Humpty Dumpty had a great fall... but don't worry, he'll be fine
The BBC has softened the ending to the nursery rhyme
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For generations, the cautionary tales of the grown-up world wrapped up in nursery rhymes have been a normal part of childhood. Children have somehow managed to cope with a world where mice are blind, blackbirds are baked in pies and old women live in shoes.
But the BBC has triggered amazement by changing the words of Humpty Dumpty on one of its children's programmes to give the accident-prone character a happy ending. A programme on the broadcaster's children's channel CBeebies featured a singalong feature in which, instead of being unable to "put Humpty together again", all the King's Horses "made Humpty happy again".
The new version of Humpty Dumpty was broadcast on Friday in the CBeebies programme Something Special, presented by Justin Fletcher. Something Special is aimed at children with special needs, although it is popular with all under-fives. The BBC insisted the nursery rhyme was not modified because of its target audience.
A BBC spokesman insisted yesterday that the original nursery rhyme had been changed for "creative" purposes. Humpty Dumpty featured in a number of "sketches", she added. The original nursery rhyme could be seen in full on the CBeebies website.
But the Labour MP and former minister Tom Harris, who watched the programme on Friday with his two sons, aged five and three, said it was "pathetic" that CBeebies felt the need to rewrite one of the most famous nursery rhymes in an apparent attempt not to upset children.
The MP for Glasgow South said yesterday: "For goodness sake. Obviously children will find it far too violent, distressing and horrific that Humpty should not be put together again."
Mr Harris claimed there was a trend of CBeebies giving its young viewers a more sanitised version of the world.
In a recent episode of the CBeebies cookery show Big Cook Little Cook, the tale of Little Miss Muffet ended with the girl befriending the spider, rather than running away in fright.
Mr Harris added: "This is what happens when adults try to make these kinds of judgements."
A BBC spokesman said yesterday: "We play nursery rhymes with their original lyrics all the time and the small change to Humpty Dumpty was done for no other reason than being creative and entertaining."
Earlier this month a survey by the reading charity Booktrust found that a fifth of parents do not read nursery rhymes at all to their children.
Happy ever afters: The IoS rewrites some childhood favourites
* Seesaw Margery Daw, Johnny shall have a new master. He shall earn the minimum wage, because the Labour government made it legally binding.
* Rock a bye baby on the tree top, when the wind blows, the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks, the cradle will be safe because the tree has undergone a health and safety assessment.
* Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to get her poor doggie a bone. When she got there, the cupboard was full because she just had a delivery from Ocado.
* London Bridge is undergoing planned engineering works. Please wait for further announcements.
* Three visually impaired mice, three visually impaired mice. See how they run, see how they run. They all ran after the farmer's wife, who handed them over to the RSPCA.
* Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep – but she knows how to find them because she has satnav.
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Comments
Sitting on a wall, falling off and hurting yourself isn't generally considered a good idea. Niether is running off into the woods on your own, or pestering girls a la Georgie Porgie.
Hardly on a par with 'whipping children, cutting off animals' tails, extreme pensioner poverty and inoperable head injuries were a thing of the past' (one of the most extreme misrepresentations of someone else's position I've seen in a long while! :)
Additionally, they also represent a part of English culture, along with the tales of Robin Hood, Dick Turpin and King Arthur, Dandelion and Burdock, Beowulf, Winnie the Pooh, Dickens, Purcell etc. Chopping them up and making them 'nice' because we're afraid of giving kids nightmares is not really cricket: if you'd rather give kids a sterile, sanitised upbringing where nobody ever gets hurt in stories then just make new stories and songs. I always used to like 'The Wheels on the Bus' when I was little.
We've also dropped the nasty bits of the Bible (nearly all the Old Testament and a big chunk of the New), and some of the nastier hymns ("the rich man in his castle/the poor man at his gate/God made them high or lowly/and ordered their estate/all things bright and beautiful..." "by the light of burning martyrs, Christ thy bleeding feet we track..."). Teach these things to 9 year olds in a history class by all means, but dont croon them to babes in arms.
Changing the subject, I'm curious here: is there any aspect of being English that you actually like?
See seem very quick to put the boot in.
I'd add though that I'd always seen 'English' as a subset of 'British' (and 'British' as a subset of 'European' and so on...). I tend to respond 'English' when asked my nationality, and am happy to tick the 'British' box on a form.
My view is that we've got a pretty rich and varied culture that often gets degraded or treated with a sort of contempt (probably due to over-familiarity rather than any conspiracy to wipe it out). I often feel we take it for granted and generally ignore it in favour of other stuff, or worse still take a perverse delight in rubbishing it to show how modern we are.
On reflection I suppose some of the content of nursery rhymes does seem rather alarming, but I do also worry that by giving children a 'happy drip-feed' we may be doing them a bit of a disservice. By the same token though I wouldn't want to drown them in grittily-realistic drama either. I feel a balance must be struck, and this time the BBC went a bit too far in the 'soft'n'cuddly' direction.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to lose any sleep over this; it was just one kids programme after all, and there's no evidence of a determined cultural whitewash coming along to sanitise everything that I've seen.
Apologies for the typos btw. Batteries running low on keyboard!
I suppose you'de be in favour of banning the works of Roald Dahl as well?
The theory that Humpty Dumpty was a cannon used in the siege of Colchester in 1648 during the English Civil War is often stated as fact.[3] However, the additional 'discovered' verse which reveals this meaning was actually written as a spoof for the Oxford Magazine in 1956 by Professor David Daube.[4] The story was originally attributed to Gloucester and has no substance in fact, despite its adoption by the tourist industry of Colchester. The additional verse is:
Never bothered me when I was little. I just didn't sit on high walls, because I knew that if I did I could get hurt.
It's sad: these rhymes are a part of our shared culture. Nobody would dare insist on other cultures changing their songs or rhymes so why Bowdlerise ours?
p. bloomberg
old man
glendale, ca
Shame on you - leave Mr Tumble alone.