The man’s arms move up and down, hammering out a tune on his piano. He is accompanied by a woman, sawing away at a fiddle, while a man in green with a fedora hat sits strumming a banjo. These wooden figures are brought to life by the turn of a handle. The whole band would fit in a shoebox. It is a delightful thing, a mesmerising, sort of alive, thing.
“It’s not so much the band that appeals to me,” says creator Ian Roberts. “It’s the mechanical part of the thing — getting it all to go, with hands and levers and things.”
Like plenty of sheddies, Ian enjoyed the lockdowns more than most. Upstairs, wife Carol would stamp on the bathroom floor when the jug had boiled for morning tea and, like clockwork, Ian would emerge from his tiny shed beneath the house for a cuppa.
Ian explains he’s only been retired for a few years, so is relishing all this time to devote to tinkering on tiny automata projects. After finishing 20 years of working often 12-hour days in his electrical business in Hawera, he was now free to play. But first, he and Carol took some time out.
“Like plenty of sheddies, Ian enjoyed the lockdowns more than most”
“Driftwood carving led to bone carving led to a phase of making kaleidoscopes led to racecar making, which led to automata of all descriptions”
The bus years
“It was 2000; I guess it was a middle-age crisis or something. We met these people who lived in a house bus — a real old gypsy house bus. I was quite intrigued, so we went down after tea one night and had a cup of coffee. They were selling their bus.”
