A non pre non brexit p-REVIEW vote

A pre-non political preview 12 December 2019 behind & beyond. I will only make mention to one politician, so you are safe to carry on!

Years ago, the publishers Hachette took the well-meaning yet preposterous step of making ‘sensitive text revisions’ to Enid Blyton’s classic Famous Five books.

So ‘tinker’ was changed to ‘traveller’, ‘mother and father’ to ‘mum and dad’ and ‘awful swotter’ to ‘bookworm’. The suggestion that tomboy George needed ‘a good spanking’ became ‘a good talking to’, while girly Anne’s assertion, ‘You see, I do like pretty frocks — and I love my dolls — and you can’t do that if you’re a boy’ had its final clause removed, rendering the sentence throwaway rather than poignant. Unsurprisingly, given that all the charm had been stripped out of them, the revised editions flopped, reported that Hachette were reverting to the originals. The publishers conceded that the updates had proved ‘very unpopular’.

Read to a child, The Magic Faraway Tree. expecting to feel warmly nostalgic, end-up merely baffled and irritated to discover that the publishers, Egmont, had also made several unnecessary changes. The names Fanny and Dick had been changed to Frannie and Rick. At first, thought this was a misguided effort to avoid schoolchildren giggling at unintentional innuendo, but then it can be seen, that the names Jo and Bessie Kitchen workers had also been pointlessly updated to Joe and Beth.

Even more annoyingly, the disciplinarian Dame Slap had been renamed Dame Snap, and in the new version she merely shouted at her unfortunate charges rather than hitting them. Despite my distaste at experiencing regular corporal punishment as a child, I couldn’t help but feel that this modification was ludicrous. Dame Slap was meant to be frightening, and her students’ terror was far more plausible when she was given to meting out painful violence rather than simply vocalising her displeasure. This is prudish editing at its most confused, as though mentioning an old-fashioned, outlawed practice were condoning it or advocating that it should be part of modern British schooling.

Decisions to amend old, politically incorrect texts are based on myths: that children (& political adults!) are malleable, delicate creatures. Let’s eradicate anything remotely contentious! But anyone with a child over five knows that to edit the past is to insult both their their intelligence and their resilience. A child is astute, tough and robust, and gleefully recounts gruesome fairy tales she has heard from friends. Many delight in reading Old Testament stories of massacres and murders in their 1960s version of the Bible. (these have been revised for centuries, and many of all faiths, still believe in them).

These parables won’t turn our children into serial killers, and nor will Blyton’s unreconstructed slant on the world adversely influence their characters. I spent ages five to 12 engrossed in Blyton’s novels, and am yet to be branded sexist, racist or classist.

Finally, & coming around to the imminent legend of the inglorious 12th. The only reason I make political mention of it was of Ann Widdecombe whom refuses to apologise for using the world 'golliwog' in a Brexit Party WhatsApp message (news today).

As far as I know….. The golliwog, golliwogg or golly is a fictional character created by Florence Kate Upton born in 1873 that appears in children's books in the late 19th century and usually depicted as a type of rag doll. Many people have attributed this much, much later as to ethnics “Working On Government” Services having given free over-alls with W.O.G. stencilled on.

I Only mention this to get away from all the “stuff” we have been told to believe now, and what has been changed & what is going to change.

Have a good 12th & result on Friday 13th (It´s only a myth of course).

Villas