Puppets Through America 1st of 5 -- Let Us Go To America! [15min]

Puppeteer Walter Wilkinson's 1938 account of his adventures in America with his travelling peep-show in the 1930s, read by David Timson and abridged by Roy Apps. 80 or so years ago it was common to see an itinerant Punch and Judy man performing in the streets, or else pushing his show on a truck, looking for a likely place to set up his little theatre. Such a man was Walter Wilkinson, who travelled about the British Isles with his Peep-Show in the first half of the last century. But Wilkinson's fame grew beyond these shores, and in the mid 1930s he was invited to attend the Second Annual Festival of the Puppeteers of America. Wilkinson and his wife travelled to America with their puppets and Peep-Show, and thus began a journey which took them across the United States, from New York City to New Mexico and back. Wilkinson and his wife travel to New York and, having described their hand-puppets as highly valuable, experience great difficulty in getting their property through Customs.