What It’s Really Like Being Married to the Man Who Builds Robots from Scrap
You know how some people live with clutter? I live with copper wire in the fruit bowl, helicopter parts in the sink, and a robot who permanently lives in our bathroom. Honestly. He’s there now, happily holding the spare loo roll like it’s his life’s purpose!
Welcome to life as the wife of the man who creates The Berts.
My husband Andy is the creative brain behind The Berts, a family of scrap-built robots made entirely from other people’s junk. Not rubbish. Scrap. That’s an important distinction in our house.
Each robot is handcrafted from parts he’s found in car boot sales, aviation workshops, toolboxes, and the odd skip (don’t worry, we always ask!). He’s turned vintage sewing machine wheels, Cold War spy cameras, helicopter vibration absorbers and old Meccano sets into incredible characters full of personality. They’re not just sculptures. They’re stories waiting to happen.
And that’s where I come in.
I write the stories inspired by the robots Andy builds. It all started with Weebert, a tiny robot no bigger than a can of beans, made from a spy camera, opera glasses and a tangle of copper wire. He looked like he had something to say. So I listened. And I wrote.
Now we’re building Weebert’s World, a children’s brand full of warmth, imagination, and just a little bit of mischief. We’ve got books, school visits, scrap-based STEM sessions, and a big dream of turning Weebert into a stop-motion TV animation series for children. Think Bagpuss meets Wallace & Gromit with a sprinkle of robot magic.
But before all of that, it was just us, Andy, me, and a growing army of robots slowly taking over the house.
People often ask what it’s like to live and work together. I get it, it’s not everyone’s idea of bliss. But for us, it works, mostly because we’ve learned how to navigate the madness with humour, respect, and the occasional walk round the garden to let off steam.
We’re opposites in many ways. Andy’s the doer, the maker, the instinctive engineer with 45 years of aviation behind him. I’m the words, the planner, the dreamer, the overthinker who came to business late in life and had to learn everything from scratch. But we meet in the middle, in our love for storytelling, and in our belief that creativity isn’t just for the chosen few.
It belongs to all of us. Especially children.
The heart of Weebert’s World is about giving children permission to play, explore, imagine and create. We’ve seen first-hand how children respond to the Berts. They don’t just see a sculpture, they see a character, a friend, a possibility, a story forming in real time.
When we visit schools, we bring the robots with us. Not the big, expensive models that look like they should sit behind glass, the real ones. The ones made from scrap. The ones that prove you can build something brilliant from the bits no one else wants. The ones that are The Bert family in all their quirky uniqueness (is that even a word?)
That’s a message we believe children need more than ever. You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to begin.
Life with Andy is never dull. Our house is a mixture of creative chaos and quiet purpose. We laugh a lot. Sometimes we argue. Occasionally, I confiscate bits of Meccano that have mysteriously appeared in the cutlery drawer.
But at the end of the day, I get to build a dream with the person I love, and have loved for the past 46 years! a dream rooted in creativity, storytelling, and encouraging children to believe that their imagination is a superpower.
So yes, there’s a robot in the loo. And no, he’s not going anywhere. He’s part of the family.
And in a way, so is every child who meets Weebert and starts to imagine what they could create from a box of bits.
If you’d like to follow our journey as we bring Weebert’s World to life, from the workshop to the screen, you can follow us on Instagram @weebertsworld, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel @weebertsworld and sign up to our newsletter, or get in touch about our school sessions or investor opportunities.
