Korky Paul, illustrator of the Winnie the Witch books by Valerie Thomas wrote:
I will never forget the cold day in February in 2007 when I was appearing at the Aye-Write Book Festival in the magnificent Mitchell Library, Glasgow and I went for a walkabout. While wandering around the corridors I stumbled into this Aladdins cave of puppets and there seated happily amongst them the master puppet maker himself, John Blundall.
We started to chat, with John showing me his amazing collection of puppets, his own and others from around the world. I immediately knew this was the wizard to make a Winnie puppet.
After numerous emails, a repeat visit to Scotland, the lovely Winnie flew into my Oxford studio in May 2010 and she has charmed everyone.
What is so amazing is that John Blundall has interpreted my illustrations or drawings of Winnie so sensitively into ’3D’ without losing her look. She resembles my illustrations of Winnie so completely, retaining the feel and appearance of my work. A hard feat to achieve when moving into ‘3D’.
Soon after Winnie arrived a friend came around with his four year old daughter and she caught sight of Winnie dangling from the curtain rail in the lounge. The excitement and delight on the little creature’s face was wonderful. She thought it was the one and only, REAL Winnie – and she was quite right too!
Winnie was built by John and Stephen Foster.
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