Puppet master saves some famous faces

Michael Dixon, archivist of the British Puppet and Model Theatre Guild, met Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, on breakfast TV, aged seven.

Kermit the Frog sparked his lifelong interest in puppets and now his private collection at his home in Bridgnorth includes 3,000 puppets from floor to ceiling, half of which belong to Mr Dixon who started his mission aged 16.

Many of them are being loaned out for an exhibition at a museum in the West Midlands while the remaining puppets are on show at The Puppet Centre in London, and The British Puppet and Model Theatre Guild.

Mr Dixon also looks after the iconic Punch and Judy puppets carved by Wolverhampton's Ted Beresford as well as Soko, the first puppet made for TV, by WH Whanslaw, who set up the the puppet guild in 1925. One of three original Muffin the Mule puppets, who was the first celebrity puppet, back in 1946, as forms part of the collection.

In this role Mr Dixon, of Low Town, successfully secured a lottery grant to keep the famous collections of The Lanchester Marionettes – named after Waldo and Muriel Lanchester from Malvern – in the UK, which would otherwise have gone abroad.

Mr Dixon has put more of Waldo's puppets on display in Wolverhampton, where they can be seen for free at the Bantock House Museum.