YOU have to roll with the punches - and judies - as a puppeteer.

We reported yesterday how David Wilde's work as a top Punch and Judy professor is under threat from bizarre new licensing regulations. But the Diary is sure that a man who has coped with over-inquisitive children and gale force winds can triumph over bureaucracy.

David tells the Diary his love of the art began when his mum gave him a hand-crafted Punch and Judy for Christmas when he was ten.

"I used to do shows in the garden for the children of the area from the top of an orange box," says a man whom the Diary steadfastly resists describing as a former Lord Mayor of York.

The ex-Sheriff has been honing his performance ever since.

"Children love it," he said. "And so do adults.

"Usually when you are doing a show at a garden fete or a gala you finish up with more adults watching than children."

Those children can prove a handful, however.

"The children get so excited, they rush forward, shouting at Punch, even trying to get hold of him.

"In that case, I have a little trick I couldn't dare repeat because I would be up for child cruelty."

(Under ruthless interrogation he revealed that he discreetly raps the child's knuckles with Punch's slapstick.)

The other problem is the weather. "A friend of mine was performing on a beach at Bridlington and the booth blew into the sea. He managed to get it back eventually."

The work has its more glamorous side. David was once in the Guinness Book Of Records as part of the largest gathering of Punch and Judy folk at London's Covent Garden.

And he's off to Slovenia and Croatia next month to exercise his swazzle (the thing that gives Punch his rasping voice).

David says the old days when Punch and Judy shows were banned by politically correct councils are receding.

"Councils do attract loony councillors," he explained. "There are a few in every council - including York."

Care to name names? "I could, but I won't."

IS York council trying to push a subliminal message about the value of good housekeeping? The spring wordsearch in Streets Ahead, the council's tenants' newsletter, includes these words: mop, soap, bowl, water, broom, bucket, duster, Hoover...

THE crow debate will not go away. Russell and Sheryl, the windscreen wiper destroyers of Askham Bar car park in York, are "a mischievous pair of jackdaws," according to M Hunt of Easingwold.

"I am very familiar with crows, two of which inhabit my garden," our correspondent reveals.

"The photograph in your issue of April 2 shows less streamlined birds, lacking the long powerful bills of crows.

"I cannot imagine crows behaving like Russell and Sheryl!"

Mrs PA Ward, meanwhile, writes from Haxby to say that the York duo are not the only birds with a rubber fetish. She took a picture of this pair of peckers while on holiday in Keswick in the Lake District.

"These two birds made regular 'attacks' on the tyres of bikes at the caravan next door," she writes. "But we never saw them pecking at motor cars."

A GENUINE campaign to save the gas holder in Layerthorpe, York might yet be in the offing. More will follow after the Diary has consumed a hundredweight of chocolate eggs.

Write to: The Diary, Chris Titley, The Evening Press, 76-86 Walmgate, York YO1 9YN

Email diary@ycp.co.uk

Telephone (01904) 653051 ext 337

Updated: 09:41 Friday, April 09, 2004