About The Puppet Tree
The roots of The Puppet tree are firmly grounded in providing activities to support its local community and its branches have grown since its inception to include workshops. engagement activities, play, wellbeing initiatives, education, training, and many other community projects which help bring people together through the magic of puppetry. We also sell puppets and toys. However, we are more than just a shop, we are a unique theatre space where people of ALL ages can explore puppets and puppet theatre and the magic that surrounds it.
It has been described as a cross between Peter Pans Tree house and Mr Ollivander’s wand shop.
Why Puppetry?
Puppets can break down barriers, cross cultural differences, and introduce people of all ages to new ideas and possibilities for communication. You can talk about and teach almost any subject with a puppet.
“The moment you forget to fly you cease forever to be able to do it.”
JM Barrie - author Peter Pan
Who is the founder?
The Puppet Tree is the brainchild of Karen Crane, otherwise known as The Toy Shop Lady, a children’s nurse with a passion for old fashioned values and the power of puppets.
Tell me more!
Karen’s childhood was spent in ‘The Royal Forest of Dean’ amongst the ferns and bracken of a world lost in time and described best by authors such as Laurie Lee and Dennis Potter. The memories of those old-fashioned values has moulded her outlook on life and inspired her creation of The Puppet Tree.
Karen’s 48 year nursing career began as a cadet nurse in 1974 and after qualifying as an ‘old fashioned’ SRN at the Gloucestershire Royal hospital in 1980 she worked predominantly with children. First at Great Ormond Street children’s hospital and the Whittington hospital in London and then following an eclectic professional path as a School nurse, Practice nurse, Outpatients nurse, and other ‘stuff’ involving sharp pointy needles etc. After achieving Counselling qualifications, she worked as a therapeutic nurse caring for young people who struggled with alcohol and drug addictions, and anorexia.
One of Karen’s managers once described her as ‘having an empathic affinity with children which bordered on the telepathic’.
Karen however describes herself more as being a cross between a nurse equivalent of ‘Patch Adams’ and ‘Nanny MacFee’!
The change...
In 2004 Karen put her nursing career on hold and founded Pedlars Barrow gift shop. Which evolved in time, partly prodded by the ‘sharp pointy stick’ of the recession, internet competition, Brexit, and the pandemic, and partly by following customer demand into the social enterprise it is today. So that worked out well!
She found that, over time her nursing world and business world melded. After attending a Return to Nursing course at The University of East Anglia she continued her nursing career caring for children at night-time, whilst running the shop in the daytime. This strange vampire style of living was brought to an abrupt end by the pandemic, and she now concentrates on developing The Puppet Tree. However, because she describes nursing as ‘ingrained into her psyche as coal dust’, she will always be a carer at heart, which leaks into her work at The Puppet Tree.
How the projects began...
In 2011 Karen was approached by the local council and asked to create a puppet led project funded by the Marine Management Organisation to help children learn about their local fishing heritage.
The project took five years to develop and involved the participation of local artists, film makers, a composer and 300 local school children. It was based on a book written by Karen called The Mystery of Mystery Mist and its success led to the development of other projects written and created by Karen.
Projects
SPARKLE was funded by Children in Need in 2016 and aimed to support children experiencing loss and anxiety.
PIPS MAGIC TREE (2019) aimed to encourage literacy skills
ALL ABOARD (2020) was written to help children design and create their own puppet plays, and to explore how Covid 19 has affected their lives.
SPARKLE (2024) was rewritten to allow a more generic audience and allow the creative element to travel away from The Puppet Tree.
The Puppet Tree continues to support the community through offering a step back in time moment of peace and calm amongst the leaves of the tree (Yes.. a tree!) and the sound of bird song.
as well as...
Karen has provided events for libraries, schools, and nurseries. Participants have included a London/Norfolk refugee project supporting families from Syria and Afghanistan, autistic children, local beavers, scouts, churches, and special needs groups and individuals.
She has provided teaching sessions at Stamford College, Lincolnshire and has been invited this year to be a speaker at Peterborough University.
She is most comfortable however amongst the magic at The Puppet Tree which attracts young and old and where resources and space provide an opportunity for imagination and creativity to flourish.
Become a sponsor!
We are a social enterprise. A not-for-profit community business. All profits go straight back into the business, but often it’s not enough. We need sponsors to keep us up and running! If you would like to get involved PLEASE get in touch!
THANK YOU so much from The Puppet Tree and lots of happy children.