Puppeteers and Auctioneers

Fred Weekend at Egham
Saturday

By Nigel Bush

The hub of the weekend saw rehearsals for the evening’s Goon Show “Seagoon, Saviour of the BBC” (by Richard Green) in the Queen’s Building. The rest of us enjoyed four quizzes expertly filched from the BBC by Tina.

Ruxton
Ruxton Hayward also made his appearance in the late morning (the original influence for Bluebottle, though Peter Sellers didn’t let it be known until a Parkinson interview in 1972).

Royal Holloway
At this juncture Bob Jarvis, Dick Baker (USA) and myself went to have a look at the sheer splendour of the building, Holloway, that we were staying in the shadow of. Lucky old University of London, I say!

Telegoons
We returned to the Queen’s Building for one of the highlights of the weekend, the TeleGoons. Alastair Roxburgh was MC and all three original puppeteers were there – John Dudley, Ann Perrin and Violet Philpott – as well as Mike Fox.

They all had wonderful stories to tell. John told us the history of puppets, Ann did an all singing all dancing puppet show and Violet played a tape of her interviewing Spike.

Jane Milligan
Jane Milligan arrived during this time, but sadly had to leave before the showing of the Telegoons “China Story“. As she left she told us not to believe what we’ve seen in the press. We all knew she was telling the truth. Spike would have been proud.

China Story
“China Story” was fabulous, a reminder of less complicated times, of football results on black and white televisions with only two channels! Yes folks, those were the days!!
Dinner, or was it the bar, then dinner? Then the bar?

N.W. Goon Show
“Saviour of the BBC” was an excellent show and Richard would have been delighted at how his show was presented by a cast of, well, dozens!

Auction
Finally the auction…. rumour has that Bob and myself were something to do with this. I only hope that we were facing the right way and kept our shoes on!

Several Euros were raised (and should be, on a rope). A stash of fine photos donated by Ruxton featured heavily, having the advantage that Ruxton was happy to autograph them.

Star item was an Eccles hand puppet that sold for £42 to Robin, the puppeteer son of Ann Perrin. A good home.

A great weekend!!

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