TWO cute monkeys head towards us in the driveway – one is driving a wire car and the other is pushing an old jalopy.
Beatrice van Niekerk follows closely on their heels. At age 85 she sometimes struggles to stand upright, but there’s nothing wrong with her hands as she deftly manipulates the puppet animals.
These monkeys are just two of the puppets in a collection of 200 she accumulated during the decades she spent entertaining audiences.
She has a long and storied history with the dolls and as she shows us her puppets, memories come flooding back.
“These are the lions in my circus story,” she says. “They climb stairs then slide down. I have
