When little Roisin Wilde unwraps her birthday presents, she may be surprised to find a Punch and Judy play set - but no one who knows her parents or grandparents will be. While, for some, Punch is a demonic mannequin, for others he is a misunderstood economic migrant.

Andy Dickenson meets the family for whom the little puppet means an awful lot.

Roisin Wilde is the latest in a long line of Punch and Judy fanatics. At just under three years old she can already recognise the characters' faces.

Her mother Katey tours schools and nurseries in Sussex with a host of puppets, including the anarchic husband and wife team.

And grandfather Glyn Edwards, 63, launched the world's first blog dedicated to Punch and Judy this week.

He will also be performing his Punch and Judy show at St Pancras railway station in London as part of its Christmas festivities.

For Glyn, former producer of Saturday kids' TV show Tiswas, the macabre-looking puppet and his rolling pin-wielding wife have become a way of life.

He first saw them on a trip to Brighton beach.

Glyn, of Pembury Road in Worthing, said: "I saw a cracking performer doing Punch and Judy under one of the piers in Brighton when I was a kid in the late 1940s, early 1950s.

"I was on holiday with my parents while they performed here.

"I was about four years old and in the back of my mind I can still see those colourful things going on that caught my imagination.

"My granddaughter is the same. Some kids are really taken by the character and just find him tremendously funny.

"Since she saw her first show she's constantly been itching to play with the puppets.

"She's seen it enough to know the characters' faces and she's getting her first Punch and Judy play set next month for her third birthday.

It's a real family love affair. We've all found the Punch and Judy tradition resonates with us.

"None of us are particularly conservative and his kind of mocking anarchy really drew us to him."

Performances Glyn and his wife Mary moved to Worthing last year.

She is a puppet maker and the niece of John Wright, founder of the Little Angel Marionette Theatre in London and the first puppeteer to be made an MBE, Together, the couple have taken Punch as far afield as Russia, Japan, America and Dubai.

Glyn and Katey, 36, who has her own puppet company based in Hove, are thought to be the first father and daughter Punch and Judy team.

The family's links with the Sussex coast stretch back to when Glyn's parents were entertainers in Jack Sheppard's concert group in Brighton in the 1930s.

They also produced summer shows at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, by which time Glyn was already hooked on 300-year-old Punch.

Glyn said: "Effectively, Punch is an economic migrant from Italy - Pulcinella. He was first mentioned in Samuel Pepys' diaries in 1662.

"Basically, some guy picked one up and brought him to London where he became the talk of the town. He's been here ever since."

Centuries later, however, tastes have changed and the traditional Punch and Judy show has been criticised for its violence, particularly towards Judy and the impish couple's baby.

To fans, the puppet feud represents a grotesque parody of family life, much like Tom and Jerry and The Simpsons. Mr Punch's message is described as one of anarchic nonconformity and defiance of convention.

It leads him on his path to confronting - and defeating - the Devil.

Glyn said: "He's portrayed by his critics as a serial child-abuser but that's like seeing a clown and saying the same.

"It's just complete knockabout stuff that takes a sideways look at society.

" The Simpsons is very similar. It's like a 21st century version of Punch and Judy.

One of my characters at the moment is a health and safety officer. Everyone's had the safety man telling them how to blow their nose.

"Punch is about bringing these lunatics to light.

"Back in the day, the idea of being married and not being able to divorce was something Punch would comment on - inevitably leading to Punch and Judy smashing each other over the head. Pantomimes also had this tradition where you'd use a live baby in the performance and then switch it at the last minute for a doll and kick it out into the audience.

"Today what we'd call physical comedy was the kind of slapstick entertainment that used to be more mainstream in something like Tiswas.

"When I produced it, it was from the background that kids wanted energy and excitement in their entertainment rather than the safe surroundings of Noel Edmonds' Swap Shop.

"I used to think there were kids in blazers and there were free-range kids. Tiswas was for the latter.

"Also, Katey at the time was six or seven so I was fairly bullet-proof in what we were doing because I knew if she was laughing we were okay - and she thought it was terrific."

Katey is now a professional puppeteer - or "Punch professor". Her company is called Tickety Boo Arts.

An experienced nursery teacher, she tours schools with her puppets, performing shows and running workshops.

Sometimes father and daughter work together. Glyn, who has his own company, Blue Sky Theatre, said: "We're both entertaining kids with our puppets and now we're both living in the same area we have the chance to collaborate more.

"The brilliant thing is, we're now passing that political correctness stage, which said you couldn't say anything remotely offensive to anybody.

"The younger generation is looking at everything with this legendary 21st century sense of irony, which sees us remaking the St Trinians films, for example. It's all changed again."

Glyn's blog can be found at www.punchandjudyworld.org.