Monkey Puppet with lenticular eyes

Another recent car boot find. This unusual monkey has a plastic head with lenticular eyes. They wink and open when you tilt him. His  body is made from anAfrican print towelling fabric and is  roughly stitched.

Miss Twist. C'est Peynet

My parents went to Paris for their honeymoon in 1953, and I was always lead to believe that one of the things they came back with was the Peynet wedding dolls.

It turns out the dolls werent made till later. Born in 1908, Peynet is famed for his books "The Lovers". However in the early 50s Galeries Lafayettes commissioned Peynet to produce a window display for them, the display was so successful that Technigom, a french company had the idea of producing smaller versions in latex, that measured 21cm.

What then followed was over 250 different dolls, that sold over six million. The boxed doll above is Miss Twist, that my wife bought for my birthday. The images below come from a small catalogue that belonged to my father.

Ardizzone pantomime theatre

In 1947 Edward Ardizzone created a charming model theatre, to cut out and keep. It was for the December issue of The Strand Magazine. He also illustrated the cover, which is shown above.

As a special Christmas treat, Ive uploaded the 8 pages and instructions, as a pdf. So now you too can create his Pantomime Cinderella at home. The file is 7.9Mb, and can be downloaded here.

Below is one of the pages.

Monkey Business

Three CHIMP CARDS Printed by GRAVO, in Holland.

one, two three and away!

One, Two, Three and Away was a reading scheme series of books for children written by Sheila McCullagh, and illustrated by Ferelith Eccles Williams aka Eccles. First published in the 1965 by Collins in the U.K, the books were still being reprinted in the 1980s.

My first encounter with the characters was in the Collins books but on picking my son up from nursery recently I discovered his class had these deligthful wooden dolls and what a find!

The story centered around The Village with Three Corners and featured Roger Red Hat, Billy Blue Hat, twins Johnny and Jennifer Yellow Hat and Percy Green Hat. The tallest doll measures 130mm.

There was also a video and a set of rubber stamps to accompany the series of books.

The Good Soldier Sveijk

Amongst one of my most cherished possessions and possibly earliest, are these postcards from Czechoslovakia from 1977. I was always lead to believe that they were from a film by the master of puppet animation, Jiri Trnka.

Ill be happy to be corrected and even more delighted if anyone knows more. Ive never seen the film, or read the book for that matter. But I do have two rather nice egg cups featuring him!

The story of Sveijk is set in World War I and follows the bumbling soldier as he attempts to follow orders and impress his superiors invariably lead to catastrophe.