Simple solutions in the 21st Century.
Those of us of a certain vintage remember walking to school. Everyone did it. Most of our parents didn’t own a car anyway. If they did own a car they certainly wouldn’t have taken it out of the garage and consumed precious petrol getting us to school. If we didn’t walk as far as the school, we certainly walked as far as the school bus stop.
Now that half the junior population resembles a misshapen rugby ball with feet, and Marks and Spencer’s have taken to supplying school uniforms with a 41” waist – 41” for God’s sake! – It has been decided that ‘walking to school’ is a good idea.
Since we are in the 21st century, that doesn’t just mean a simple command of ‘right, in future you walk to school, you fat little git’.
First you need a charity. Of course you need a Charity. You can’t do anything these days without a charity.
Step forward ‘Living Streets’ a Charity which exists for pedestrians. Really.
They put up a web site. Of course you need a web site. You can’t do anything these days without a website.
Step forward the ‘Walk to school web site’.
Our core campaigning work relies on the generous donations of individuals and grant-giving organisations who share our vision to create safe, attractive and enjoyable streets. Your regular donation, no matter how much, is incredibly valuable as it lets us plan future work and projects.
Then you need an MP to sponsor your efforts.
Step forward – Gisela Stuart.
Now you need to go global.
Pupils from across Birmingham will join thousands of children from across the UK and over 40 countries worldwide this October to celebrate the benefits of walking to school during International Walk to School Month 2010.
Now you can have lots of people employed and drawing on those ‘grants’ to devise catchy phrases like ‘Park and Stride’ – an innovative initiative whereby your parents still get out the 4 x 4 and drive you most of the way to school, but you walk the last few yards all by yourself…..
If you have any doubt about the validity of this new fangled walking habit, you can read up on its key national indicators – like helping your school to reach NI55, or NI56, there will be lots of forms to tick but you don’t mind that do you? You can probably have half a dozen staff meetings on the subject and a parent-teacher meeting thrown in.
How about if your objection is that no one has given you a grant to suggest this? That is covered as well; just ‘click here’ to see how ‘several local authorities across the country are funding this initiative despite the budget cuts’….
If you still need more help with this novel initiative, the charity has a dedicated consultancy team – ‘fees, fi, foe, fum, I smell more money’ – who will be happy to work with your local authority to advise on ‘sustainable travel’ – that’s ‘Shank’s pony’ for the benefit of older readers……
There are brochures and videos to show you how to do it, and training and conferences and everything……
- We have been providing schools and authorities with resources, ideas and themes for Walk to School Week in May for well over a decade. (and they still need trousers with a 41” waist?)
Or you could just roll back the past 50 years and do it the old fashioned way.
‘Right, in future you walk to school, you fat little git’…….
In God’s name, how did the country get in this state in just 13 years – were we all fast asleep? Does anybody do anything worthwhile any longer, or is the entire country engaged in some Charity or Quango or Initiative?
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1
September 23, 2010 at 15:16 -
50 years? I’m 30 and I used to walk to primary school, first with my grandparents then by 9 or 10 on my own. Isn’t really very long ago.
The answer is a big, fat, sweaty, out-of-breath 41″-waisted no. No-one does anything worthwhile any longer, at least no-one in any way related with the State.
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September 23, 2010 at 15:38 -
Oh, Anna.. you’re so out of touch: if children walk anywhere these days, their parents are liable to be threatened with child protection offences.
http://www.manchesterwired.co.uk/news.php/89845-Lincolnshire-family-warned-over-girls-bus-stop-walk
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September 23, 2010 at 15:53
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September 23, 2010 at 15:51 -
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September 23, 2010 at 16:24 -
This began more than 13 years ago, once everyone had a car, then families got two cars and ooh look the streets are unsafe for our kids…. mid 80s i think… And while you (and I) may see some charities/quangos/initiatives as unnecessary (though we probably wouldn’t agree on the same ones), there are definitely others that do good work.
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September 23, 2010 at 18:33 -
gladyolis,
You probably won’t believe me, but I still cherish the memory, and I swear to God it is true, of our local paper boy delivering the Sunday papers every week for pocket money – driven by his Mother in a bluddy Rolls Royce.
Our newsagent didn’t mind – he got far more orders for Sunday papers from people who just wanted to see for themselves whether it really was true.
I despair.
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September 23, 2010 at 16:59 -
Early 30s here… I was driven to and from primary school as was my brother. Come secondary school though I was on the bike. Sometimes alone, sometimes with friends. Younger brother was driven there in the morning but walked home at the end of the day.
Worst example I ever saw was someone being driven around was secondary school… the boy in question lived on the same road as the school, no more than quarter mile from the gates. After he passed his test he drove himself.
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September 23, 2010 at 17:54 -
I used to walk a mile to school and back alone by the age of six, and by seven I had to take my younger sister to the nursery school next door too. That was in the sixties.
I think that everything changed for our family in the early seventies, when the school my sister & I then went to had its first paedophile scare. No-one actually did anything to any pupil (or was even alleged to have done so), but hysteria took over some parents and their children, and many people were driven to school thereafter. -
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September 23, 2010 at 18:11 -
I sometimes think you may be making this all up, Anna. But you enter genuine links and I start thinking long time back in time, when I indeed would walk WHEREVER I was/we were going. Fifties, yes, and still grateful nowadays for anything and everything, which is not an outright problem
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September 23, 2010 at 19:06 -
Yes, we used to walk to school AND if we wanted to cycle to school we cycled on the roads ….. How novel is that. Here where I live children and adults alike cycle on the pavements with the result there is no place to walk these days – I live in a quiet area where on my 1 hour walk I am lucky if I see one car so why they need to cycle on the footpaths I don’t know.
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September 23, 2010 at 19:32 -
Why can’t there be school buses like in the US & Canada, here in Calgary kids walk to the bus stop and wait (temp -20), does not do them any harm.
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September 23, 2010 at 22:00 -
Who ever knew anything about school buses? I walked a mile to school when I was six. In the late 40s. My children walked a mile to school in the late 60s. Alone, I might add. And they walked home again. None of us are fat.
Around here they bike four miles to school, and nobody hollers for Social Services. But then Brittany always was a bit behind the times. Don’t hold your breath. Although they do still hold parents responsible if children misbehave.
And the local Priest has a quiet word if he thinks anything untoward is going on. -
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September 23, 2010 at 22:50 -
Maybe the little darlings should be started on a much smaller scheme first…how about walking the plank, along with the f…wits who staff these quano/charities. Though admittedly it would have to be a fairly substantial plank to accomodate 41 in trousered/skirted? behemoths!
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September 24, 2010 at 00:02 -
Calm down, 99% of kids are still normal size.
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September 24, 2010 at 09:29 -
I want to see the schools make the kids run around for 90 mins twice a week. We used to call it PE and getting out of it required help from several cunning demons. Now they barely have a PE session and they don’t make them run around and they can get out of it too easily. And M&S should be ashamed of themselves for pandering to useless parents. Having an overweight child should be classed as neglect or abuse. I’d better stop now before someone uses the N word at me.
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September 25, 2010 at 04:52 -
walk!I used to run everywhere in the fifties, walking was for girls like anna
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