We didn’t know what it was going to become. We just knew it was something.
Andy had spent 27 years in the British Army in the REME, working on helicopters. Then 16 years in civil aviation, also on helicopters. Decades of precision, service, showing up. And then he had a mental breakdown. On his darkest days he couldn’t get dressed. Couldn’t face the world.
So he went into the garage in his pyjamas and dressing gown, and he started making things from scrap.
The things turned into figures. The figures turned into characters. And I, a woman who had been told as a child she had too much imagination for her own good, looked at what Andy was creating and built a whole world around them.
We called them the Berts. After my great grandfather Herbert. A proper Yorkshire man who could never throw anything away that might be useful one day.
Turns out he was onto something.
Three years ago we had a garage, a breakdown, and too much imagination.
Today we have a trademark. A registered company. A business plan. A brand bible. A logo and visual identity. A world … with a real Shropshire cottage, a workshop, a garden, and animals that actually live here. Barbara the flying sheep. Noddy the nodding dog. Prince the purple reindeer. Gordon the ram. Glorious and Lyla and the rest of the silkie chickens. And Weebert himself … no bigger than a can of beans, made from a tiny camera body, opera glasses for eyes, vintage clock parts and copper wire hair. Cheeky. Mischievous. Completely one of a kind.
We have stop motion animation on our own YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@weebertsworld
We have SEIS Advance Assurance. We are mid-application for EIS Advance Assurance.
We visited a school and a headteacher told us the visit was “magical, educational and motivational”.A pair of twins looked at two of The Berts and said, “we are twins too, just like the Bakerbert twins”. A child looked at Weebert and said “I love Weebert”. That was the moment I knew.
A licensing expert told us Weebert has “..massive potential. He just needs to get seen.”
An animation studio called him “pure gold”.
Jeremy Vine called us “inspiring”. Andy made him his very own Penny Farthing Bert. JezBert lives with Jeremy now.
And last week, the Strategy Director at Walt Disney commented on my LinkedIn post. He told me to “stay the course”.
I am staying the course.
I didn’t expect any of this to be easy. It hasn’t been.
I didn’t expect it to take this long. It has.
I didn’t expect to be doing most of it ourselves, at 62, without a team or a budget or a roadmap. But here we are.
What I really didn’t expect was how much this would matter to people.
The permission to play message, I thought it was for children. It turns out it’s for everyone. The adults who message us to say they’ve picked up a paintbrush for the first time in twenty years. The veterans who see Andy’s story and recognise something in it. The people who were told as children they had too much imagination and never quite got over it.
I screwed up my own pencil drawings of flowers a few years ago and threw them in the bin because a friend’s drawings looked like photographs and I felt ashamed. I was 60 before I understood that the end result was never the point. It’s how you feel when you’re doing it.
I wish I’d known that at seven. I’m trying to make sure children today do.
I’ve watched Andy on his dark days, unable to get dressed, unable to face the world, go out to the garage in his pyjamas and come back hours later with another Bert in his hand.
Calm. Smiling. Hungry.
That’s what making things does. It doesn’t fix everything. It doesn’t make the dark days disappear. But it gives you somewhere to put yourself when the world feels like too much.
Weebert’s World exists because Andy needed somewhere to put himself. And because I had a lifetime of imagination with nowhere to go.
Three years later, it’s going somewhere.
BertoLotty, a Bert we have donated to Mission Motorsport, because Andy spent 27 years in the REME and that charity has a very special place in our hearts, is being raffled at the Mission Motorsport National Transition Event on 2nd March. The winner gets BertoLotty, a certificate of authenticity signed by Andy, and a photograph signed by Chris Harris of Top Gear.
The animation is in development.
The investment journey is moving.
And Weebert is waiting to be seen by the audience that’s been waiting for him without knowing it yet.
Make something today. Anything. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be for anyone else. It doesn’t have to look like a photograph.
And if you want to share how it made you feel, we’re here. No judgement. Not ever.
That’s what Weebert’s World is. That’s what it’s always been.
Three years in. Just getting started.
Lotty x
Weebert’s World … Play. Explore. Imagine. Create.
If Weebert’s World resonates with you, follow our journey on Instagram and Facebook. And if you’re in children’s media, animation, investment or licensing and want to know more, get in touch. We have a whole world full of stories waiting to be told.
