ONE of the last surviving Emu puppets, the character made famous by TV entertainer Rod Hull in the 1970s and 1980s, sold at auction today in Chippenham for over £8,000.

The puppet, which was made in the mid-to-late 1980s for TV production company Endemol, was bought by the man behind CBBC’s Hacker the Dog, puppeteer Phil Fletcher from Wigan. Mr Fletcher, who bid over the phone for the much-feared bird, paid £8,680 including buyer’s premium at Chippenham Auction Rooms on Thursday, May 31. The puppet was originally forecast to sell for £750-£1,000.

Speaking after his winning bid, Phil Fletcher, who also makes and collects puppets, said: “I’m 41 so I vividly remember seeing Emu on television when I was growing up. Rod Hull was one of the best puppeteers, but also criminally under-rated. Because audiences totally bought into the character of Emu, they forgot that Rod was operating him. He was brilliant.”

Asked about his plans for Emu, Mr Fletcher said the puppet will sit on the couch at his home in Wigan alongside George, the pink hippo from ITV’s 1970s and 80s children’s Rainbow.

Mr Fletcher, who is BAFTA-nominated, has been operating Hacker the Dog on CBBC since 2009 and has over 30 years’ experience as a professional puppeteer. He claims to have ‘hundreds’ of puppets in his collection.

These include a version of Keith Harris’s Orville, used in a television advertisement for Surf washing powder, and Sooty and Sweep.

The Emu puppet was made a pilot TV show and cost £10,000 to construct. However, the TV show’s producer Endemol ultimately decided to use a different version of the puppet, so this one was kept in reserve.

Richard Edmonds, principal auctioneer at Chippenham, said: “There was some fierce bidding over the phone and internet for the Emu puppet.

Collectors and puppet aficionados clearly feel very passionately about this character. I don’t think Mr Fletcher’s other puppets are going to know what’s hit them when Emu arrives in Wigan!”

The Emu puppet was sold by a private collector from Radstock, Somerset.