Nursery State
“POSTMAN Pat, Postman Pat, Postman Pat and his black and white cat/ Early in the evening/ Just as the pub is opening/ He picks up all the post bags in his van…”
Who has not looked on with a smile as everyone’s favourite postman delivers his sack of credit card bills, final demands and death threats to the people of Greendale?
Not we at Anorak. That is why we are saddened by the Expess’s news that Pat has been given another kind of sack.
“Now Postman Pat is banned,” says the Express. “Zealots brand toddlers’ ride a safety threat.”
Right it is that no child should get into a vehicle with a stranger. And though we know Pat to be a good man, not everyone is convinced. Pat has been removed from his post in a shopping precinct in Market Harborough, Leicestershire.
While a criminal check in run on the Postman and his shifty cat, the Express speaks with Sherryl Granger, outside whose shoe repair shop Pat has been sat in his van for an age.
“It’s been there for years,” says Sherryl of the 30p ride. “I have never known anything so petty. For crying out loud, it’s only a little van that children ride in, it’s just ridiculous.”
Is it? We cannot be too careful in how we raise our children. And while Postman Pat helps the authorities with their enquiries, the Mail leads with: “THE NUSERY RHYME POLICE.”
The paper has heard from Beverley Hughes, the Children’s Minister. Campaigning on the message “nursery rhymes for all”, Hughes speaks of a “parenting workforce”, part of the “national parenting academy”.
Hughes says that for parents who were never sung to by their parents, “simple techniques are a mystery and likely to remain so – unless we act and draw them to their attention.”
Mrs Hughes (married with three children who are rumoured to sing like the Von Trapps) wants us to sing from the same hymn sheet.
Cultural diversity is all well and good but the poor must be made to be aspirational and sing, sing, sing. So let’s all join it:
Postman Pat, Postman Pat, Postman Pat – rob his van, eat his cat/ We are poor people/ under Tony’s steeple/ singing a happy-clappy song…”
Amen!
Posted: 14th, November 2006 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
