Archie dummy sells for £34,000

The doll had been stowed away in a suitcase for several years

A private collector has paid £34,000 for the original Archie Andrews dummy used by ventriloquist Peter Brough in the 1950s radio show, Educating Archie.

The show had a fan club of 250,000 and attracted 15m listeners at its peak.

The dummy sold for more than double the £15,000 estimate at Taunton auctioneers Greenslade Taylor Hunt on Tuesday, where it was sold by Brough's family.

Buyer Colin Burnett-Dick said he planned to loan the doll to museums so it could be accessible to the public.

Mr Burnett-Dick from Blackboys, East Sussex, told BBC News Online: "It was worth it. There is so much history attached to him. I remember him from my childhood.

"There was lots of dummies but he was probably the most significant. We didn't want him to go overseas."

Peter Brough's family decided to put the 4ft-high, blazer-wearing dummy up for auction following his death in 1999.

It had been stowed away in a suitcase for several years, having survived being kidnapped and stolen from a car.