Specially For Girls
Calling D For Dalek
IT is hard to tell who is who in Dr. Who, the Saturday afternoon TV serial, for all the Daleks look alike ! But, there is no mistaking the one pictured below. It is not a robot but a Dalek puppet with a distinct personality of its own. And it is musical, too.
In this photograph it is shown with its creator, 16-year-old Carolyn Gilbert of Wokingham, Berkshire. Carolyn is a student puppeteer, and every day after school she works with Master Puppeteer Mr. Richard Giles, who also lives in Wokingham. Together they made this musical Dalek of hardboard and plastic. The "rivets" are chair upholstery knobs and the three mop-headed looking objects (making this a three-arm Dalek) are in fact washing-up mops. It is three feet high and battery-powered so that, when it moves, bulbs flash warning lights, the eyes glow and it can tap its feet to the music of the two guitars and drum set.
Carolyn goes all over the country giving puppet shows with Mr. Giles, and practises at home with the aid of mirrors.
There is no master-computer to tell this Dalek what to do—it is all done by the aid of strings, cleverly manipulated by Carolyn.
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