Regular readers may recall back in September last year our 'Looking Back' column featured the photo of a crowd of people watching 'something' up at Heysham Head.

We didn't know what it was and asked for your help.

Well it's taken a while but – thanks to the wonders of the world wide web – it looks like we've now got to the bottom of it.

As with most of our Looking Back photos, the image was put on our thevisitor.co.uk website. Some weeks later it was spotted by former Morecambe resident, Denver Leigh, now living in the States.

Denver thought it might be people watching a puppet show – particularly one featuring the famous TV characters 'Pinky and Perky'.

And, though we can't say for definite that was the case – we are sure the crowd was watching some kind of marionette performance on the very same stage that the piggy duo first took their curly-tailed bows.

It's not, as some had suggested, the Rose Garden.

A quick internet search brought us to a super little website at iandenny.co.uk which, basically, gives you anything you would ever want to know about the history, development and current state of stage marionette puppetry.

Ian, from Staffordshire, is no stranger to Morecambe, having performed a summer season here with his own marionettes in 1981 as part of a variety show at the end of the Central Pier.

Ian tells us: "The photo on your website is definitely an audience for the Marionette Theatre at Heysham Head. The 'other' audience seating area for the Concert Party in the Rose Garden was on a much
gentler slope and of course minus the wall.

"If you've guessed the year correctly at late 1950s, then it stands a very good chance of being an audience watching the Dalibors' Marionette Show, although 'Pinky & Perky' were not the stars of the show until the Dalibors later got discovered by TV.

"The two little pigs were definitely in the shows at Heysham, along with many other animal characters.

"But it wasn't until the Dalibors' first TV appearance, that for some strange reason, the two pigs were the characters that really caught on with the public and they became superstars.

"They had 15 million viewers for each episode of their TV series.

"To put that into context, an episode of Eastenders or Coronation Street today gets about 10 million viewers at best.

"If the photo was earlier in the '50s, it would have been the DeRandel Marionettes who had by far the longest run there of eight years from the late 1940s into the mid-1950s."

* Marionette stage photo courtesy of John Dudley