Mother Clanger returns to her family after 50 years! Deathbed confession from thief who stole the children’s TV puppet when he was a tearaway teen gives happiest of endings to enduring mystery
A beloved puppet from one of Britain’s best-known children’s television shows is back in its rightful place this weekend, more than half a century after being stolen.
Mother Clanger, the matriarch of the moon-dwelling mice-like family, vanished from an exhibition in London in 1973.
The rest of her clan, which enthralled youngsters on BBC1 in the early 1970s, have resided in a Kent museum since retiring from screens.
But no one was ever able to trace the missing stop-motion mum – until a deathbed confession from one of the tearaway teens responsible.
Irishman Michael O’Connor told his son Michael Burke that they had more than the regular mice in their attic.
Mr O’Connor revealed he had been one of two 15-year-old boys who had snaffled the snouted creature and surrupticiously relocated her to the Emerald Isle where she lived in a bag in the loft.
Mr Burke dug the figure out and contacted Canterbury City Council’s Museums and Galleries team, eager to return the mother to her children Small and Tiny, and her beloved husband Major Clanger.
The original puppet of Mother Clanger, from the hit show The Clangers, was stolen from a museum in 1973
Cllr Cornell (left) and Emily Firmin welcomed Mother Clanger home and put her on display with her family
Mother Clanger finally reunited with her family after 50 years spent in an attic in Ireland
The soup-eating star has now been returned to England and been reunited with the rest of her family on display at Canterbury’s Beaney House of Art and Knowledge.
Michael and his mother Ellen Burke met with TV show creator Peter Firmin’s daughters Emily, Charlotte and Kate Firmin, to return the long-lost creature.
Emily said: ‘It was such a surprise. Despite her years in an attic box, Mother Clanger was in remarkable condition and still radiating her unique charm.
‘She has faded wool and the tip of her nose is damaged.
‘We are just glad to get her back to be with her Clanger family.
‘My mum and dad would’ve thought what naughty boys they were at 15 but now would be full of forgiveness especially as they told us as soon as they found her.’
Mother Clanger is now on display in the Smallfilms Gallery at The Beaney alongside her family and other Firmin and Postgate favourites such as Bagpuss.
The council’s Cabinet member for culture and heritage, Cllr Charlotte Cornell, added: ‘For someone who has not been fed Green Soup by the Soup Dragon for five decades, Mother Clanger is not looking too shabby.
‘We’re very happy to give her a warm welcome as she returns to Canterbury.
‘This heartwarming reunion marks not only the return of a treasured artwork but also the closing chapter of a story filled with curiosity, guilt, discovery and, ultimately, a proper homecoming.’
The Clangers was a stop-motion animation series about a family of mouse-like creatures who live on a small moon-like planet. They had originally featured in an episode of Noggin The Nog, before branching out on their own.
The lived on nourishing Blue String Pudding and Green Soup, which was colelcted from the planet’s volcanic soup wells by the Soup Dragon, which gave its name to the 1990s Scottish rock band.
The Clangers first aired in 1969 until 1974 before it was revived in 2015 with a newly created Mother Clanger puppet.
The new series was narrated by Michael Palin and ran for 104 episodes before it ended again in 2020.