad. He was a puppet master for “Hesling’s Marionettes” and brought puppet shows to villages and towns around Exmoor. These are just a small selection of puppets from various productions he and my Mum put on – from Rumpelstiltskin to review shows. They have been put away in boxes for over 50 years and desperately needed some TLC and an airing. I have wanted to take them out and play with them for ages and Heydon Woods seemed a perfect place to explore the idea of fairy tales and create new narratives for them. It was a fascinating process to find the right place to site the characters in the woodland and create the ‘sets’ for them to come to life in.