Before iPads and software programs entered education, an infants school teacher in Goulburn and her mother made puppets to draw children into drama and literacy.

For years after the teacher’s death the unique handmade puppets, instructions on how to make them and handwritten scripts were stowed in seven boxes at the Lieder Theatre.

One day a theatre company volunteer Greg Angus took the boxes, marked July 1955 to March 1996, to school, unpacked the little puppets and accompanying stories and put them to work.

And work they did like magic, according to Greg, a teacher for more than 30 years and a foundation member of Mighty Playwrights in Goulburn, which inspires children to bring to life their own storytelling with the help of the Lieder Theatre.

The puppets include characters from The Three Little Pigs, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Red Riding Hood.

One box labelled ‘The Workshop’ holds instructions on how to build a puppet with a stick, and a script. “The stick narrates how it becomes a puppet,” Greg said. “It’s way beyond anything you would find in schooling these days.”

Included is a list of puppetry books helpful for teachers including Puppet Craft made Easy, History of Puppetry, Twelve Puppet Plays and Scripts of the Magic Pudding.

Teaching drama to Kindergarten to Year 6 pupils, Greg decided puppetry was the way to go. “I was already getting interested in learning support and helping children who needed to express more either because of social, emotional things or expressive language difficulties,” he said.

“Puppetry is kind of magic because all of a sudden the focus is not on the child as an individual and they can use any voice that they want,” Greg said. “Anything you say won’t be judged because it is your hand doing the talking.”

He said children treated the objects with great reverence knowing they were made by hand and one of a kind.

To quell his curiosity Greg asked on Facebook for the identity of the puppets’ creators, a P Barringer and J Barringer, prompting Goulburn educators and artists to share anecdotes of a tall, inquisitive teacher as kind as she was creative.

She was Jenni Barringer who attended Goulburn Teachers College, served as head of infants at Goulburn North Primary School and was director of music at St Saviour’s Cathedral. Pat Barringer was her mother.

Jenni lived in two small semi-detached brick and iron-roof cottages (joined as one) on the corner of Bradley and Cowper streets. She filled her garden, which she shared with her German shepherd Astor, with fast-growing wattles and flowering exotic trees. Learning stained-glass window making, she made one for her home’s interior and replica biscuits which she gave to friends and neighbours at Christmas.

In 1977 Jenni joined the Lieder Theatre cast for Noel Coward’s comic play Blithe Spirit.

Jenni Barringer, third from the right, second row, with colleagues at Goulburn North Public School. Researcher and former Goulburn resident Rod McInnes says Jenni died on 13 March 1996 aged 51. She was born at Quambi Hospital, Adelaide, South Australia. Photo: Dot Keegan family collection.

“She was always mysteriously quiet with the children. They were in awe of her, I felt,” said Dot Keegan, administration manager at Goulburn North Primary School in the 1980s.

She believes Jenni wrote the music and words for the Goulburn North school song.

“I remember the puppets when I first started at North Goulburn. We had a wooden puppet house that Jenni used to show them in,” Dot said.

Barringer puppets from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Photo: Greg Angus.

Debra McConnell, St Saviour’s Director of Music & Choir, recalled her time in the choir when Jenni was the director and introduced a new songbook As One Voice.

Jenni was teaching at Tirranna Primary School at the time.

“I had finished high school and was trying to get into university, studying an associate diploma of music here in Goulburn,” Debra said. “The only thing that was holding me back was writing a decent essay and she taught me how to write an essay correctly. She was always so loving and caring, always wanting to help the individual strive to be their best.”

Included in the scripts are instructions for parents, including this note: “This is very precious, make sure it stays in the bag, practice it with your children.” Photo: Greg Angus.

Jenni died of cancer in 1996, aged 51, after a courageous battle. Her ashes are kept inside St Saviour’s organ. During that struggle Astor died and was buried in her backyard.

Pat, a prolific letter writer and meticulous organiser, invited Jenni’s colleagues and friends to her Bradley Street home and asked them to take home an item, either crockery, a children’s book or toy, calligraphy set or artwork, to remember her remarkable daughter.

Aware storage space is at a premium at schools, Greg is looking for a new home for the puppets because of their quality and what they represent about a mother and daughter so committed to children’s learning.

Original Article published by John Thistleton on About Regional.