Although not directly involved in the very early days of the programme, Ronnie knew Violet Philpott who was the first puppeteer on Rainbow. "Violet was one of my mentors, I've known her for years, she's now in her eighties, a wonderful lady. She made the first Zippy puppet, which is slightly different to the later Zippy, as well as the Moony and Sunshine puppets. She also provided the voice for Moony. Unfortunately she slipped a disc whilst working on the programme, so Peter Hawkins had to go to her home in Hampstead to record her dialogue while she was flat on her back!"

Ronnie leapt at the chance to be involved with Rainbow and his first appearance was as a result of being suggested as an ideal replacement to take over the honours on working Zippy by puppeteer John Thirtle. John, an accomplished and capable puppet maker, had taken over from Violet and had made the second Zippy puppet. He went on to make all the Zippy and George's right through to the end of the Thames TV run on Rainbow, so he had a hand, of sorts, in the show all the way through, even if he wasn't operating the characters. Although there was no formal interview, Ronnie went along to Thames at Teddington to meet the producer, Pamela Lonsdale, and the other members of the cast. Along with Geoffrey, Roy Skelton was providing the voices for Zippy and George, Stanley Bates was playing Bungle and the musicians at that time were Karl Johnson, Charlie Dore and Julian Littman. Ronnie's companion behind the window, operating George, was Valerie Heberden who Ronnie remembers as a wonderful and creative puppeteer. Ronnie's first director on Rainbow was Daphne Shadwell who has a host of other Children's television to her credits, including Sooty - who we would hear more about later. Ronnie recalls his time on Rainbow with affection, "In those days Zippy and George were stuck 'outside', behind the window and we didn't move into the set until later. I thought after the initial six weeks that it would be 'goodbye', but they rang me up and asked me back. It was a bit like being at school, we never had a retainer, but we'd have the summer holidays off, and then back for the autumn. Christmas and New Year off and come back around April. We did a lot of programmes in my time, which was from mid 1973 through to the end, working something like twenty four weeks a year. I hope I'm not exaggerating! It was great, a bit of a journey for me to get to Teddington, and I didn't have a car in those days - you don't get many rich puppeteers. When Rainbow came along I remember buying a colour television! Using up nearly all my first wage packet!"

Ronnie took on the mantle of Zippy by matching closely the work performed by John Thirtle. "It's a bit odd in one respect, puppeteers normally do the voices as well, so I developed my hearing skills in order to listen to what Roy was saying from his sound box, known in the studio as 'Roy's Hole'. Most puppet shows on TV at that time i.e. Thunderbirds etc. used pre-recorded sound. Roy gradually became freer with his interpretation and with John Kirshaw's scripts the character became more defined. At the Little Angel we used pre-recorded dialogue for some of the shows, so I was used to acting to another persons voice, so it helped me when it came to listening to Roy, who spoke live in the studio"

Mindful of the problems encountered by Violet Philpott, the Rainbow puppeteers developed a seat mounted on rollers to give support during the recordings. "It can be physically exerting," explained Ronnie. "Especially if the puppet is quite heavy. When we recorded Rainbow, we had breaks, but puppeteers also have a way of cheating a little bit, leaning against the window or table. A lot of times when I was putting Zippy's hand to his face, I could lean on the table, but still keep him alive. The most difficult thing is keeping him dead still and not doing very much movement, that can be very arm aching. We also had reverse scan monitors, so the movement we did with our hands was identical to what we could see. This helped to get the eye lines right. It took a bit of getting used to though. Zippy actually doesn't have the most brilliant profile. He's rugby ball shaped. There were always three cameras in the Thames studio, and if they cut to a different angle, it sometimes didn't look very good, so I learnt to just turn the puppet a little so you would have a full frontal or a bit more of the eyes. It made sure the viewer knew he was alive and it also helps reinforce the image that he wants to be the centre of attention, the know all, naughty school boy. I always thought George was the sweetest one, gentle, soft and cuddly; Zippy was the loud one - not me at all! But in a way, as a puppeteer or actor, it's quite nice to go against your own nature, I'm sure Roy would agree. It's nice to have a good strong character which you can develop. One thing with Zippy is it's always difficult to get hats on that rugby ball shaped head of his. George was always dressing up, hats fitted him with ease."

When a new puppeteer for George was required, Ronnie recommended Malcolm Lord and when Stanley Bates left to concentrate on writing, Malcolm went on to do Bungle. This change saw John Thirtle return to do the honours with George, followed by Gillie Robic and Chris Leith before Tony Holtham took over.

"In 1990 We moved studios from Teddington to Euston, which was better for me, as I didn't have so far to travel. At Teddington there was a sense that something was happening. The studios were not as busy as they used to be. In the early days there was always some big production being filmed; Edward VI, Napoleon, Peggy Lee did a TV Special, Tommy Steele, Morecambe and Wise. We'd be in Studio 3 on Wednesday and Thursday and Magpie would be in on Monday and Friday. But gradually, things got quieter when we moved. It was a bit sad, but Euston soon felt like home. And I don't think the programme suffered. It was a regular job after all. We stayed until 1992. Live Rainbow shows carried on, but I didn't want to be involved. I wasn't sure how well the puppets would carry on stage, or how the puppeteers would be hidden. I thought we would be very restricted in our movement. I saw a few, and I felt this to be the case as the puppets were not so good on stage. I wanted to develop my own material and have a rapport with the audience through the puppet, and not have some one else provide the voice."

"Rod, Jane and Freddy had been the first to go. They got their own show, which I did some puppet sequences. People tend to forget that before Freddy there was Matthew Corbett and Roger Walker. Matthew asked me to do Sweep in the summer breaks, which was wonderful. Harry was still alive then and even though he'd had his heart attack he'd be working Sooty and I'd do Sweep. It also gave me a chance to do film work, which Geoffrey did most on Rainbow. Sweep is another energetic character and Harry instructed me on using the reed for his voice. It had to sound as though he was speaking sentences. Rod, Jane and Freddy carried on with their theatre shows, I used to take my kids. It really took off for them, we missed them, and I'm sure they missed doing Rainbow."

"When I was doing Rainbow, I was still involved with the Little Angel Theatre. I never stopped working on my own material. Rainbow, in a way, was sponsoring all my other puppet activities. But Rainbow helped make my name known within the wider world of television and film and that opened up other opportunities such as the Muppet films for the Henson organisation. In 1994, Alan Horrox, who had been the head of Children's TV at Thames, and had the rights to Rainbow, set up his own company, Tetra, and was planning a new series of Rainbow. John Thirtle was asked to make new puppets and he suggested I go up for an audition. So, I phoned and went along, they said, you know you're going to have to do the voice now. I thought that I could probably cope, so I tried, and they accepted me. Lots of other puppeteers went up for it, I think having my own set of Zippy and George puppets helped, I was very excited, if not a little nervous. I know people have said that the programme wasn't as good, and I agree. If you can imagine the budgets at Thames, which was the biggest of the ITV companies, then when they split up, lots of little companies started. Tetra was one of them, and they just didn't have the same amount of money. They did their best. Alan knew Rainbow from the Thames days, but they couldn't afford a voice man, and they didn't have a Geoffrey figure, just the characters. I didn't know this until after the audition. I went along and discovered it was set in a shop, and then, of course, they introduced this weird blue rabbit puppet, Cleo. She was worked, funnily enough by Gillie Robic, who had done George previously. Cleo was a difficult puppet to work. It didn't help that Rainbow was so established in the minds of the viewing public with Zippy, George and Bungle, and the fact that they gave Zippy moving eyes and made him more Muppet like. In some respects I found the new puppet heavier and more difficult to operate, whereas the George puppet was much better. Craig Crane is a brilliant puppeteer and as far as movement went, he changed things slightly. I know people have said that it isn't George, and I admit that it took time for me to get used to Craig's interpretation, but he didn't want to copy what had gone before and the producers agreed. I listened to tapes of Roy and I did Zippy as well as I could. After all those years of doing it without the voice, it came together quite quickly. Previously, when we had done personal appearances which Roy couldn't attend, Zippy had to say something, so I'd always done the voice on those occasions and nobody ever said that's not Zippy."

"The first two Tetra series set in the shop probably weren't as good, but we were lucky, we got a kitchen and a basement set, so we could move around a bit more and we could do different things with the puppets. It took a long time for people to get one of the differences, the fact that George was a much stronger character; he didn't take kindly to any nonsense from Zippy, so that might have been a shock to people who remembered him as always timid or retiring. Towards the end of the original show, even with Roy, George would sometimes get the upper hand, just maybe not as strong as Craig did it. I think the best sequences in the first two series were when it was just Zippy and George. I also think it was a shame that the old Bungle skin disappeared. Richard and Paul who both played Bungle are very good, but I didn't think the skin was as nice as the original Bungle. The little bow tie should have been bigger and I felt it was funny that the puppets were looking after the shop with no adult there. It didn't seem right, but if you're offered a job, you do the work, don't you. There wasn't a lot of time when we did the programme to discuss the content, or scripts. There was three weeks to get all the programmes finished, it couldn't have been that bad because we did it for quite a few years. It helped the name of Rainbow to carry on until 1996. I was pleased that they had a rethink about the shop setting. Believe it or not, the budgets got smaller with Rainbow Days. They brought in Dale Superville, his first TV job, and the puppets went behind the sofa. Alright, it wasn't Geoffrey, but Dale worked very hard. Paul Cullinan came in and took over the role of Bungle. The voice might have been different, but his character was really strong. I must admit that they all treated me with so much respect because I'd done the series before. It didn't take long to become good friends. Rainbow Days basically went back to the old format, and we had a lovely window set and the little sketches with Zippy and George were really fun to do. I defy people not to like them."

"I have tried to make puppetry better on TV with strong characters and we did have to fight, to get the puppets into the set and not stuck at the window all the time. Getting Zippy on film, was fun it was an episode when Zippy's dream was to be a train driver, and I went out filming on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Light Railway and Roy dubbed the voice later. Zippy was shovelling coal and driving the train it wasn't just fun for Zippy! We all went out camping, our first outside video recording. We also had to be squashed into Geoffrey's car once, fun for the audience to see on the television but not so comfortable for the puppeteers. But who's complaining - not me."

During the many years which the original programme ran, the cast began to have some input behind the scenes, as Ronnie explained; "Friday morning was the "read through time" with three new scripts to read and rehearse. Sometimes we would ask for changes and cuts to be made. The producer had the final say. When the cast were allowed to write the scripts, you had Stanley writing, Geoffrey writing, Freddy and Roy writing. It was good because they knew the characters and could develop them, but script meetings weren't always fun. There were times when people would pick up someone's script and say it was a bit heavy, too much in it. No one likes to have their words cut. I liked Stanley's scripts, which always contained a bit of wit. If you go back and look, his were some of the best. I think that's why he left the series, so he could concentrate on the writing. The script writers always had the educational content in the back of their minds, but keeping the characters fresh and alive was all important. We had an educational advisor, Stephanie Connell for example, who had an input. She would keep us on the right track, educationally, so to speak!"